The world needs bold leadership more than ever. Yesterday’s solutions have fueled today’s problems. A devastating pandemic. Economic crises. Widespread cynicism. Inequities. Divisions of all kinds. Are you ready to seize the opportunity to make a real difference? How are you preparing to do your part?
Acquiring the right stuff is developmental and deliberate. Like good wine, leadership skills and savvy mature over time. Experience helps. Seek it out. Pair it with the skills of reflective practice[1]. You’ll consolidate your strengths; deepen your understandings of human nature and the world; and avoid the same mistakes. Most importantly, harness the leadership superpower that is only yours for the taking – the creative energies of your true self.
Ocean Vuong, professor, MacArthur genius award-winning poet and essayist, and author of the New York Times best-selling novel “On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous”, rings a bell at the beginning of every class.[2] More accurately, he invites the bell. The bell, in Vietnamese Buddhist traditions, is always ringing somewhere. We mute its manifestation – as we do so much of the world – through our tacit, selective screening of the information and experience available to us[3].
The bell is a prompt for Vuong – a reminder to stop the automatic pilot of life and to call back with honor the first version of ourselves that brought us to this moment. Long ago and without much clarity of what it would really mean or entail, a more trusting, younger version of each of us took a risk. It made a decision about what we wanted to do with our lives and launched us on the complex journey that has brought us to today. No deep understanding of the sacrifices or steps required. Little appreciation for the full consequences of choices. It stepped out and propelled us forward into the unknown with energy, excitement, and hope.
Western traditions, Vuong reminds, tell us to forget that former self. It was the child that had to be improved upon. Untrained. Immature. Inexperienced. Unskilled. The long-decomposed acorn ignored in praise of the mighty oak.
Wrong, says Vuong. That younger self deserves to be appreciated and remembered. It is the pioneer of our present whose “epicentric moment” of choice so long ago brought us here and nowhere else. It is also the direct link to the reservoir of strength, courage, risk-taking, and openness that lies deep within. Honor that self in all its contributions and bravery! Invite it, advises Vuong, as a fruitful collaborator in our current success.
Few have Vuong’s gift for poetic meditation. But we can all heed the wisdom of his call. We are our lived experiences. All of them – the successes and failures, moments of pride and shame, the parts of our past that lift us up and those we hide in fear that others might see us as less. Our experiences have forged our unique world view. Understand it! They have given us a set of skills, values, and understandings unlike anyone else. Claim them! Our lived experiences define what we alone can bring to the table – what we must bring to the table – if we are to join effectively with others in search of new paths to lead us from these troubled times. Our authenticity is our leadership superpower if we are not afraid to use it.
[1] Donald Schon (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (first edition). New York: Basic Books.
[2] Ocean Vuong spoke on April 8, 2021 at the Radcliffe Institute. It is available at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2021-ocean-vuong-virtual
[3] Joan V. Gallos (2008). Making Sense of Organizations: Leadership, Frames, and Everyday Theories of the Situation. In Joan V. Gallos (ed.). Business Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.