A Link to Pursue

In my email this morning I came across a link to an article, This One Leadership Quality Will Make or Break You, by Mike Myatt. In our goal to make leadership more inclusive (for me that means simplifying) I was thrilled to see a silver bullet show up without any work on my part. I have to admit, I was instantly skeptical when I found the article was hosted on Forbes.com (because of this article I came across last week. This response is a worthwhile read to provide two perspectives on the issue of simply working harder as a black kid) and because I generally tend to dismiss concepts of leadership from the corporate side as jargony-feel-good-rewordings of work that's already been done... sort of like student affairs I guess. 

Anyways, I was thoroughly surprised to find out how much I enjoyed reading Myatt's piece. Basically, he is writing about not accepting the status quo, working to see what others are not seeing, and keeping your long-term objectives in your back pocket. He encompasses these ideas in the word "pursuit" - I like the phrase "stay hungry", which has recently been re-popularized by Steve Jobs' passing as a part of his Stanford commencement address. Or, maybe the concept has to do with "Abiding", as in, The Dude Abides. Okay, maybe not, but there are probably some leadership lessons the Dude can teach us somewhere. I'll find them later and share with the world.

After finishing Myatt's read, I went on to learn a little bit more about this leadership blogger, since he and I are sort of playing the same game and I liked the way that he played (it's a game called use the internet to ramble about leadership). After reading some more of his posts - some of which are more of a conservative rant with leadership as an afterthought, others more intentionally directed toward leadership - I found myself agreeing with some of his thoughts and disagreeing with others. And this brings me to my point of this post - leadership requires different perspectives. It's a part of staying hungry, pursuing, or abiding. So much so, that it might be sub point B underneath saying "I Will". Failing to innovate, push new limits, simply staying with the status quo, or doing what is easy isn't leadership. So whether or not you work in a corporation, government, higher education or do anything even remotely related to leadership - look elsewhere for inspiration, ideas, innovation. If you're in the corporate world, look to higher education writing about leadership (we're the ones developing your future employees. If you're in higher education, don't just stop with Komives as the end-all prophet of leadership, figure out how to apply corporate concepts to the work you do (without worrying you will turn higher ed into a corporation). 

To close, I think that the students we work with on a day to day basis will learn how to stay hungry, pursue or abide (I really don't think abide fits here, I'm just forcing the issue) unless we role model it for them. They will see us working to improve our communities and organizations, innovating newer, better processes, figuring out new ways to develop talents and through this we will instill the hunger to burn in them. 

Have a great holiday season!