Leadership by "Me"

I was at my first Information Technology Conference recently and there was a great keynote speaker Dr. Jackie Freiberg who had some cool spin on Leadership.

I took a picture with my phone of one of the slides that was shown which provoked a lot of thought. Her burning platform is that we "choose" to be leaders, vs. waiting to be assigned that role.

The idea that we are essentiually "designed" to choose is so powerful. I love this notion and I think it goes beyond the work roles we lead within the 4 walls of a work cubicle (...ok mine only has 3...but who is counting?) but has implications and applications in all our roles of life: Husband, Mother, Brother, Teacher, Son, Father, Individual Contributor.....and yes...even those of Twitterer, Texter and Social Networker Extraordinaire.....

If my DNA is designed to be free to choose......then for sure I am completely and ultimately "Defined" by my choices. I am built to stand up and choose.....It is up to me. Although this isn't a new principle, I responded to the strength and emotionality of the "slogan". Sometimes in the work place we "wait" to be "acted upon" instead of "acting". We seem to always want someone to tell us what to do. We want all the expectations and rules to be explained to us....Often they are elusive and not clear...So what do we do in those situations...Blame our boss?, point at the lack of organizational maturity? Sit back and mire ourselves in non helpful rhetoric?? Yes..often we all do this.. We hide behind the excuse that the mission isn't clear, the objectives unknown and the vision blurry. Leaders set the vision, even if that means on our own without any supervision at all. We can choose to define our path, make sense where there is none and march forward. We just have to want to...

I admire people who do this..Not just "mavericks" that throw caution to the wind, but rather Innovative thinkers that decide to reach out beyond their "cubicle" thinking and build bridges between departments and people that wouldn't normally have anything to do with each other. They become "catalysts" or "enzymes" for change. They find ways to replace"Yeah, but!" with "Why Not?" They transform sideways like wildfire....they don't wait for the "top down" approach and the out of reach promise of "alignment".

Someone wise early in my career said "Aaron, rather than worrying about roles and positions, just "find a need and fill it".... I have integrated this as my slogan for my career. It has helped guide me immensely to create new opportunities vs. waiting for them to "magically " appear. I have found that by caring less about position, title and level, and more about needs, delivering value and building relationships that I have had so many doors open to me that have enriched my life, introduced me to new people and ironically enough.....money has never been an issue as a result....it always just followed nicely behind that mantra.