From Managers To Leaders

Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher
~ William Wordsworth

It is for a very specific reason why the pictures on the top of these pages are nature related. Mainly because I feel we can learn so much from nature if we just open ourselves up and give it a chance to teach us.

As the saying goes – fish discover water last. I felt this greatly when I finished reading The Nature of Leadership by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill & Dewitt Jones. After reading this book cover to cover and taking my notes (many more then I had expected) I began to see things around me differently. I was a fish who had just discovered the water that had always been around me. It was mild at first nothing over the top drastic. Slowly I began to see the changes that were happening around me. The more I noticed the nature that is always so close at hand the more I realized there were lessons to be learned here.

At times we all have a need to be reminded to just take a look. “To hear the unheard….is a necessary discipline to be a good ruler.” To see what is going on around us with new eyes is also a necessary discipline.

Below are links to personal examples of where I have felt, witnessed and discovered leadership in nature.

Wally the Walnut Tree

The Caterpillar and the Butterfly

Long term vision; Take short steps

When Fools Rush In

Color of Change

Use Your Head

To me these stories are just a taste of what nature can show us. I encourage you to go out and experience this nature for yourself. Become the change you want to see in the world!

As The Nature of Leadership says – Be truly open. Seek wisdom. Ask the hard questions. Ponder deeply. The answers will come.

What would a leader do?
~ Be open to change and seeing things with new eyes.
~ Discover the water that is all around you.
Wally’s lessons:
~ Take a moment to look at your situation. Are you being strangled by another persons point of view or demands? Are you loosing your life force because they are choking it out of you like that vine was doing to poor Wally? If so, make some changes shed your vine and grow your own leaves once more.
~ Are you bearing fruit so that others will grow and nourish? While I do not eat the fruit that Wally droops we have birds and squirrels that love it. The squirrels will peal away the flesh to get to the nut. The birds eat the flesh, the squirrels store the nuts for winter and natures circle is complete. Is your circle complete? What fruit are you providing to those you lead?
~ Is someone around you being choked by their own vine? Can you help free them from it so that they will grow and flourish into what they were meant to be?
Butterfly lessons:
~ Review your team, who is resisting turning into their own butterfly? How can you help them on their way to that metamorphosis?
~ Are you growing and changing with the times? Have you reviewed your personal skill set lately? If so, what action plan can you put in place to ensure your wings are brightly colored with knowledge?
~ Go for a walk. With open ears and eyes let nature begin to work its lessons on you.
Short steps lessons:
~ Plan out your long term vision for yourself, your department, and with your team. Obtain buy in and see what small steps you can take right now to achieve it!
~ Look around you for your mentors and hands that are reaching out to offer help. Try and take one of those offers and grow from it.
~ What adjustments can you make in your current walk to reach the top of your hill?
~ Let Nature teach you something. Go out and experience the openness and pleasure of being out in the natural world.
Fools lessons:
~ Learn from your mistakes and try hard not to make the same ones over and over again.
~ Plan any project you are completing. This means not just on Saturday I’ll mow the lawn, but a survey of what is in your yard that you need to know about before the work starts.
~ Learn to take the good with the bad when you can. For me, I doubt poison will ever be gone from my yard, so I will just have to use it to my advantage.
Color lessons:
~ Look beyond your teams regular colors to find the colors they are hiding deep inside. Work with them to embrace change and bring those colors to the surface.
~ Evaluate your evergreens. Are they positive or negative? Is it time to embrace or change them?
~ Change is a powerful thing. Take time to find resources that can help you and your team embrace it.
Use Your Head lessons:
~ Look at the potential of those you lead. Is it being maximized? How can you challenge them more?
~ Challenge yourself and your staff to read more. Develop that great brain of yours into your most valuable asset.
~ Use your head. Try and get feedback from others of how they feel you are maximizing your knowledge.
~ Take a walk, nature truly is an amazing teacher and the best part, it’s free.