Mark Nakazono posted another good blog entry, and I don’t say that just because we each worked at a Burger King when we were younger. It’s a rumination on how to work and, perhaps, how to lead.
When I teach leadership to young men, we try to expose them to examples of good leadership, which is essentially providing them with “recipes”. We give them these tactics, these recipes, that they might use in leading, but what we really hope to do is to expose them to the various elements of leadership so that they can devise their own recipes. Every situation they encounter as leaders while bear some resemblance to the examples/recipes we provide, but will be different enough that they need to learn the skills of a chef, mixing the ingredients in ways that solve their unique problems.
Just as the only way to move from being a cook to being a chef is through practice and the confidence that comes with it, the only way for those young leaders to move from using those examples in a rote manner to actually being a leader is practice. One learns best how to lead by leading. We can provide all the “recipes for leadership” that we want, but we need more than anything to let them lead.
Take a minute and read Mark’s blog entry. You won’t regret it.
