YOU are ALWAYS leading

Many of my clients come to coaching with some ambivalent thoughts about ambition and potential. They wonder if any form of academic leadership is a slow drift away from being a true scholar. Or that leadership positions of any kind represent the victory of ambition over potential.

What I want you to understand is that you are ALWAYS leading.

We start with leading ourselves.

We get in touch with our values, our dreams, and our inner emotional landscape.

We put intentionality and planning into our choices for our lives and careers, so that our actions feed our dreams.

We treat the work of our minds and our souls like the precious resources they are. We guard them from intrusion, we protect them from indiscriminate influence and harm.

We engage with and respond to our environment, rather than simply reacting to it reflexively.

When we lead ourselves well, people notice. They may want you to help lead them.

As a supervisor or teacher.

In taking ownership of a small project or task.

In collaboration on scholarship or programming.

In an ideal world, every organizational leader has mastered the art of self-leadership and leading others before they are asked to lead a large team, group, unit, or department. But it is just as likely, at a university or college, that you are asked to lead a department because it is your turn, because all the other tenured faculty are on sabbatical, or you were the only one who put up your hand.

Policies, procedures, governance, etc. are a part of leadership, but they are a small part. More important to how you are experienced by others as a leader, and to how you trust and evaluate yourself, is how your strategy matches your values, how consistent you are across different encounters, whether what is important to others is safe with you–or even on your radar.

As you look at your career, ask yourself: am I working on leading myself, leading others, or leadership in the larger context of the institution?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Cheers,

Jennifer