Picking and Assembling

Picking tends to start with sight - your vision, which is sometimes your ability to see in something or someone what they don’t see in themselves.

I was recently at a peach farm picking some peaches - some looked ready and others felt ready, some picked over, and others picked up. I guess I looked like I was contemplating, because shortly after I heard a voice say “Try those over there”. She pointed to a tree, while taking a bite out of a peach that she clearly didn’t pay for; but she was in her glee - with a bag full of peaches and now with the confidence that she was a GOOD PICKER.

She knew how to choose the ‘right’ one, and she wanted us to know. “Right there, by that family; those are very red and ready”. Ready, I thought…ready for what?, according to whom?

Our bodies are hard wired to use our senses for good - to protect ourselves from danger. But how often do you inspect what you believe to be a natural inclination? These can often be littered with unconscious bias and misconstrued judgement, due to learned behaviors.

Leading with love motivates us to unlearn behaviors inspired by affliction. It creates an environment for introspection and change.

See, perception is one of those things that is so beautiful but so dangerous. My security brain says ‘trust but verify’. So, I head over to the tree where she said the peaches were so “red and ready”…but to me, they weren’t red nor ready. Could she possibly be wrong? Could I be wrong? What made her believe these were ready? How could our views be so different?

As a leader, when I assemble a team, I have to start with picking the “right” people. RIGHT - such a relative word. Some people are ready for an opportunity; some ready to apply the best of their experiences to a new program, others ready to project all their poor learnings into a new environment; some ready to be coached, which leads to their evolution; and others who don’t think they’re ready at all, but YOU see them and what they could be. They could all be ready for your style of leadership, because when you lead with love, it’s transcendent. When you allow yourself to lead this way, you discover more about you - with each hurdle, with each challenge, you are pushed to peek deeper inside of you.

In the same manner - those peaches were ready. Our view on their state was based on what we were planning to do with them and our past experiences with peaches in those stages of preparedness.

So, as a leader, is picking and assembling more about them… or you?

To pick… and to assemble…with love.

If you’re new here, you may be wondering, what are leader letters?!

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