"we have found the enemy, and he is us"

and my return to the blog. so my whole "i'm gonna blog once a month" thing fell through. but we'll try to keep this up a bit better this time around.

so the book i'm reading for class talks about developing your leadership skills and takes you through different levels of leadership and all the things that go into being a leader etc and the author makes it seem like anyone can be a leader if you put time into developing the necessary skills. but what about the people who lack the motivation or the ability to develop the skills? not everyone can be a leader despite what the author says. whether it's a lack of competence or time or whatever, i don't think that just anyone can become a great leader. if everyone were leaders, where would the followers be? i feel god gives some people the gift of leadership and others are left w/o.

what makes me laugh(out loud sometimes, even at the times that i shouldn't be laughing) are the people who lack the skills/knowledge/ability/whatever to lead but think that they can be leading people in certain situations. there was a time this summer that a coworker of mine(sorry goli, but this still makes me laugh) jumped at the opportunity to lead a sherpa walk, where everyone is blindfolded except the facilitators and the group is told to get from point a to point b. so my friend jumped at the chance to be a leader in this case of the blind leading the blind(literally). he had the knowledge of the camp layout and wanted to assert himself as a leader which as a returning staff member i feel you should during training of the new staff. anyway, once the walk began he led the group from the lodge through the grass and after a while, onto the road. once the group got to the road it began to pinball back and forth from side of the road to the other side and back and forth. their pace had gone from good to a crawl. but from the momentum they had and unwillingness to give up leadership they were unable to return to their good form.

we need to look at our own faults and find those times when we need to become less of a leader and more of a follower. my textbook says that we are able to lead by position only for so long before people stop listening to us and we need to earn our position as a leader. my favorite quote as of late has been "we maintain that 'though we are not perfect, others are worse'. and then comes the mirror." but how do we keep a mirror in front of us reminding us when we are needing to change what we're doing, whether for the good of others or for ourselves? it's something i need to recognize in my own life.

now back to goli. after that session he did a great job of realizing when to step aside when it was needed and grew a ton that summer. i think one of the things that helped him was the people around him, people giving him honest feedback and doing it in a caring fashion. i had one of those this summer, my co-program staffer who gave me the brutally honest facts and i learned so much from her and the others around me. sometimes i would resort to my initial reaction of fighting the criticism but who doesn't resist being told to change in their own ways? i wish that i had this more in my everyday life. i have a few friends that will be the brutally honest voice, but i wish i had this in all my relationships. i wish people would tell me my mistakes as i make them so i can keep growing and fixing my mistakes as they happen.

anyway, thanks to goli for letting me share this story, he knows i love him.

also, i've been in a 90's music sort of mood alot lately, so here's the list
toad the wet sprocket- all i want
dave matthews- crush
goo goo dolls- black balloon
u2- where the streets have no name
cee low green- f you
anberlin- down
josh turner- would you go with me