X.21.2018 - Leaders
When I was 11 years-old, I started making money by delivering the Windsor Star to 100+ customers — some people only wanted the week-end edition. I started reading content from sources other than the textbooks that I was told to read in school. That is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the reading material that my teachers prescribed but learning about events from around the world within 24 hours of happening supercharged my curiosity. I was making 18¢ per customer per week so that made it possible for me to buy subscriptions to TIME and National Geographic and I still had plenty of money left to pick-up the latest DC and Marvel comics at the corner bodega. I have always enjoyed a balanced diet when it comes to feeding my reading habit.
So, here I am many decades later and I have the ability to order books and magazines with a single click. I can have this treasure of knowledge and entertainment delivered at light speed to my devices or the old-fashioned way within a day, seven days per week. My budget is a little bigger today and my curiosity has not abated in the least. In fact, every so often, I check to see how much time is left on life’s runway before I takeoff on the next adventure. I have quite a backlog of books left to read, especially the ones that haven’t been written, yet.
I had three very different books intersect in my mind during the past month. The first book by Les Standiford, Water To The Angels, was the story of William Mulholland, the man who had the vision to build a 235-mile aqueduct from the mountains in California to the City of Los Angeles. The water literally saved the city and the story was immortalized (and seriously distorted) in the 1974 Robert Towne movie, Chinatown, starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. Great movie - lousy interpretation of the facts. amzn.to/WaterToTheAngels_Standiford
Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari was a read that caused me to reflect on my own existence through the lens of the billions of people who have come and gone since we emerged around 70,000 years ago. When one considers that our universe was formed 13.5 billion years ago, humans are — as Harari puts it — “…an animal of no significance.” Thankfully, this brilliant historian has a sense of humor even when he compresses human history into 450 pages. amzn.to/Sapiens_Harari
The third book, Dare To Lead by Brené Brown was a complete surprise. I have read a plethora of books on the subject of leadership and I have had the opportunity to professionally coach and study leaders at the “top of the house” in organizations ranging from less than a hundred staff to hundreds of thousands of people. But, rarely, have I been as inspired as I was by Brown’s insights and instructions about how leaders can be different, better and courageous. My favourite quote is, “…[leaders] lean into their vulnerability when it’s necessary to do good work.” amzn.to/DareToLead_BrenéBrown
The reason that this triad of books resonated with me is that once again I was impressed by how leadership comes in so many different forms. Bill Mulholland was not just a visionary, he was a hands-on engineer who was able to develop breakthrough building techniques at the same time that he was building an aqueduct that surpassed the aqueducts of the Roman Empire. Yuval Harari is an intellectual leader who tackled an overwhelming challenge while translating his deep knowledge into a narrative that humbles and energizes the reader at the same time.
Brené Brown described (for me) Mulholland and Harari through the lens of a non-traditional, innovative approach to leadership. She may have inadvertently raised the contentious, academic argument about whether leaders are born or made but through empathy, connection and courage, Brown clearly demonstrates that we can all be more effective as leaders.