Leadership is Just Beyond Our Reach

Leadership is Just Beyond Our Reach September 29, 2015

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Leadership is challenging. It takes hard work, creativity, persistence, and insightful wisdom to become a strong leader. We work for years, committing our best efforts to find our own leadership.

It is as if our own personal leadership is on the top shelf, in the back, just beyond what we can see. We can almost reach it, but not quite. We try, but it feels like our fingertips just push it a little further away.

Some people never quite reach the leadership that flows from who they are.

There are ways we try to make ourselves feel more comfortable about leadership. We study it, working to convince ourselves we have leadership completely under control. We try to assure ourselves, and other people, we have our leadership act together.

The leaders who inspire me appreciate strong leadership is always just out of reach. They recognize if we think we have anticipated every possibility, we are missing something.

Our best leadership is always just past our own reach.

Planning and preparation are crucial. In a practical sense, leadership builds on being prepared and goes beyond planning.

We may wish leadership were more comfortable, but it is essential to go past what we already know. Leadership is exploration. Leadership pushes boundaries. Leadership is going just past anywhere we have already been. Leadership is bringing the people around you along on the journey.

Leadership is about reaching further and going deeper. We test the limits we impose on ourselves, facing our fears and anxieties.

The leaders who inspire me help me find the courage I need to keep going. They help me see I am a leader.

Whose leadership has inspired you to reach further?

How does your leadership encourage people to go beyond where they think they can go?

[Image by Helmuts Guigo]


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