From My Heart

I sit at my computer tonight with a pensive heart. It isn't just Haiti, although that gives it a focus.
I will freely admit to being a romantic. I love great stories and heroes. I love happy endings and noble causes and stories about people who displayed more integrity and courage than I have.
I'm not seeking solace or absolution, just thinking out loud.

We have an interesting set of choices before us. In many cases we are angry and disillusioned. We feel let down . Our economic security is at stake. People we trusted let us down. Where do we go?

I believe in people. I have been castigated about my focus on engagement and the power or relationships, but honestly I have have yet to see a more powerful force than a group of committed people in support of a common cause.

I have been and aspire again to be a "leader". Leadership is a a trust between those who "lead" and those who "follow".

For many years our philosophy was "Think Global, act local". Perhaps it is time for us to both think and act locally. Washington and "world leaders" can offer insight, but perhaps we need to embrace more solutions one person, one family, one community at a time?

From my heart. What do you think?

Leadership is different!

I have been seeing and responding to a number of posts on LinkedIn and other places all talking about the difference between leadership and management. I have seen things going all the way from describing the differences in great detail to saying they are the same- it is just a matter of semantics. I even saw a post recently sating do companies with a clear vision need leaders- or will good management that can implement the vision suffice.

I would argue passionately that they are different. I am not saying that one is better than the other, but we need them both.

Leadership is all about creating new paradigms or a paradigm shift- seeing a "disturbance in the force" and responding to it and helping others respond as well.

I saw an interesting editorial the other day about gun control and the right of each of us to "bear arms". The writer pointed out appropriately that at the time the Bill of Rights was written "arms" consisted of muskets. Kind of hard to conceal one under your coat or blast a bunch of people like you can with today's weaponry. That's a paradigm shift.

A little over 100 years ago we decided it wasn't ok to own other people. In 1964 for really the first time under law it became illegal to discriminate against someone because of their gender, their race, their color, their religion, or their national origin. Those were paradigms shifts. Those paradigm shifts came from leaders, not managers!