Pushing Them (and Pulling Them)

I had the chance to facilitate with a dear colleague today, who provided an insight that gave me further clarity into the poem I referenced a few days ago. 

From my initial vantage point, I saw only the perspective of “pushing” others–challenging them to greater heights, better things, previously unexperienced outcomes.  This is my natural bent as a leader, but it is/was myopic.

My friend’s observations about pushing and pulling as leaders made me think about how we have to attract people to begin with, gain their trust and permission to lead before we can begin to push.

In the poem, the speaker (leader) calls twice for them to come to the edge.  He invites them, entices them, inspires them perhaps, but somehow he gains their following.  It is only after this pulling that he pushes, and they fly.

A concept we would do well to remember so as to avoid pushing those whose allegiance to us, trust in us, has not yet been confirmed.

Pushing Them

Come to the edge, He said.
They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, He said.
They came.  He pushed them,

And they flew…

-Guillaume Apollinaire

A beautiful poem, and a lovely leadership lesson also: knowing how and when to push is nearly as important as anything else to leading well. 

For how else can we be responsible for others’ flight?

Furthering a Leader’s Sight

We all see the need to peer into the future as leaders.  What I have come to realize of late, though, is that our ability to do so can be accelerated.

I’ve stated, half lamented, in the past that I can see so far into the future of my family, but my horizon in other aspects of my leadership is limited in comparison.

Having thought about this at length, it occurs to me that the major reason for my ability to project my family into the future is because of the non-negotiable values I have that translate into goals for our future. 

Given this formula for success, I thought about whether or not there are other areas of my life in which I have been able to do this.  Certainly in my former career as a college soccer coach, I had goals for the destiny of the program, and, more importantly, the people in it.  I had a 5-7 year horizon in that role, mostly because I was able to project based on the reason for my involvement, and where I could have the most impact.  I was, without doubt, not the best technical coach in the country.  However, that was not the value that drove my leadership.  Developing people was.

We won a lot of games because we developed people who were capable of winning games.  In the process, we developed men who could lead their own lives, their families, and their communities.  That was always the goal. 

One of the things about which I am proudest in my life is that so many of these men who came from our program are doing the very things we talked about valuing. 

I always knew they would.  After all, I’d already seen it based on the values that unlocked my ability to see far enough into the future to be certain.

And the more I can see the world through the lenses of values that make things clearer to me, the further I will be able to see, the more change I will be able to affect, the better I will lead.

Leading Authentically

Among my online haunts is Seth Godin’s blog, which has a lot of quality ideas about many interesting topics.  Today, his post about how to make a blog more popular made me think about leading authentically.  In it, he says, “one difference between creating something you believe in and creating something that’s popular is that popularity seekers follow established steps.  Do this, do that, do the other thing…  The problem with this, that and the other thing is that you end up with a career filled with it.  Instead of creating long-lasting art, ideas that matter and things that spread organically, you end up with a bunch of calculated mini-hits.”

When was the last time you looked at the leadership section in your local bookstore? 

Huge, wasn’t it?

Now, many of those books contain excellent ideas worth practicing. 

The problem is that all of them don’t fit all of us.

Seriously now–what would become of my leadership if I tried to be more like Joe Torre, Robert E. Lee and Jack Welch?  All at the same time?  Or how about one at a time?

Who would I be?

It’s likely my followers wouldn’t know.

I need to know who I am, and then incorporate things I learn about leadership that are congruent with that.  If not, I run the risk of creating “events,” (or worse, masks) and never truly capturing anyone’s heart or allegiance.

And that is a risk I cannot live with.

Leaders Create Community

I had an opportunity this week to address a group of educators on leadership.

One of the things I said to them was, “A school is the hub of a community, and a community is the hub of the world.”

I am not in the habit of christening my own comments as profound, but I realized as soon as I’d uttered it that it resonated through the room.  I hadn’t planned the comment in advance, which perhaps added to the effect.

It started me thinking about the goals and outcomes of leadership.  Though I often talk about my own family, and leading within the familial context, this, while tremendously important, cannot be the limit of my leadership if I am truly a leader.  I must apply principles I learn in the leading of my family to other contexts: micro to macro.

Given that followers need trust, relationship, hope–surely these are the ingredients of community.

The core questions, then, become, “How do I lead in such a way as to bring these about, and how can I be certain they have transpired?”

This is “The Hope of ‘What If?’”–to imagine that it is possible to extend the concept of family to the entire world–daring to wonder how community, and therefore outcomes like peace, justice and subsistence might be achieved, and then leading toward them with intent, confident that they are, in fact, possible.

And this is why the family is so important, for if I cannot lead to achieve peace, justice and subsistence (among others) there, what business do I have in assuming I might lead others to them elsewhere?

The Better I Know Others…

…the easier it is to lead.

This happened tonight at my house.  I apologized to my wife for something that didn’t have anything to do with her (see previous post for details on what happened).

Why?

Because I knew it would affect her.

As a leader, I have to discern and interpret the entire situation, for all the stakeholders, not just the ones who are readily apparent.

If I fail to do that, I might only be leading half of my people half way, but in accomplishing this, I ensure that everyone arrives, and arrives together.

“I’m Sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

A good friend and sometimes mentor of mine told me once that the first lesson we must learn as leaders is how to say we’re sorry.

