Thought for the Day: Leadership is a Journey not a Destination

"Leadership is a journey not a destination. It is a marathon, not a sprint. It is a process, not an outcome." -- John Donahoe

I was reviewing some of my notes today and came across my scribblings from a presentation by a colleague, Jimmy Goddard, on the qualities of good leadership ("Know Your Leadership Compass - a Roadmap to Lead with Passion and Purpose"). This overlaps with a philosopher I admire, Alan Watts, who premised that physical universe is basically playful, and its not going anywhere or have a destination. Consequently, life has no destination and is more like a dance than a marathon or a 'race'. The point of dancing is not to get anywhere, but to enjoy the experience. So in life you should be passionate about what you are doing, and not where you need to get to. Finding what lights you up from moment to moment, rather than the pursuit of something that you may never get, or worse, once you get it or get there, you realize that it actually wasn't what you really wanted.

I have always struggled with finding my passion. It's hard to do in a society that programs you throughout life to have targets and deliverables, not just within your job, but also your personal life. You need to find an income to afford all the consumer goods that you are told you need, and then need to look accomplished and maintain appearances with your peers (“Keeping up with the Jones”). Next you find your partner, or true love, find a home and settle down to a family life. Then you need to protect and provide for your family and your kids. And in this whirlwind of life, you forget about you, and what makes your heart sing. So once you are "empty nesters", retired or perhaps single again, you wonder what the “human race” was all for.

But finding and understanding my passion is a basic premise or foundation to good leadership. In order to lead, you need to have the passion that will give you the courage, knowledge and authenticity to take action, and be bold in the face of fear or insurmountable challenges or depression and checking out. Who you are being is who you attract into and within your circle of influence. This requires self awareness and self-examination. Also good qualities of a leader. The ability to know your limitations, and to be in inquiry of the impact of your actions on those around you, is important in maintaining trust and building authentic relationship and authentic leadership.

So, I am left with the question, “Who am I?” This is the basis of awareness. And many times the basis of resignation, cynicism and doubt. Why bother? Silly little me. An inconsequential speck on the back of an ant in an ant colony, in a colony of colonies. But in that smallness, is huge possibility. In the bigness of someone like God there is no possibility as everyone, I mean EVERYONE, has an expectation (or concept) of God. Good Lord, there is a leadership position where you simply cannot please everyone all of the time. And consequentially you will always fail to deliver. So as little old me, I have the potential to be, or do anything. I do have to cast off what little constraints I have from the expectations of people around me. And I don’t mean to cast out people from our lives, but to cast out their opinions about what I can be or do. They simply do not mean anything to you, just to the people that hold those opinions. It is possible that they may not be able to handle a “you” that does not conform to their opinion. But that is their issue to deal with, not yours. And you can always hold a space for them to eventually come around to your new reality. Hopefully they will find their own self-realization to do that, or when they do that.

So we have a realization that we are small, but in our smallness is huge potential and bigness. And all that is important is that we realize this, both in the sense that we get this, and in the sense that it is ours to create and no one else’s. In that sense, this is our inner truth. And it is ours alone. In fact, I do not think that this is something to share with others (save those that really get us, and also get that there is no judgement for them to have, as it is completely irrelevant). From our truth, we can create anything that we wish. Those creations can be shared. In fact that is the whole point for what we create from our truth.

So. This is all well and good. But I am still have to find my truth. I believe this involves a way or practice to search within. Some sort of meditative process, through a form of ritual and ceremony, that will allow me to “feel” and explore back to a time before I took on all the societal, cultural and family unit programming of my culture and race. I may need to explore this more, and try out some ideas. The other way might be to look at the times that I was lit up (connected to my truth and expressing myself authentically). And then look for common threads, feelings or emotions, and what I was expressing to map it back to my truth.