Commit to messy.

Hi there 👋🏽. Ready to lead? "Acts of Leadership" helps people, (irrespective of title or tenure), expand their leadership range one experiment at a time. Each issue shares a [pro/e]vocative definition of leadership, an idea and an experiment.

You're a leader, and you really want to lead well.

"Am I doing this right?", isn't a helpful question.

• The good news is that knowing this creates a little more ease.
• The bad news is your best signal comes from getting messy on the field.

The best learning comes from doing it, and paying attention to the impact.

A Definition…

"Leadership is... .a contact sport." ( - Marshall Goldsmith)

An Idea…

You've got to get messy

You can show me a thousand pictures of how Lynne Hill advanced standards in rock climbing, becoming the first person to free climb The Nose route on Yoesmite's El Capitan. It doesn't mean I can go succeed on the same route.

I tried, and it spat me out, sending me home with a massive dose of humility and learning. That's a whole other story for a different day about designing alliances and failure.

I can study climbers successfully topping out on Scotland's Old Man of Hoy, and that is helpful. But it's not a guarantee that I can do it myself, certainly not with their style.

The point is, you choose the lessons you learn from your past, pick up tips and tricks, and adopt best practice. Sure. And, after all of that, it's still down to YOU to figure out how YOU are going get this done.

What you don't get from watching and reading and revising is how it feels in the moment. The in-your-bones knowledge of how it is for you to be in that position.

For example, you can't adequately prepare for how it's gonna feel when you hit the wall at mile 22 of a marathon, or how you'll respond, or how you'll find what you need to hunker down and sit with the discomfort and keep moving.

It doesn't matter what others did or how they showed up. Or what they told you.

You are different. You are unique. You have this work to do. You are here, now.

So do your due diligence. Have a plan. Move to action. Then commit with unbending intent.

Be present to what emerges and observe with impeccable attention.

Begin before you're ready (because you're never going to be ready). Then make it up. Intuit your way into it, and trust yourself to create as you go.

It's on you.

• It's easy to revise someone else's first draft.
• It's easier to judge than to create.
• It's safer to critique from the stands, than be in the arena.

That's why leadership feels lonely. That's why it's vulnerable, by definition.

You are the DRI of your development, your career, your life. ("Directly Responsible Individual" - see Cate's book below)

To live is to lead through the messiness.

An Experiment…

🎯 - Reflect on 5 hard things you've done in your past; the things you weren't sure of; couldn't control; and you started nonetheless...

• What were the minimum sufficient conditions for you to begin?
• What was your inner dialog around starting?
• How did you commit to action?

An invitation to explore…

📗 Book: The Engineering Leader : Cate Huston

⏯️ TEDxCSULB : Start Before You're Ready | Matthew Encina (13:16)

⏯️ TEDx: Unlocking the Impossible | Erik Sorenson (9:39)

Leadership needn't be lonely!

Lead when ready!

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