I must admit that the journey metaphor is feeling worn. (And, thanks to Glee, I always associate it with “Don’t Stop Believing” (okay, so the cast sang the National Anthem? Pretty cool.).)
But it does feel like a journey when you look at where I was on Wednesday and then debriefing today. On Friday we were asked a variation on the set of questions that we started the conference with. One of those was identifying what leadership opportunities could be found in the current climate. On Wednesday that was a daunting task. What influence do I have? Can I fix the budget? Now I feel like the leaders that came from our campus have a purpose and a way to implement it.
I was chatting with a friend of mine today who always has great leadership insight. His big advice was to walk people through the journey of how we came to the end product. We, as leaders, can’t expect an end product without doing the work. We also can’t expect people to buy into an idea immediately (although that would be nice). It’s that growing process of coming to the solution that is so important. I need to remember that people are still seeing the daunting problem and not the smaller, more manageable, chunk to tackle.
