Event Speaker: Leah Brown, Crescendo Strategies

IF YOU WANT GREAT, YOU GO FIRST.

LEAH BROWN, TALENT RETENTION STRATEGIST, CRESCENDO STRATEGIES

“Ah, the good old days…” I hear people say that A LOT. “ I can’t wait till things go back to normal.” “It used to be so much easier.” But was it REALLY? Was it perhaps just simpler? Did people just keep their thoughts to themselves, not question and suffer in silence?

I was one of those people in the silent majority. I’m one of the oldest Gen Xers, missing the Baby Boomer generation by just three years. I was raised in a very traditional way. Which really meant, go to church, respect your elders, don’t ask questions, clean your plate and do what I said—because I said so! We all looked alike and thought alike, and to step much outside those lines meant you were rocking the boat. When I started working there wasn’t much delineation between the leader and “the boss”. They were one and the same and the boss was, well, the boss.

We all said my boss, but today we say our leader. Why? Because leadership today is less about command and control and more about creating the vision and bringing the team together to create the results.

Brené Brown says “A leader is anyone who takes the time to find the potential in people and processes and, who has the courage to develop that potential.”

Wow! I love that definition because it opens the leadership door of possibility to everyone, not just the few who have the position or title. The more I thought about it, the more I started to see leadership showing up in its purest form everywhere, in people and places I’d never looked before. It was sort of like when you decide you want a new blue chevy truck and suddenly there are blue chevy trucks everywhere.

You see this definition doesn’t just say some people. It says people-ALL people-no matter how young or old, where they come from, that they believe, who they love, their gender or how they learn, their physical ability or the color of their skin. We, as people, are called to greatness. We as leaders are to call others to greatness.

The average car has approximately 30,000 parts. If we were to lay them all out on the ground, they would not look like a car. But the vision of the designer, the leader, sees more than just the individual part. She sees that each part is just as important as the next, with potential to create bigger and better things. She sees their potential and develops that potential into something great.

Our teams are like that car. Each member is equally valuable as the next. And they are all different for a greater purpose. They each bring their unique gifts, talents and abilities which make them individually great and create an even better team.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. If you want something different, something better, you can’t keep doing the same thing you’ve always done. Saying things like “you can’t find good help these days” or “no one wants to work anymore” is like laying out the car parts and expecting them to figure out how to put themselves together and then go drive to the store.

If you want something different, call yourself to greatness FIRST. Begin looking for and developing the potential in ALL people, not just the ones that look and think like you. You’ll be amazed at the greatness that shows up in others, because you chose to be great first. n