Class of 2013
Today’s regularly scheduled “Funny Friday” post has been postponed until tomorrow. I just got back from my Leadership Retreat, and my head is buzzing with other stuff. So come back tomorrow for regularly scheduled programming!
The last couple of days, the Missouri Association of Realtors’ Leadership Academy Class of 2013 spent “retreating” at the Stoney Creek Inn in Columbia. This was our 4th retreat, so we’ve gotten to know one another pretty well by now.
We’ve become a family.
As we’ve gotten to know and be more comfortable with one another, each retreat has been more enriching…and more profound.
The Leadership Academy teaches us not only how to be better at what we do, but to be better leaders in our communities, in our workplace, on our local boards, and at the state level if that’s what we choose to do. Each retreat is filled with incredibly dynamic speakers on a variety of subjects, group activities, team building exercises, and fun…all in interesting places around the state that I might not have visited in the first place.
These are all things that I expected to learn. I expected to have a blast. I expected to enjoy my classmates, and to enjoy the whole process. I did not expect it to be life changing.
Here’s a few of the things I pondered on the way home today:
1. Leaders are made, not born. Some people may have natural leadership skills, but the best leaders are constantly learning and trying to become even better at what they do.
2. If you think you know all there is about leadership, you probably don’t.
3. Leadership is about listening: keeping your mind open, and hearing what others are saying. I assumed I would learn something from the people around me…I just didn’t realize how much. And from how many. And how meaningful it would be. I realized that if you always have to be right or to “win”, you’re missing an opportunity to learn from those around you.
4. When you have a group of people working together, what everyone has to say is important, and has merit. Everyone contributes to the whole. While the final product won’t have everything you wanted, it will have some of what you wanted. Because great leaders know that when we work toward compromise and helping others win – we all win.
5. And, sometimes the best course of action is to simply change course altogether.
6. Leadership has costs. Whether it’s financial, time away from your family, stress, fewer friendships, less social time…there are costs involved. “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” [Thanks to my dad for patiently paying for me to get through college on the 12-Year-Plan and only to remember 3 things…and that’s one of them.]
7. Everyone has something unique to bring to the table: a different style, personality, attitude, sense of humor, whatever. But that’s what makes you authentically you, and makes you effective. And genuine. And believable.
It’s an amazing process to take 12 diverse, opinionated people with various backgrounds, experiences, personalities, and ages and somehow transform them into a unified whole.
I like to think of it in terms of each of us being a piece of a pie: each slice has a slightly different appearance, and the filling components vary, but each is full of flavor and contributes equally to the whole.
So I’m just sayin’…if we were a pie, I think we’re a hot, wonderfully delicious, all-American – baseball and everything – Apple Pie. Only with nuts. 😀
