Tag: collaboration

Rise up a genuine leader

Rise up a genuine leader
Who is driven by moral character and integrity
Who commits to truth and responsibility
Who models personal discipline and accountability
Who earns respect by giving it
Who is humble in self-imperfections and gracious in others’
Who nurtures trust and collaboration

Rise up a genuine leader
Who is we-oriented, not me-oriented
Who articulates vision with clarity and infuses pride in purpose
Who disables barriers to people development
Who confronts social ills with positive solutions
Who seeks understanding and resolutions in contentions
Who fosters creativity and inspires hope

Rise up a genuine leader
Who can undo chaos and create order
Who is composed instead of clamorous
Who promotes diversity of viewpoints in unity of purpose
Who invests in people and worthy dreams
Who is transparent, trustworthy, and teachable
Who upholds faith in a better future and spurs actions toward it

Rise up a genuine leader
Who values people and ideas over profit
Who knows virtue sustains character, but its absence destroys it
Who is considerate instead of caustic
Who brings competence with candor
Who discerns realities with compassion and directs resolutions with care
Who influences people to mutually elevate lives, institutions, and ideals.

Rise up a genuine leader
Who is attentive to needs of the people and builds their spirit
Who overcomes personal ego, arrogance, and unethical behavior
Who rejects conflict mongering
Who is consistent and persistent in value-added contributions
Who equips and empowers other leaders
Who builds an enduring legacy of transformational results

That’s a wrap!

Perhaps in anticipation of my impending retirement and “wrapping up” my career at the end of this month, my staff beat me to my office this April Fool’s morning!

More than 40 individual items had been covered with wrapping paper – including my computer monitors, keyboard, mouse, telephone, water bottle, stapler, tissue box, an entire bookcase, the clock on the wall – even a single pen and a random flashdrive among them!

What I will probably miss most on retirement is the hearty camaraderie we enjoy in working hard together. Not only are my coworkers highly skilled, generously collaborative, and terribly efficient, they’ve got a great sense of humor, and I love ‘em!

How to achieve more than you are able

Talent goes only so far

Standardized testing while I was in primary school reported to my teacher and my parents that I measured higher in “Achievement” than in “Ability.” I don’t know how they reached that conclusion, because by third grade, I really hadn’t done anything yet. But I do remember that this caused some consternation, because that was the reverse of what was considered normal. How could someone achieve more than they were able?

It seemed unthinkable.

Now, nearing the end of my career, I can say, yes, I’ve achieved some things—but it certainly isn’t because of great Ability.

I think, instead, the impetus behind Achievement is a synergistic process involving Attitude, Vision, Initiative, and Collaboration.

ATTITUDE controls action—specifically and primarily my own behavior. With the properly cultivated attitude, I determine what I choose to believe about myself, about my circumstances, about my possibilities, about my potential, and about my future.

VISION sees things that do not yet exist; akin to faith. It comprehends the end of a journey before the travelers arrive. It allows ideas—some little, some audacious, some preposterous—to root, grow, and develop into a preferred future. It believes dreams can come true.

INITIATIVE is what navigates ATTITUDE through all of life’s circumstances toward VISION. It is not permanently stymied, nor long stifled. It posits what-ifs, it explores things unknown, it aligns resources with opportunities.

COLLABORATION engages like-minded others to contribute diverse capabilities and insights, and produce a collective strength that no one can on their own—which is how any one person’s Ability is superseded to produce a higher level of achievement.

Together, an undefeatable attitude, a possibility-seeking vision, an unflagging initiative, and collaboration with similar mindsets creates a dynamic catalyst for achievements beyond anyone’s actual ability. 

So after a half-century of first-person application and research, I can confidently declare that Ability is not a direct determinant of success, contrary to the early 1960s educational theorists.

And while you can be justifiably proud of your accomplishments, recognize that greater results can nearly always be co-produced with collaboratively-minded others.

And collectively produce far beyond that of any one’s ability.

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