In Seasons in Leadership, I wrote about the leader’s role in sensing the environment and guiding teams through change:
Regardless of the situation, the best leaders know that by their role and responsibility positions them to intuit transition and see opportunity. These leaders intentionally develop vision to sense impending seasons. Then they fulfill their responsibility to define reality for the team and empathetically guide their followers through the change. In doing so, they model how to lead through change with foresight and intention.
We often forget that the precursor to navigating change is the leader’s own development, the arc of personal growth that prepares them for the road ahead.
Recently, Ryan Holiday perfectly complemented this thought with the words of Epictetus:
First practice not letting people know who you are — keep your philosophy to yourself for a bit. In just the manner that fruit is produced — the seed buried for a season, hidden, growing gradually so it may come to full maturity. But if the grain sprouts before the stalk is fully developed, it will never ripen. . . . That is the kind of plant you are, displaying fruit too soon, and the winter will kill you.
Holiday adds, “The seeds of Stoicism are long underground. Do the work required to nurture and tend to them. So that they – and you – are prepared and sturdy for the hard winters of life.”
I like his reference to the winters of life…to seasons. It’s the idea of developing in due time – that a leader’s growth ebbs and flows over the course of a month, a year, a career, an entire life. Skills must be learned, cultivated, tested, challenged, refined, and perfected in practice.
What is the plan for this development? A series of books, jobs, experiences, conversations? Is there a strategy that connects the leader to who they wish to become?
With any luck, your profession gets you partway there.
But what must you bring to the table? How will you chart the arc of your development for the seasons ahead? Who must you become for the approaching winter?
I’ll humbly offer that The Military Leader blog, book, and podcast are great places to start.
Also, John Maxwell’s 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth reinforces that your personal growth links directly to your success.
And Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic will fuel your mind and spirit along the way.
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