Leadership Manifesto-  Lesson 2…   Balance

I have yet to just talk in my blog….  rarely have I taken the time to just open up my thoughts and let the world know what I am doing or thinking.  I have used my blog as a base of operations.  I venture into subjects and connect with people from a familiar spot-  just close enough to who I am to be safe and far enough out to learn…. a leadership guerrilla- if you will.  There has actually been something bubbling……

I quit my job . A job I had for almost 6 years.  Not the same job I had when I started,  but MY job none the less.

Made a Fortune Off Being Happy

We all consider what will happen when we finally make a life changing decision.  Most of us think the change will be GREAT and that we will be free and happy.  Others may feel changes are like train wrecks… difficult and mangled with fault in all manner of people and circumstance.

The truth is that change can be more like a grey cloud.  A strange place where you are not sure what is coming, just that something is different.  Maybe I am different….maybe I worry too much….

The truth is-  I do worry.  I worry that the challenges I leave behind are my doing.  I worry that the people I am moving away from may need me.  I have concern that what I helped build may only be sustainable with my help. These are all DARK ideas and suspicions.   These suspicions are probably not entirely wrong but more than likely they are not entirely right.  They are the wrong focus.  They are not what I should be coming to terms with.  The reasons I am making a change….

What I am coming to terms with is that I am making a change  for my family and me.  The ideas of being a corporate baron have been replaced with a desire to smile and listen to my wife and not be secretly considering the changes I need to make with a business process.  I would rather get home to play light-sabers than stay late for an accounting meeting.  I want to go to soccer games and not be on my cell phone.  I am finding that life is forcing a balance in me.

I am coming to terms with the idea that a leader should be the  same person at home as he is at work. The foundation stems from a leader identifying himself through his values before placing his worth in his career or his ambition. Something I have recently discovered…

This is what my decision to change jobs has boiled down to for me personally:  I had to build a new career level where I could start over and be me (balanced me).  2 weeks in Mexico would not have allowed me the rebirth I needed to change my path and stay at the same company.   I had gotten obsessed with making things work…  This job, this firm and this position were all too personal and it was time to make a break.

So-  I want to thank those who have followed and argued and considered.  I want to thank the people that have told me their story and asked for my help.  I am grateful to those who believed in what we were doing and truly thought they could be better people. Everything that we ever did was because you all DID IT.  All I ever did was ask you all to live up to your potential….  and you have…..

To those I am about to meet…  I am creative.  I freak out if I cannot do something creative and artistic.  Building a company, a department or a process gives me an outlet for creativity.  Be prepared to be asked ‘why’ 5 different times and 4 different ways.  Are you accountable?   Are you ready to push others to be their best for no other reason than you know it is how you get results? Are you ready to give without expecting to get something back?  Do you understand balance?

As for my parting thoughts….  Jimmy Buffett said it best,

“Oh, yesterdays are over my shoulder, So I can’t look back for too long. There’s just too much to see waiting in front of me, and I know that I just can’t go wrong.

If it suddenly ended tomorrow, I could somehow adjust to the fall. Good times and riches and son of a bitches, I’ve seen more than I can recall.”

She was not an imposing figure, but she demanded respect.  Judy Childress was the varsity choral director of my high school.  She had sharp and wild eyes; the kind you get from a lifetime of artistic opportunity.  She was incredible at harnessing the talent of her students and her community.  Judy was a tenured and talented teacher that was respected across the board as a person who could get things done.   I was scared of her…

I cannot remember why I was late or what I was doing, but I remember what happened on that stage….  It was during a musical rehearsal.  I was running late and I strolled across the stage.  At the time, I was too cocky, overly self assured and thought I had the world figured out.  I was 17 and needed a push.

There were at least 30 people at the rehearsal and I was sure that I had the clout to walk in late and not get called out.  I was wrong.  ”ANDY!”  Judy Childless was behind the piano at the left of the stage.  She had waited until I was in dead center stage.  The entire chorus was sitting on the front two rows of the auditorium.  It was an audience..  an audience to watch what was to become my most public dress down.

I turned to see Mrs. Childress walk from behind the piano.  ”What gives you the right to show up 20 minutes late?”  She asked.  I began to stumble through a canned response-  like Jake Blues…  I ran outta gas. I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from outta town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake, a terrible flood, locusts. It wasn’t my fault!! I SWEAR!!!

Her eyes were piercing.  She let loose on me.   “I am sick of your excuses!  You have to grow up.  You are responsible for yourself and the sooner you realize that the better we will ALL be.  Go sit down, now.”

I stood in the lights of the stage.  The lights that had been my blanket of security.  I had loved the gaze of an audience and enjoyed my time in front of the curtain.  Something was wrong, this was not the attention I had come to love.  I turned to see the entire cast of the musical looking at me like I was a 2 year old.  I felt about a foot tall and suddenly had a moment of clarity.  I WAS THE PROBLEM.

Personal accountability.  This is the core of my Leadership Manifesto.  From that day forward I have never pawned off my accountability.  I do not make excuses for my own actions.  I accept the fall out for my my decisions in their entirety.

Leadership must have personal accountability at its core or there is no authenticity. Leaders who do not accept the credit for their actions, both good and bad, are not able to gain trust from their teams or bosses.  I have found that many times when I stand up, accept responsibility and take accountability for my actions, I walk away having gained the respect of my superiors.

Russell Bishop talks about accountability in his blog.  He discusses CPA.  The idea is that we all “Create, Promote or Allow…“ events to happen in our lives.  We are accountable and this accountability provides us power over our lives.

I may have learned the lesson of accountability at some time in my life even if I had never been called out on that stage.  But the fact is-  I learned how to be an adult and I had a pillar of my success forged by Judy Childress.  For this-  I say:  Thanks Judy!