This is an ever so simple concept to understand, and an ever so difficult one to master, much less practice.

Tonight after I put my kids to bed, I returned to their rooms after a few minutes to apologize to them.

It was difficult.  They’d been quite disobedient and disrespectful for most of the previous hour.  My apology did not change that, nor did it let them off the hook for their behavior.  As a matter of fact, I didn’t really even want to apologize to them yet because I wasn’t quite over the way they had behaved. 

However, the way I responded to that behavior in the moment was intimidating–maybe even scary.  I did not yell or raise a hand to them, but I know what I look like when I am upset because I have been told, and have seen for myself (sure it sounds silly, but have you ever stood in front of a mirror to make the faces and gestures you make at others?  It is a telling experience.)  I know that when I am upset I talk and move more quickly also.  And I need to be aware of how that affects people, especially people who are 6 or 7 years old. 

So I apologized to my children, told them that I did not mean to be harsh with them or scare them in any way, and that I am on their side.  My son’s reassurance was immediate, “I know, you are my dad,” he smiled.  My daughter did not speak, but her arms around my neck a few moments later gave me all the assurance I needed.

The Better I Know Myself…

…the more equipped I am to lead.

But that can get ugly sometimes.

A story I tell often when I lead workshops and seminars recounts an episode of gaining self-awareness that I will not likely forget.  Some time ago, my wife and I were having a conversation about how we communicate and talking about what we do well and what had changed over time in our marriage when she said something that took me completely by surprise: “When we have a conflict or disagreement, you sometimes intimidate me.”

“WHAT?!”

I was flabbergasted.  We’d been married for 7 or 8 years at that point.  My first thought was, “How could I not know something like that?” and my second was, “Great, I’ve been intimidating my wife every time we have a disagreement for all this time and have lacked the sensitivity to realize it until told.  I’m doing something really wrong here.”

I apologized, and suggested that we have some kind of mechanism by which she could “call time out” if that ever happened again.  “I would never intimidate you on purpose,” I said.  ”I would readily admit to intimidating someone else on purpose; in fact, I’d certainly intimidate someone else on your behalf, but I would never knowingly do that to you.”

“I know,” she said, “the fact that you are that way on my behalf is something I really appreciate about you, and I know you aren’t that way with me on purpose, so I just remind myself of that…”

You see, it is certainly part of who I am that I can be intimidating or terse, whether I intend to be or not.  Sometimes that results in something very positive, and sometimes, unfortunately, it does not.

So it is not best applied by letting other people make of it what they will–especially because some of the people about whom I care most and desire most to lead cannot so easily discern my intent. 

Imagine being 6 or 7 years old and having a “direct” dad–it’d be hard to make sense of that from time to time, wouldn’t it?  And you might be scared or confused, but not have good words to express that.

No, I simply cannot afford simply to “be myself” and let things happen as they will.  I must know myself well enough to manage who I am in order to lead well.  Moreover, I need to know those I lead in order to discern the path that enables who I am and how I lead to bring about the greatest good for everyone involved.

Identity is Destiny Pt. 2

While these are nice thoughts, they do not become my identity, my destiny, without action.

Even my thoughts, though powerful, do not become my identity; only my actions shape my identity, and alter my destiny with that of those around me.

I have dreamed of having a wife and children ever since I was a child, but they know they are my dream come true only because I tell them and show them in a way that gives us all certainty.

In this way, I shape my own identity through action–through action, I become more of all the things I long to be.  Each time I act, my destiny–the vision I have had for myself and my family ever since I was a little boy–becomes more certain. 

And with greater certainty, I shape their identities also, as they grow in the knowledge that they are special, loved, and wanted.  With each intentional moment, I make them more capable of perpetuating that which is best in my leadership.  With each intentional moment, I make them more capable of finding aspects of their identities that will make them better leaders than I was.

Identity.  Destiny.  Certainty.

Identity is Destiny Pt. 1

“Identity is Destiny” is one of my favorite sayings. I like it more as I grow older and realize with ever-increasing intensity how much I control, and can not control. I have come to understand that the more comfortable I become in that tension, the more meaningful my life becomes. By extension, the more meaningful my life becomes, the more influence I can exert on others.

I’ve been reflecting on Father’s Day for a few weeks now. I used to hate Father’s Day. For years, I went out of my way to spend it by myself, reeling from the pain of fatherlessness for as far back as I could remember.

Now, though, I have established my own family, and Father’s Day is perhaps my favorite day of the year.

As I examine it, I realize more and more fully that this transformation has everything to do with embracing my identity to shape my destiny, and that of my family, with intent and confidence. Though it is ever difficult, I am first–a fatherless son learning to father. I am failing, and succeeding. Ultimately, I am first, but the many who follow will find it far different work because of me.

As I tried to capture that thought, and the notion of somehow growing up husband and dad, not just son and brother, being ultra-responsible and more mature than my years in every arena I’ve ever entered, it came out as a poem I’ve titled “That Man.” The essence of it for me is embracing identity, some of which we create, and some of which we accept.

That Man

I have always been that man
In ways I did not understand
In ways I did not plan
And though I did not intend
I have always been that man

I am that man
In ways I understand
In ways I plan
And I intend
I am that man

I will always be that man
In ways they will understand
In ways they will plan
And they will intend
I will always be that man

While these are nice thoughts, they do not become my identity, my destiny, without…