Chapters of Leadership - Settling (purpose)
It Can Be Unsettling Can’t it
It’s like that queasy feeling you get on a roller coaster at the bottom of a steep drop, as you quickly ascend to the heights of its tracks. You are probably feeling it right now or it is something you have certainly felt in your story of leadership – that moment where you realize you’ve been put in some type of leadership position, a new promotion, a new team, a new area of the business and deep down something feels unstable beneath you.
All Things Are Difficult Until They Are Easy
In chapter one, we find ourselves in the SETTLING part of our story. It isn’t the type of settling you’d compare to the first pioneers, but more like the sands in an hourglass settling from one end to the other when you flip it to the opposite side. Like the up-and-down roller coaster, this chapter feels erratic at times.
Through his organization (@The Table Group) Patrick Lencioni developed the Working Genius Assessment™. Through it we have an accessible framework to understand the ways in which we will find energy or be drained through the work we do on a daily basis. He places these in three categories - Genius | Competency | Frustration.
Retrospectively, now knowing my genius, I see more clearly the purpose hidden within the chapter of settling - it is a time of discovering your genius. Discovering those natural gifts and talents showing up to impact others. The most vivid memory of the beginnings of my settling chapter was around eight years old in Macon, MO. It was a small clearing in some woods near my home. There I would lay on my back and ask a thousand questions about how everything got here, why did I matter to the world, what was I supposed to do with my life, etc.
The Ones Who Get Hurt On Roller Coasters are Those Who Jump Off
It was discouraging, frustrating and it often made me want to give up because I couldn’t find “that thing” to help me become a leader who made a genuine impact in the lives of others. I not only wanted to stop reading the chapter, but I wanted out of the story. You may feel like nothing is natural for you and that everything feels hard. I want to encourage you to stay in the story. If we are going to be well | rooted, it requires us to lean towards the vacillating aspects of this chapter. Remember, for something to be discovered it first has to be hidden. But consider this question – is it hidden FROM you or FOR you?
Stay Rooted~
