Revelatory Leadership

I read another portion of the book the 21 laws of leadership and another part stuck out at me particularly strongly. This section discusses the difference between workers and leaders.  This list compares good vs great vs top tier workers and leaders. Good workers are willing to help solve a problem. Great workers say to themselves how can I solve this problem. Top tier workers figure out how to mitigate future problems. Tellingly, even top tier workers are not leaders. Workers take resources, including their own time, and apply them to solving problems. This is a great and important skill to have. It is not, however, leadership. Analagously to this list of traits of workers are the traits of leaders: Good leaders, when asked, are able to pull together a team and motivate them to solve a problem Great leaders look for challenges that face your organization and pull together teams and resources to proactively solve the problems. Top tier leaders build great leaders and b...

I've recently been thinking through two different topics - ultralight backpacking and simplifying what we do in our church callings. This morning I realized that the two are actually very related. In ultralight backpacking the idea is that the less your pack weighs, the more enjoyable your trip will be. You'll be able to hike further and enjoy the trip much more than someone with a heavier weight pack. This may seem redundant, but in order to be a successful ultralight backpacker, you first need to figure out how to have an ultralight pack. This involves a few critical steps: Determine what functionality you need to have on your trip. Not "stuff" but what you need to accomplish. Be realistic.  Look at the "stuff" you have. Figure out how they "stuff" maps to the functions.  Weigh each item. Get into the details. Determine how to accomplish your functionality with the least amount of "stuff".  Start a process of improving your ...