What is our obligation as leaders? Do we have one? Does our obligation change when our leadership is applied to ourselves, to others, or to the larger world?
I don’t think so. I think the obligation is the same regardless of the recipient.
The obligation of leadership is courage. Courage in our own lives, courage in our dealings with others, courage in how we impact the world. Leadership is having the courage to honestly share your opinion, and sincerely listen to the opinions and responses of others–I touched on this last week. Leadership is having the courage to stand up and speak, but also have the courage to sit down and listen. Be as passionate and courageous as the moth I wrote of a couple blogs ago, courageous enough to be a part of the beauty that you see, or want to see, in the world. If the obligation of leadership, then, is courage, the byproduct of that courage is choice, and to respond consciously and deliberately. One who simply follows and never takes the lead in their own or the lives of others lets things happen to them; they don’t choose. And if they don’t chose, not only do they fail to influence the experiences that impact their life, they are unlikely to take responsibility for how they respond to those experiences. Leaders, on the other hand, make things happen. They put themselves in the path of the experiences they want to have and they take responsibility for the how they let the all the experiences of their life effect them. We can’t control everything, but we can control our response, and that takes the ultimate courage, the courage to lead yourself and take responsibility for your thoughts, roles and actions.
I asked last week if you had the courage to ask the question no one dared to ask. This week I ask: what are you willing to choose to make happen? How do you want your life, those you lead and the world around you to be different because you crossed their path? And what courage do you need in order to bring that truth to light? What choices need you make – today?
