The "DO" Train

Anyone who has come of age as a leader while working in organizations has probably grown up on the train. It is a locomotive without brakes, without reverse, and when you hear it coming down the tracks, you hear its sound growing louder and louder, “do, Do, DO”. Nothing is more challenging than gaining the ability to step off the train. There is ALWAYS more to do: a next task, a next goal, a next meeting. We’ve been on it so long, it doesn’t occur to us there’s any other way to travel. And as to choosing leadership? Well, you can choose this meeting or that one, but in either case, you’re heading down the tracks.

Unfortunately we typically get off the Do Train only because something derails it, either in our personal life or at work. Only when we’re tossed off, do we gain enough perspective to see how constant, and how fast, we’d been moving. From off the train, we finally have the option to return in a new way, to get back on it and realize we have choices. We can choose what to engage with; we can set the terms of our engagement; we can choose to step back, and think; we can ask ourselves the critical questions we hadn’t given ourselves time to ask. The most valued career progression may be called “the fast track” but that doesn’t mean getting on and staying on is good for your growth, your health, or your leadership.

© Edgework Leadership Group