There are all kinds of leaders in the world. I say this in the sense that there are many different giftings that define different approaches to leadership – but leadership at its core remains the same.

As a reminder leadership is the art/ability/process by which individuals inspire others to pull in the same direction – that direction being the goal(s) set by the leader.

There is a lot of wiggle room in that definition that we do not need to go into now. Suffice to say leaders bring resources, human and otherwise, to bear on goals.

Now there is a myth that to maintain an organization is a good thing. It is the “nobody moves and nobody gets hurt style of leadership that sees people batten down the hatches and act simply to keep the ship reasonably level and afloat until port.

This is an easy myth to maintain because the masses are often deluded into thinking everything is running smoothly as long as everything is quiet – it is based on the other dangerous myth – no news is good news.

The reality of course is that organizations do not exist on a level plane but rather somewhere along a slope. Maintaining inveitably means going backwards and losing progress. To simply maintain, as a leader, is a bad thing.

A leader has goals to achieve and maintaing the status quo is not a goal – it is an anti-goal.

Such leaders hope things continue smoothly and that, should there be a catastrophe of some sort, they will be prepared for it as they have ensure well written emergency preparedness plans are in place and the policies are all in order.

To simply putter about in stasis waiting on a potential catastrophe is not leadership – it is pathetic and damaging to the organization. Entropy awaits such organizations.

Leadership is active. Leadership is momentum. Leadership moves forward.

Whether you lead a large organization or you lead a team of two take the reigns firmly and move forward or get out of the way and let someone else take over.

I am a confident person.

It is not a mantra and it is not the statement of a person seeking to compensate for a deep-seated inner lack of confidence. It is a simple place I have arrived at after a great deal of work over the years.

It has been a journey. I was not born in confidence or circumstances that engender confidence. In many ways it has been a journey of over-coming that has led me to a place of self-satisfaction (not smug) and confidence.

Lately however, for many reasons, that sense of confidence threatens to be corroded. I feel small cracks forming in the mortor between my bricks, threatening the foundation of who I am.

Part of it comes from frustration. That sense of things that you know you can help with but are incapable of reaching because of an ever widening sea that stretches between you and the problems.

Another is an insidious feeling that things are being assumed about me and my abilities simply because I am older. Ugh. I hate the word. I am 51. My inner life, my thoughts and passions, do not feel any older than they did when I was 12, 20, 30 etc. save for increased knowledge and some small amount of wisdom and experience.

Still as a man who has spent his life as a communicator and marketer I know when the packaging is having a detrimental effect on the product. I can feel it in my bones.

I’m also a person of conviction. I speak out when I feel injustice or inequality. I voice my opinions. I work hard to ensure that my public face is the same as my private face.

I can be a loud mouth.

It’s the packaging or the personality. Maybe both. Likely both.

All of these things are conspiring against my being taken seriously lately. I do not feel old but I feel like others feel like I am becoming old. Does that make sense? It is incredibly frustrating to feel as if you are losing control of your own brand, as it were.

Obviously this is unacceptable. At least by me. I will always fight these things. I will fight the rust of a sedated life that is pushed aside. I will fight the pressure to be defined by a box. I will fight age. I will fight death. I will fight it all as best I can. It is all I know.

Still…this weathering has me feeling the penumbra of depression that seeks to slide across my mind like a dark eclipse blotting out the bright, good things. I can feel it and it makes me restless and uneasy.

I retreat into busyness without depth to avoid it. I hide in senselessness and numbness from a self-inflicted anaesthetic to protect myself. Not a great place.

Ultimately it is a need to be known, to be valued, that is likely at the root of these things. We will see where it all leads.

Contrary to popular opinion I do not think power corrupts. Rather, I think power shows you the true nature of most people, most leaders.

Power allows leaders the opportunity to exercise their inmost mores and ethos with little to no constraint. The more power, the more of the real person you see in a leader.

This is a frightening way to look at power but perhaps a more honest way. Leaders, like all people, have contraints placed upon them and these constraints are myriad – the public eye, the board of directors, fellow employees, partners, policies and procedures, market dynamics. the legal system, culture, etc.

