defining you and your leadership

This morning, I woke up thinking about the blog and this week’s theme of choosing the type of leader you will become. As I was thinking more about it – there are two aspects of you as a leader. There is the part of you that you need to discover and the part of you that you, simply, need to choose.

Self-discovery and self awareness wraps around concepts such as talents, competencies, personality / temperament, perspectives (the Sun Glass principle) , etc. This arena would be where we might perform a personal SWOT analysis and a Leader Brand session.

The second area, though, is less about discovery than it is about decision. What type of a leader will you become? If you’re like me, you’ve had some great examples of leadership in your life and some tragic examples. Some leaders have even been both a different times, right?

For ‘Iditarod Leadership’, there are a number of different troubled musher types in the Race. Let’s just look at a few today:

· Lead Dog Leader: Ones who do it all themselves

· Empty Sled Leader: Disconnected and absent

· Caesar Leader: Ceremonial / Glory-based Leader

· Rope & Harness Leader: Micro-Managers

· Whip & Reigns Leader: “Beat the Dogs” Leader

My recommendation is to decide today to become an Iditarod Leader, an authentic leader.

Iditarod Leaders are concerned with results and relationships, short-term and long-term, hands-on and empowering and above all – great communicators.

Can you picture examples of the other leaders? Have you ever worked for a leader that had more than one these personalities?

Today’s decision to choose the type of leader you will become leads to the behaviors, actions, and habits of tomorrow. As we talked about yesterday – these will, ultimately, define you as a leader.

Have a great day on the trail!

Sounds like a trick question or one of those, supposedly, deep philosophical musings, right?

Well, we start our race where we are right now. Every day is a race of its own that will add up to our sum total. I’ve heard a couple of perspectives on our lives and our actions (Our Adventure) – one is that you are the sum total of what you do – your actions ultimately make you. The opposite view that I’ve heard is that you are who you are and you are not what you do. What do you believe about this? How will this affect our Leadership Adventure?

I believe we can all rise above our actions – that we are independent from our actions – AND – that eventually – the thoughts we think, the decisions we make, and the actions we take – ultimately make us. Again, ULTIMATELY, we are a product of our thoughts, decision, our actions and our habits.

In our Leadership Adventure – as “Iditarod Leaders” – we must determine what type of Leader will we be – then on a daily basis we must act on that decision and our actions must align with the direction we want to go.

You can imagine the surprise, a few years back, when musher Dee Dee Jonrowe saw another musher (Paul Gebhardt) coming at her during the race. (Paul had gotten disoriented and was doubling back to the last checkpoint). What if he had told her that he was on his way to winning the race – and that his actions were irrelevant? She would have thought he had trail fever! Obviously, his actions would, ultimately, affect his race.

Thank Goodness we all have the power to make decisions, to own our personal direction and when necessary – make U-turns!

So there are some decisions to be made about today and this week…

Ultimately, what type of Leader will I be?

What choices am I making now that are not a reflection of what I want to be long term (personally and professionally)?

How can I align my actions today with my desired path?

Here’s to a great week of Leadership mushing!