Business Leadership: Lead With Purpose

  I am just hitting what is probably the most important chapter in this book, Making Ambiguity Comfortable by Leading with Purpose. So far, I have been highly impressed with this book for a few reasons.

·         I agree with the author and have been able to reference past experience with a deeper understanding of his points.

o   I have been out of the retail industry for almost four years and did my bosses really screw things up at various times. My managers were not that much different than Steve Carrell’s character from “The Office.” I could see sparks or indicators that my managers had the capability to lead with purpose but had many excuses as to why they could not. Most of them pointing back to the District Manager who was so far removed from the regular employee that many ran to the dark corners of the store to avoid him. I did not. However, I remember the day the district manager came into the store and I had not been allowed to go to lunch. I had been there since 5 AM. It was now 1 PM. In the state of Virginia, not being allowed to have a break after 6 hours of work is a violation of state regulations. I am also hypoglycemic, which means that I became nauseous and the situation perpetuated a migraine that sent me to bed at 5 PM that night. Within a week, I went and picked up a note from my doctor reinforcing regular breaks to deal with my blood sugar levels. Pretty extreme, huh?

o   The same district manager has volunteered to be part of an experimental program. They gave two options to full-time employees; severance package or part-time hours with no guarantee of pay or hours. This particular district has no more full-time employees except salaried managers. What a blow to morale! To know that you are not valued by upper management! This is the way retail has been heading for the past thirty years, reduction of benefits paid to employees. There is no such thing as a career in retail anymore. I can’t wait until they try part-time leadership.

·         I can see how the principles in this book should be used in education.

o   Standardized testing has created poor leaders who, with training, could be highly successful. We know that merit pay does not work, Lead with Purpose points this out. The book also points out that the role of the leader is to provide resources and remove obstacles. Many school leaders do not remove obstacles and they provide mandatory resources. I have heard a teacher friend complain recently that she was forced to attend a workshop on using Pinterest in the elementary classroom. Pinterest is so easy to use, that I thought it was a waste. Why not teach teachers how to use Pinterest to show off their work? Or some other form of social media that can be used in conjunction with their portfolio? Why not teach them how to use Google+ hangouts to reach high risk students? Wouldn’t that be more important? By the way, I love Pinterest. My only problem with it is that it lacks middle school and high school resources. Leaders in school systems need to focus on creating simplicity for teachers.

·         I am learning to deal with ambiguity.

o   This is a tough one for many people. Why? Because we like to see the whole journey ahead of us. We like to know where we are going. That our purpose is being carried out. However, we don’t see the cracks that trip us or the potholes we can fall into. Then there are the occasional dead ends, forks, and construction work that we run into. It’s like a game of Candyland. We can see the end, we know how to get there, but the next card we turn over may not be how we thought it would work. It’s alright to lose, to fail, to learn. I don’t remember any successes that I have ever had that did not incorporate the ability to fail first. Failing is part of life. Get up, dust yourself off, and get back in there! What has helped is understanding my purpose and falling back to my purpose to review and renew my commitment. I may use a different tactic but it always has my original goal attached to it. For example, I came to the realization a few weeks ago that I cannot remain local as a company. My blogs reach several different countries and I am realizing that I have an audience outside my locality. Because of this, I have decided to create online resources that can be purchased and downloaded so that I can remain relevant to my followers while building local reputation.

  

  The book is due back at the library by Saturday. It is not a difficult read and is broken up with the intent that the person reading it may only have 15 minutes of free time here and there. I have already created a PowerPoint to illustrate my purpose and goals for a project that I would like to have completed well before back-to-school season. Now, I am off to do more research! Have a wonderfully driven day!