Inside-Out Leadership

Recently, I watched my five-year-old son attempt to put on a long sleeve shirt.  The shirt itself was rightside out but the sleevers were inside out.  He easily slid the shirt over his head and down his torso, but he nearly tumbled to the ground countless times trying to force his arms into the inside out sleeves.  What a fitting image for many of our leadership efforts.  Leadership is a balance between preparation and progress.  Without proper preparation our progress becomes an off-balanced lurching and thrusting that exerts a great deal of energy but produces more pain and discomfort than results.  Conversely, extended periods of preparation with limited or no progress produce...well nothing really (these periods of preparation can produce the illusion of progress through conversation and surface level changes).  Leadership is about getting the shirt and the sleeves of our organization rightside out and then putting the shirt on; it is not about cramming our organization into inside out sleeves or getting the sleeves rightside out and never putting on the shirt.