he significance of
leading is
something I don’t
take lightly. Over my lifetime I’ve come to respect different styles of leadership primarily because I don’t believe I was born a leader.
My mother and father were only children who had very decisive ideas regarding how we would behave, when we ate, how we shared, when we played, how we loaded the dishwasher, you get the idea. I also had a very intelligent,
capable, assertive,
talkative and empathetic older sister who pretty much did it all very well, including answering for me and being the first to step in to help unload the dishwasher or lend a hand at the mere sign that Mom needed some help. I pretty much could slide through the day, following along, knowing someone else would guide me and figure it out.
Funny thing was, I was never unnoticed. It’s sort of hard to glide through life with a head
full of bright orange hair.
So, over the decades, I both found my voice and used my unique talents and God-given (though redheads run on both sides of our family) features to make some waves, connect with people and uncover the leader in myself.
How else could a shy redhead end up giving speeches in front of 700 people, chairing philanthropic boards, project managing large design teams for replacement hospitals (right out of college), heading global business development or leading a vintage wooden boat parade?
These incremental steps are quite elemental but certainly led to my evolution as a leader:
T