I've been thinking deeply about what it means to be a great team mate, what it is to be a good leader.

Seth Godin said "Why bother having a CV. How about three extraordinary letters of recommendation from people the employer knows or respects? Or a sophisticated project they can see or touch? Or a reputation that precedes you?"

Despite my best intentions I realise I'm marmite - love me or hate me, few sit on the fence. 

I have been and still am unskilful, although these days much less so and less often I hope thanks to a journey of leadership development, specifically the self development required to handle the increasing complexity of today's world. 

This means working to expand my range of meaning-making, which sounds esoteric but really isn't.  It helps to understand the start point:  There is no perception without interpretation. 

The practice is to become curious and invite inquiry: what else? what other interpretations there could be? to any given situation.  

Typically what flows to mind are those 'peak' moments, key memories from our past.  

We suddenly realise that difficult conversation with X and that blow up with Y and Z yelling at you for no understandable reason at the time.....all have a connection you never saw before....oh...that I was too focussed on the getting the task done, being too fast, they felt under pressure, not heard, railroaded.  Oh. 

Or even situations we felt like we failed at the time, on reflection we realise we were doing a great job, we just suffered perfectionism perhaps compounded with imposter syndrome.

At this point, its crucial that rather than fall into a pit of despair, we remember two key things:

1. We all do the best we can with the resources we have at the time. Resources being things like awareness, skilfulness, patience etc.

2. Take the learnings from this new found awareness - What is it that you now notice? What will you do next time in a situation like this? Once these lessons are recorded, forgive yourself, forgive the other person and move on.

   Forgiveness can be hard.  Find resources on my YouTube channel https://linktr.ee/inspired.world

If you want to continue the conversation and expedite your leadership development, contact me to register for our upcoming Leadership Development Cohort Program.