The Roles of a Leader

The commitment to blog daily (weekdays) gets a little challenging when traveling (lol). I try to sleep and reset the body clock as fast as possible but it does not always work. For the next couple of weeks I will be in Indonesia training leaders for Giant Impact. Just over 2 days on the ground and it feels like we have been here for a week. We landed and spent the rest of Saturday in Jakarta and then Sunday afternoon and part of Monday in Bandung and then back to Jakarta. Beautiful places and great conversations with the partners of Imperium – watch for pics on facebook or twitpics…

My heart from last week (talking about team health), the 25+ hours of flying, and the conversations so far here is dwelling on the roles that we play as leaders. When talking about team health – there are many times that we are a team member (responsible for our own results) and then for the team we are coach, therapists, career counselor, strategist, visionary, motivator, teacher, mentor… and the list goes on. Balancing these roles can prove to be challenging and, at the same time, rewarding. At the base of it all, the foundation of our leadership is our character or integrity. I am convinced, now more than ever, that what our teams need is leaders that are inspirations to follow – leaders worthy of the people following.

On the trail to Nome and our ‘Burled Arch’, somewhere along the trail of 1100+ miles of our ‘adventure’ we are bound to meet ourselves. When that occurs, will we like what we find? We come face to face with who we are – not who we wish we were; who we ARE – not whom we tell others we are or our ‘front’.

The dogs don’t care much about pretense – they want to know that you are the real thing. The trail? It only allows those to pass after they have looked inside and come face to face with ‘the man (or woman) in the mirror’. Today, can we stop and look in the mirror? Can we own the desire and make the tough choices that qualify our leadership as integrous?

Closing my thoughts today with a few poignant Fuller-isms and some I’ve picked up along the way:

“The character of a person is not made during tough times, it’s revealed.”

“We are all like sponges – what is truly in us when we are squeezed WILL come out.”

“Respect is earned on difficult ground” (John C Maxwell)

“Character is easier kept than reclaimed”

And from a movie on the plane ride to Indonesia: “Sometimes a man can meet his own Destiny on a road he took to avoid it.”