My mother tells me that I read my way through third grade. Less interested in multiplication facts or the elementary school games of my peers, my nose was often buried in a book–cozied up in the top bunk in the room I shared with my sister, curled up on the living room love seat with a slice of American Singles to snack on, or plopped down outside under a tree. With Peter, Paul, and Mary, Mama Cass and, later, the Beatles often providing the background music, I found a lot of opportunities to snuggle up and venture into other worlds during the cold North Dakota winters and long Minnesota summers of my childhood.

My favorites were stories about people–real people who did interesting things, had adventures and made a difference: the Mayo brothers who founded the famous team-centered Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota; Elizabeth Blackwell, who became the first woman doctor in the United States; Helen Keller, who lost both her vision and hearing after an early childhood illness and her tutor, Anne Sullivan, who helped Helen learn to communicate and live a full and functional life; and the title character in Kim: A Gift from Vietnam, about a young girl who was adopted from a Vietnamese orphanage after the war and who struggled to fit in to a new country and a new family.

Barry Marshall, 2005 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, also remembers The Mayo Brothers book from his childhood. He recalls a great “story within a story” and the impact it had on him.

“When people say, is there something that got me into medicine? My grandmother used to have condensed Reader’s Digest novels and biographies. I remember early on reading The Mayo Brothers. There were the two brothers, it was approximately 1910, I think. I think their dad was a surgeon. There was this interesting story of their puppy develop[ing] a bowel obstruction or something and dad was away and the two kids chloroformed the dog and opened him up, did a laparotomy and fixed the puppy. That really captured my imagination. I was always interested in medicine.”

As a child, I learned that stories could spark my imagination and open up new worlds. As an adult, I still love to read stories about pioneers and adventurers who are doing interesting things and making a difference in the world around them. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer
• Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story by Ben Carson, M.D with Cecil Murphey
• Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Greg Mortenson

Today while my bookshelves are full with all kinds of fiction and non-fiction titles, I go back to real-life stories like these when I want to be inspired by ordinary people making extraordinary things happen. What stories have sparked your imagination and opened up new worlds to you?

[tags] Peter, Paul and Mary, Mama Cass, the Beatles, Mayo Brothers, Elizabeth Blackwell, Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan, Kim: A Gift from Vietnam; Barry Marshall, Danny Meyer, Ben Carson, M.D., Greg Mortenson [/tags]

In the Community of Learners group to which I belong, our topic of discussion yesterday was leadership. What do we mean by leadership? What is the essential task of a leader? What is the essence of leadership? What are the convening issues that motivate leaders to ask for help? A huge topic–way too much to cover in one conversation. We agreed to continue our exploration at a future gathering.

If you scan the the business section of your local bookstore or library, you’ll find many titles that reference leadership in one form or another. A recent search using the key words leadership books on www.amazon.com resulted in a selection of over 22,000 options. A Google search of the key words leadership training turned up over 24,000,000 listings! Obviously, there is a lot of interest in leadership these days. But what exactly is leadership?

Dictionary.com lists four definitions (noun):

1. the position or function of a leader: He managed to maintain his leadership of the party despite heavy opposition.
2. ability to lead: She displayed leadership potential.
3. an act or instance of leading; guidance; direction: They prospered under his leadership.
4. the leaders of a group: The union leadership agreed to arbitrate.

Not too helpful. Here are a few more definitions for your consideration:

• The online encyclopedia, Wikipedia lists several definitions for leadership, including the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task” and “Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.”
• James Kouzes and Barry Posner (The Leadership Challenge, 2007) define leadership as “a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow.”
• John Maxwell (Developing the Leader Within You, 1993) says that “leadership…has to do with casting vision and motivating people.”
• In Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way (2008), authors Jeffrey Liker and Michael Moseus cite Toyota’s internal document, The Toyota Way 2001, when they describe “thoughtful leaders” who are defined as “[having] the ability to energize and invigorate others, willing giving realistic challenges and developmental opportunities and fostering a sense of accomplishment in subordinates.”
• Founder and CEO of the Institute for Women’s Leadership, Rayona Sharpnack defines leadership as “the ability to speak, listen and evoke action on behalf of a compelling future.”
• At the recent Learning Leaders Symposium, I heard leadership defined as “the ability to change, direct, or affect the behavior of others without ordering or threatening.”

Do these definitions fit with your experience? How would you define leadership?

[tags] leadership, James Kouzes, Barry Posner, The Leadership Challenge, social influence, John Maxwell, Developing the Leader Within You, Jeffrey Liker, Michael Moseus, Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way, Institute for Women’s Leadership, Rayona Sharpnack, Leaders Learning Symposium [/tags]

The tree is down – all the needles have been vacuumed up and the ornaments carefully placed in the storage closet. The room looks bigger now: fresh, open and full of possibilities.  And so it is with this new year and this new decade. As we turn the page on 2009 and the aught years of the 21st Century, it’s an opportune time to tidy up a bit and clear some physical and mental space as we consider what we want to create, personally and professionally, in the new year and decade that begin today. As will all new year beginnings, I like to start with a clean desk, an empty calendar and a brand new notebook.

If you think about this coming year or decade as an upcoming chapter in your overall life/work story, what adventures and accomplishments will you author? What new paths will you forge in 2010 or the 2010s? What obstacles will you overcome?  Here are some ideas to get you started:

Write the ending first. If you know how you want your story (or at least this chapter) to end, the individual pages you write each day will all be leading you toward that conclusion. Whether your story line is easy to follow or full of twists and turns, the ending you’ve already written will serve as a beacon, pulling you forward.

Cast yourself as the hero or heroine. In the story of your life, work and business, you are the protagonist – the main character. In the story you’re creating, is your character a victim, a survivor, or a thriver? What personal qualities or capabilities does your character need to develop – who does your character need to become – in order to reach the conclusion you wrote?

Give your hero or heroine a task worthy of his/her time and life energy. Big goals and bold plans inspire us, ignite our energy and focus our attention and our actions. What big goals and bold plans will your hero or heroine reach for this year? Who else will you need to inspire, communicate with, lead, enlist or engage to help you reach your goals?

Build in resiliency. In any worthwhile story, there are unforeseen challenges, unexpected surprises and unpredictable opportunities. Help your character stay flexible and resilient by eating well, exercising, getting enough sleep and building in cycles of intention, preparation, action and reflection.

Ready, set, write!

[tags] Happy New Year, life story, writing, planning, hero, heroine, story, narrative, journaling [/tags]