Musings at Altitude

I spent three days this past week focused on leadership development, both for me personally and for the team of executives that I’m blessed to partner with in business today.  As a leadership team, we have about 20 decades of experience, and each one of us felt like we learned something important from the coaching and the leadership discussions that we participated in.

After meetings like these, I typically spend lots of time pondering what was said and what was learned.  I have epiphanies of varying magnitude during the meetings, but it’s the quiet times spent deeply thinking when I tie things together and come up with those meaningful ways that I can act on the lessons learned.

As I think back over my many years in business, I remember clearly those people who provided me much needed lessons – some good, some not so good.  But I also remember that those lessons didn’t immediately and dramatically affect my behavior, but instead, they resulted in baby steps of improvement that made me who I am today.  I remember the Master Sergeant in Los Angeles who very pointedly stated, “If you ask for feedback, don’t yell at me when I give it to you and you don’t like it.”  I also remember the Executive Vice President of a company I worked in that told me, “Next time you say “maybe I need to work elsewhere”, we’re going to make that happen.”  And I remember the long time friend and then CEO who told me, “You will never understand the negative impact you’ve had on this company.”  And finally, I remember the Brigadier General in the Air Force that spent an entire day receiving briefings from me, and then he said, “You’re going to do great, but it’s not going to be in the Air Force.”  Each one of these individuals had an enduring affect on my life.  Each one of these individuals caused me to go off and ponder and think through my actions preceding their comments, and that time of pondering then drove my growth and my actions for years to come.

So today, I’m thinking back on this past week and pondering the lessons learned and the baby steps I can now take to be a better leader.  I need to do a better job of following through on commitments I make, and I need to more accessible to everyone on my team.  I need to focus on priorities, and if for any reason those priorities change, I need to quickly communicate the changes so those on my team know where they too need to be focused.  And I need to work harder on creating a shared vision, and through that vision, rally all of us together in reaching out to embrace that vision.

And just like my granddaughter, who six months ago entered this world with these footprints, I need to now look forward to months and years of growing based on the lessons I’m learning at a very rapid pace today.