Month: January 2009

10

A Moment of Courage – Part II

Susan Mazza | 29 January 2009 | General Leadership

Here’s one interpretation of what a moment of courage feels like and the choice our courage provides.

Of one thing I am certain: anyone reading this has already had moments like this. May you have many more in your lifetime. In fact, there’s probably a lot of people who are counting on it!

A MOMENT OF COURAGE

Your heart beats,
louder and louder, faster and faster.
You feel its echo as if it were the hammer
beating the drum in your ears.
The moment is seemingly endless.
You’ve been here before.
This is the moment when
courage meets reasonability;
When it takes courage
to bring commitment to life
lest it be snuffed out.
Perhaps it’s courage that brings forth these moments,
the power that propels us past the edge of what we know,
and the source of our choice to stay there
moment by moment.

P.S Thank you Henie for the great picture to go with the poem! Visit Henie’s blog for more wonderful photos and words of inspiration and wisdom at www.HennArtOnline.com

©Susan Ernst Mazza, All Rights Reserved, 2009 (Poem)

©www.HennArtOnline.com (photo)

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6

A Moment of Courage – Part I

Susan Mazza | 25 January 2009 | General Leadership

True courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to proceed in spite of it.–Unknown

Leading can be simple. And it is not always easy. Sometimes just the thought of doing something as simple as raising your hand can make your heart race uncontrollably. It did for me back in school and at times it still does. What do we fear? After all, raising your hand is not usually a matter of life or death. Mostly I think we fear being embarrassed or even humiliated. What if I say the wrong thing? What if people laugh at me? What if my boss doesn’t like what I said? We fear losing our jobs. We fear being alienated from the group in some way. Perhaps the reason more people cite their fear of public speaking as stronger than their fear of death is because we actually have to live with what comes next.

We’ve all had those moments, which is probably why the fear can be so intense now. Some of us have had more of them than others. Yet it only takes one experience to embed the memory of how awful it feels deep into our souls.

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10

It’s Them is the Costliest Conversation in Life and Business

Susan Mazza | 21 January 2009 | General Leadership

When something goes wrong we were trained to ask the question “Who is responsible?”. As a kid we learned to either run and hide when we heard that phrase or respond quickly with “It wasn’t me, it was _____” to save ourselves from punishment. Our parents and teachers worked hard to help us learn to take responsibility rather than run and hide or blame others, but didn’t that usually mean owning up to having done something wrong or taking the blame?

So is it any wonder we still react in similar ways with similar feelings when something isn’t going the way we planned? What about when our boss (or anyone we perceive as having power over us) is unhappy with what’s going on? Perhaps it’s not unlike how we feel when we see a cop in the rear view mirror even if we are not speeding. Somehow we still get that pit in our stomachs!

On the other side of this conversation are those who have actually done harm to us and really are to blame for it. [click to continue...]

11

Don’t Let Vision Get in the Way

Susan Mazza | 19 January 2009 | General Leadership

“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality”
Warren Bennis

Of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of definitions this one resonates the most with me. You may like another definition better or may have even crafted your own. But the notion of leaders having a vision is pretty universal one.

So if you are interested in leading or supporting others in developing their leadership creating a vision is a great place to start. Yet where I see many people get tripped up when it comes to leadership actually begins with their interpretation of “vision”. The typical “automatic” interpretation is that a vision is about something monumental like creating world peace. Not true.

A vision can be any possibility you want to make a reality. For example, it could be to have great meetings in your department. It could be to get all of your neighbors to know each other. Of course, it could be loftier than either of those. [click to continue...]