Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Learning to Lead

I like following. It's simple. Follow another, do your part, together we are stronger. However, there comes a time when suddenly the leading cannot be "delegated" to someone else. Suddenly, I am the leader. I like leading, yet it comes with the inevitable second guessing by those following and the reality that if we screw up it is because I screwed up. 

Leading is a delicate balance, at least in today's world. No one can blindly make decisions that sacrifice or marginalize his or her followers. Yet at the same time, someone has to take the first step. Someone has to accept the risk of being wrong. 

I've led in the mountains for a long time, over a decade, and it has gone very well. I've led in the running community. Now it is time to lead in less physically stressful environments, where the difference between success and failure is a much more blurry line. On a mountain, success is living, great success is a summit. In the normal world success is a stronger relationship or more efficient use of time or some other immeasurable goal. Honestly, it scares me because it is new. It's a new situation. No one says, "Isaiah, you will lead us on this." Instead leadership is amorphously earned, if those two words can fit together. We are all the same, we are all human, but to those more is given, more is asked. 

I bring this up because I am in the middle of two situations I need to lead. No one has said it, but if I give that little extra effort, the experience will be better. 

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