All of these things serve to restrain leaders (and others) to operate within a certain, dependable framework.

The more power one builds however the more flexible these systems, walls and constraints become. This is fine for a leader such as Mahatma Ganghi or Martin Luther King Jr. They tend to use their power toward what we would define broadly as “the greater good” although even King had relational boundary issues that became evident with the authority that arose.

Put that power into the hands of a young artist named Adolph Hitler or a young  communist idealist named Josef Stalin and millions upon millions die.

Power does not corrupt – power unleashes what is within.

A wise leader recognizes their inner darkness and seeks boundaries in the form of close advisors and structures or policies that constrain them in certain ways leading to greater accountability.

As I have written before such constraints or boundaries do not limit but rather they unleash a creative spirit that would not otherwise rise up in an unfettered environment.

There is a temptation when taking over an organization for leaders to attack the biggest, most formiddable problems immediately facing them.

One of the problems with this approach, however practical it may seem, is that an inordinate amount of time and resources can be poured into such initiatives preventing a leader from having time to get the lay of the land and strategize an appropriate response.

Enormous problems should not be reactively, instinctively responded to. They need to be well understood before efforts are made to tackle them. More often then not when a leader becomes focused on the one or two huge issues before them  a hundred small, easy to deal with annoyances are ignored and allowed to fester and corrode.

After a great deal of time the large problem may be dealt with but the leader becomes overwhelmed when she/he turns around only to see countless other enormous issues that started out small but grew in silence, unobserved and ignored.

NEVER ignore the little things, if you do, you do so at your’s and your organization’s peril.

Clear away the tangled brush of these small, easy to manage issues while they are still easy to manage BEFORE you take a chainsaw to the huge rotting tree they surround.

Or, if you want another analogy, gather the low-hanging fruit before you grab the 10 meter ladder and try for the fruit at the top of the tree. Trust me – you and your organization will be better for it.

there is father
carved into the wall,
etched into the stone,
a too silent witness
to children of blood & ash
collected here
in cycnicism and hope
that the waters will part,
the way will become clear
and weepings past
transforms to joy.

An idea without resources is called a dream.

the words were hostages
buried within
an inescapable prison,
digging their way to freedom
year after year after year
until the seal broke,
the walls collapsed,
and they came tumbling out
one
after
th next,
all
on top
of
each other.

A King (or Queen) has ascended to the throne only to find the affairs of the kingdom neglected and the court in utter chaos.

When asked why, no one could say for sure what happened or how it happened. The Lords pointed fingers at the previous ruler and advisors who had moved on etc. but ultimately the circumstance remained bleak.

What’s a wise King to do?

As is often the case the King leaned over to his Fool and asked for his take.

“My Lord,” he says. “You are wiser than I but have heard tell a story that may help.

Once there was a King who commissioned a new Navy. Leaders were chosen to head up work teams and find the best shipwrights in the land and the finest materials. On the day of launch all 100 new vessels were commissioned and pressed into service under great pomp and ceremony. Within 100 yards of the docks each ship, to a one, sank into the sea.

Well of course this was a huge embarassment as you can imagine and the furious King had his advisors brought in to be questioned. All of them, to a one, had wondrous and profound reasons for why the ships sank. The materials were blamed. The purchasers were incompetant. The shipwrights were lazy…on and on it went until it was clear no satisfactory answer was ever to be found.”

“What did this King do?” the King inquired of the Fool.

“I know not my Lord, but I can say this – it would have been madness for a King to do the same thing again, with the same people, and expect different results.”

The King pondered this for a while before calling his advisors in and relieving them all, to a one, of their duties.

Afterward when the throne room was empty the King leaned toward his Fool and said simply – “find me advisors who know nothing of the past and only look forward.”

“Indeed,” the Fool said, “my Lord is most wise” and with these words he left.

 

i wonder
do you know
the things that people wonder now?
do you feel
the things that people feel now?
or
should these things have been wondered before?
should these things have been felt…before?

is it dark?