Thursday, January 28, 2016

Community Building takes leadership and Leadership is not always easy

Building community is an undertaking that constant scrutiny by people who are willing to move from their comfort zone to spheres of leadership.  Community building is not easy. Being a leader is not easy.  One of the leadership principles that I have seen work over and over again is exhibited by gutsy leaders who are willing to own the problem. "It's not my fault" is the refrain we hear so often when a situation needs repair and rebuilding.

Leaders in community building generally are not all that interested in finding fault; they are interested in creating solutions.

The solution comes far more quickly when we decide it matters a lot less now about who caused it and why and a lot more about how do we fix it. There is only so much building energy to be tapped. A leader who comes in with a willingness to own the problem is likely going to have a team working on the solutions long before the manager who has a need to fix blame and punish shortcomings.

Michael Hyatt, whose platform is as a virtual mentor, had an interesting blog post this morning on key leadership characteristics written about by former Navy SEAL Team leaders.  The post is a quick read and well worth the read if you are into leading community building efforts.