Ever hear of Leadership Leprosy? I hadn't...

The following is the original and the rewrite can be found by clicking here.

I was told a story the other day that introduced me to the concept of "Leadership Leprosy"... it went something like this.

A friend of mine was recently at a networking event and happened to meet someone who brought up the concept of "Leadership Leprosy", went on to explain he had forwarded the concept onto his boss in an email (as part of a managing-up exercise I suppose), and was fired for it.

To this I asked, "What's Leadership Leprosy?" He went on to tell me and I then did some more research which I will say did not include reading the book entitled Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth by Samuel R. Chand who introduced the term.

The book (I didn't read) also introduces this premise: 

Growth = Change

Change = Loss

 Loss = Pain

Thus, Growth = Pain 

From there it was pointed out "Leadership that doesn’t produce pain" is either in a short season of unusual blessing or it isn’t really making a difference. 

The author also introduced his experience with lepers in India and how the disease impacts a person's ability to feel pain which severely damages parts of their body (noses, ears, fingers, and toes) because those inflicted don’t sense the warning signs of pain to stay away from dangers - It is with this, the author connects "Leadership and Leprosy"... so now you have it.

Leadership Leprosy is a term applied to a leader who avoids (or can't appreciate) "pain", reflecting their lack of ability to drive growth, change and make a difference. - At least this is how I interpret it. 

Is there a point to all of this other than information transfer? Not really; I just want to pass on a story and something new I've learned.

iamgpe

Wait... I guess I do have something more to say, again with the caveat that I haven't read the book so maybe what I am about to say is covered off... I do agree that Change = Loss but Change can also = Gain, and although Gain doesn't generally = Pain, getting to the Gain most likely does. So in the end, I have a new leadership concept for my "tool bag" and as off putting as the term is, I suspect it does have utility.

And one more thing, if I take the story at face value and the person was fired for forwarding the concept of "Leadership Leprosy" onto his boss, he should either be glad that he is no longer part of that organization or he should be a little more reflective as to why he was really fired. 

Just saying.

OK, now iamgpe

PS: I've just added Leadership Pain: The Classroom for growth to my reading list.

Those heady times and the pursuit of WOW...

The following is the original and the rewrite can be found by clicking here.

During the heady times of the 80s and 90s* it seemed you just couldn't get enough of Tom Peters and his endless parade of books on leadership - In Search of Excellence, A Passion for Excellence, Thriving on Chaos, Circle of Innovation and finally my favourite, The Pursuit of WOW! (He has authored more but these are the ones I bought and have read to various degrees)

I would be hard pressed to give you specifics from the many pages after all this time but I will never forget the inherent meaning of WOW - Be it expressing astonishment or admiration or a sensational success or when you impress and excite someone greatly - It's a word that covers a lot of ground and works well with bold colours. WOW became the definitive emotional and qualitative measure for me; if you heard someone utter the word WOW, you were onto something**... the bigger the WOW, the bigger the success. 

It even worked it's way into the theme of one of our meetings where I amused the audience with "WOW stories", gifted everyone the book, and presented a teal shirt with the word WOW! emboldened on the front; we could not help but stand out as a united front of teal at that evening's baseball game and even made it onto the "Videotron".***

Why after all of these years was I reminded of The Pursuit of WOW!?

Honestly I could not tell you; maybe I was just day dreaming about those heady times of the past... although more likely somewhere in the "messed up filing system that is my brain", a small alarm went off signalling that I was not hearing WOW enough (either out of my mouth, or someone else's). 

Why did my brain do this? It is because hearing the word WOW tells you that you're "stretching yourself", reminds you to set the bar higher, motivates you to experience something new, indicates sensational success, and lets you know you are impressing and exciting someone greatly. Also, I suspect my brain wants to look back at 2016 as heady times. 

And if you decide to pursuit WOW, please don't turn it into one of those words like "awesome", "genius" or "brilliant" that are now grossly misused and trite - The Hubble telescope is "genius", not using two thermal sleeves on a very hot Starbuck's latte macchiato.****

iamgpe

* Were the 80s and 90s really that heady historically speaking? Probably not, but for me it was a time of great learning, experience building, and a great amount of fun & adventure.

** WOW does not replace hard data but it is an amazing lead indicator.

*** The Videotron is the large video screen at the stadium of the Toronto Blue Jays. At the time was called the SkyDome but is now the Rogers Centre. Don't ask me what team they were playing... it was a long time ago and there was beer.

**** I borrowed this line from Louis C.K who is in fact a comic genius.

Stop and look at how far you've come...

This is actually meant to be more reflective than motivational; although let's see where it goes before any rash decisions are made as to what I'm actually talking about.

Recently I "reposted" an old blog that I wrote eighteen month ago (it is a personal favourite). What I expected to be a simple cut and paste exercise became a little more involved because there was sentence structure and punctuation that could be improved upon. Thank the "blogging gods" there were no spelling mistakes that I could see; pesky things.* Ultimately I clicked "publish", satisfied that my revision was a much tighter piece of writing than the original. And this got me to thinking... for good or bad.

Am I a great writer? Not today. Am I a good writer? It probably depends on the day, the phase of the moon and how much luck is with me at that moment. Am I a better writer? Absolutely, and here is why. I have written 128 blogs since that original post, edited dozens of project proposals and asked a very good friend of mine (who is a very good writer) how I am doing to which she tells me I am getting better; sometimes with a slight "wince" but she assures me I am much tighter with my words and thoughts.

Although there is credence in the old saying "practice makes perfect" and the statistic that 10,000 hours develops mastery, this is not what I had in mind when I started down this meandering path - I was being much more literal when I got to thinking and titled this "Stop and look at how far you've come..." I truly was thinking more along the lines of, "Literally stop what you are doing and take a look around to see how far you have come". To "see" your progress can be incredibly motivational; to visualize the ground covered, obstacles you've overcome and the skills developed on the way - It is exciting and re-energizing to see how far you've come and what you've accomplished.

Sure it is encouraging to see how much closer you are to your goal(s) but the value of understanding how far you've come is more important as it re-enforces accomplishment, allows you to understand your newly acquired skills, and ensures your activity is getting you closer to your goals. It is in this act of stopping and looking back you ensure you're current activity is what's needed, or sadly recognize that in effect, you really aren't doing anything at all. Either way you will know.

For me, I want to be a great writer and with the activity of blog writing I am becoming a better writer, and continue to head in the right direction. And how do I really know? In my recent "repost" I have received a number of comments, many "likes" and a large number of views, whereas with my original I had "zeros" across the board - I thought I would bring this up for those looking for objective data.

iamgpe

PS: Click here to see the re-write.

* Please let me know if you find a spelling mistake because those things are peskier than mosquitos.