Tuesday, August 01, 2023

Your Leadership Portfolio

Develop a collection of leadership stories that have meaning to you. Keep your eyes open to leadership around you - family, teachers, coaches, and friends. Look for chances to lead. And learn what others consider leadership exemplars. 


Note how Churchill uses the rhetorical technique of anaphora in his call to arms to defend Britain and ultimately Western civilization. 

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin abbreviates her master works on the Roosevelts, Lincoln, and Lyndon Johnson in Leadership in Turbulent Times. Each of us benefits from knowing how former presidents led through crisis. 

UNC soccer coach Anson Dorrance has his team read a lengthy book, The Leadership Moment, exploring leadership stories. I'm partial to the story of Arlene Blum leading an all-women's ascent on Annapurna, one of fourteen Himalayan peaks over 8,000 meters. That story shows how bold women accept the glory and consequences of extreme risk. 

Examine the leadership process in your family. Your family is your first and most important team. 

Consider how local politics intersects with the school system. Read great books like Yuval Harari's Sapiens, which explains how policy in human history emerges from economics, politics, and religion.

Study how authors describe who leaders are and how they operate. There's no 'unitary' approach to leadership, so learn as you go. Know the diversity of leaders, young (Malala or Greta Thunberg) or old (Gandhi), women (Taylor Swift) or men (your coaches) with a range of values, styles, and experience. 

Consider keeping a 'leadership notebook' to refine your leadership skills. 

Lagniappe. Be intentional. "Break the ball" in practice.
 

 

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