Leadership ...

My position and understanding of the world presupposes me to bias.  As an able bodied, able-minded, relatively large white man, I have never had difficulties securing the resources required for my family or for any organization I have worked for.  Through this (and other experiences) I had come to know the world in a relatively utopian sense previously ascertaining that  one need only work hard to ensure that they would get all they stand in need of. 

This, however, is not true.

I have considerable access to power

.My situation is not the norm.

I never became so aware of this fact as one time in university when I decided to go out for some beers with a large group of new friends.  I sat across the table from a beautiful young girl with whom I was engaged in typical "get-to-know-you" conversation.  There was a lull in the conversation ... she looked at me deeply ... I looked back at her ... then she said, "You are different ... what is it? ... Are your parents still together?" 

Different?  Because my parents were still together?  My horizons and my perspectives were rapidly evolving and beginning to take into consideration the polyphony of voice, understanding, and interpretation of the world.  At that moment I began to understand that my reasoning and my interpretations and notions of how the world worked were not necessarily true for everyone.  It was at that moment that I first felt I was a minority.

While foreign, this poignant experience has served to always remind me that there exist a plethora of views, experiences and understandings carried by individuals.  In terms of my leadership, I work to remain sensitive to this fact and always cognitive that my personal understandings are most often not the most widely held.  I believe that true leadership exists in a servant attitude.  I believe that power cannot truly be 'accessed', but rather that it is given . . . and given most freely where the givers believe it will best serve them.  With these beliefs, I adhere to the belief that the most effective leaders listen intently that they might truly hear, hear both what is being said and what is left unsaid so that they might better serve.

"You cannot be a leader without any followers."