In the Tuesday August 18th edition of The Wall Street Journal (article not available online), in an article about Max Kepler-Rozycki, a 16 year old baseball prospect from Germany, came a profound truth.
The prospect’s parents are both dancers, and his mother Kathy Kepler was a former star ballerina in the Berlin ballet. The profound truth is hers and comes in the first paragraph of the story.
Wow.
I’ve read it four or five times, and I can’t gt it out of my mind.
I don’t know much about ballet (especially at the highest levels), so I don’t know if this is literally true, but the message is powerful.
I wish I could make such a poetic phrase with the word leader, because the truth is the same.
If we aren’t continually on a learning path, we aren’t continually leading, our skills as a leader will atrophy. — quickly.
This speaks to the design of any organizational leadership development process, but it speaks to something much deeper.
It speaks to a personal commitment to the art, science and importance of being a more effective leader.
Which leads me to some important leadership questions:
Organizationally, how committed are you to your leaders?
How committed are you to coaching and mentoring the leaders (and future leaders) you lead?
And, most importantly, how committed are you to your own leadership development?
(Are you committed at the “three days away, out of the ballet level”?)
By the way you answer can’t be given in words, but in actions.
Leading to my most important leadership development question of today (and any day) – –
What are doing to grow yourself as a leader today?
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