Kick Off

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. ~Steve Prefontaine




Tomorrow is a big day for me, a day for which I have been in preparation since I first dreamed up the idea of creating a leadership training program one early morning last November when I found myself wide awake in the early hours of the morning having just crossed 7 time zones on a return trip from Switzerland. The past months have found me immersed in the development of my Leadership Training Program. It would be accurate to say I have been consumed with preparations as, it seems, I have spent most of my waking hours thinking about the program. When I wake in the middle of the night, my mind inevitably is drawn to the program where it generates ideas for the presentation of the information which, in OCD fashion, I must log into my iPad before I am able to even considering a return to slumber. My reading habits, my listening habits, my thinking habits are all filtered through the lens of this one activity.

There are some that expect me to fail, don't believe I have what it takes to train leaders for my company. As much as I would love to succeed to prove to them wrong, I can't let that be my focus. This program is not for me. It's success is not for me. This program is, first and foremost, for the benefit of 7 people that will be attending. It's important that I keep my focus on the students, measure success by the benefit to the students, and not if I can slam dunk my success in the face of manager that expects me to fail. This program is not about me. It is about the students.

I view leadership as a sacred trust between the leader and the lead. I believe a leader owes it to the lead to be the very best leader possible. I take my leadership responsibility very seriously so have become a student of leadership spending a significant portion of my time learning what I can to improve my ability to lead people, to help them get from where they are to where they want/need to be. The responsibility of training beginning leaders is, for me, an even greater responsibility. When you lead one person, you affect that person. When you develop a leader, you affect that person and all the people that person leads so, training leaders has a multiplicative effect. This effect will multiply both the good and the bad. I am doing everything possible to ensure the effect that is multiplied is through my training is very positive. I owe it to my students and the students of my students....