Today, July 3, Mom celebrates a "big number" birthday, as she told me on Sunday. I willl not state the number here (but you can find it in an earlier blog post...smile).
On my birthday in April, as I was asking Mom about communication between 10-year-old boys and girls, she had a lot to say about the models we learn from our parents. She said one goal is to get children to learn new models, even if the first models were strong and positive. That we need to question our models to learn additional skills.
In a speech I prepared for a client this week, I referenced Mom's father as one of my first strong models of leadership. Grandpa taught me to explore, to love learning, to treat all people with respect. He was a school superintendent -- managed a bunch of teachers for decades. Learned to work with all kinds of people. I was 10 years into my career before I consciously recognized what an influence his way of leading had on my way of leading even in a different context.
But when I interview Mom I realize she had an even stronger influence on the way I lead today. As we were talking about models she moved naturally to the underlying goal that she wanted her students to learn: to cooperate with each other. It's one of the most important things we do in life. She said, "You may not like or agree with a person, but you have to learn to work with him or her. That's the way life is. You have to learn to work together with people who are different than you." Notice she says different -- not better or worse.
"It's about keeping an open mind," she said. "Accept people as they are...sometimes you have to be willing to let them do it their way. Be flexible. You have to decide what is going to matter for you the most. Is it really going to disturb your life to try it their way? Are you doing something for your own credit or to get it done and have a good result?"
Openness to people, their ideas, and ways of working. After four decades, it took writing a blog to finally give credit where credit is due for that leadership model. It is not just a lesson, it is one of the many gifts from Mom. And I thought it was her birthday!
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