Professional Sustainability Corner
Lifeguard or Swimmer?
Craig Woodall
As leaders we have many responsibilities, this series of articles (which started in the Winter 2015 edition) has delved into some of the challenges that we face as leaders including communication and dealing with change. There is however one ultimate responsibility of being a leader, more important than any other, and that is to create a leadership legacy, a generation of leaders to continue the journey that we have been a part of.
The task of a leader is to get people from where they are to where they have not been. - Henry Kissinger
So to the question in the title: are you a swimmer or a lifeguard? Throughout my career I have had the pleasure of partnering with many organizations and you can usually tell within minutes of being in their company whether they are creating Leadership Legacy or just struggling through another day. I use the analogy of a swimming pool as I
believe it is a perfect representation of the dynamics in most professional workplaces. Sometimes I walk into the pool area and I see the most mature and competent swimmers in the deep end, confidently swimming back and forth and occasionally exiting the water to climb the high board to demonstrate their diving prowess. Sitting on the pool
10 | CONSTRUCTION ECONOMIST | www.ciqs.org | Winter 2016
deck you will see more junior, less experienced swimmers, all dressed for swimming with bathing suits and goggles but they are bone dry. There may even be a few paddling in the shallow end but the rope across the center of the pool clearly defines their limits and restricts their movements. To return to Table of Contents CLICK HERE
