What the Vice-President Said

…when he began speaking to those about to complete the organization’s program for High Potential Leaders:

“I’m delighted to be here to share my own leadership journey with you but I won’t be staying for your celebration dinner tonight. My nine year old son has a soccer game and I promised I’d see all his games this spring. I made the promise a couple of months ago and so far I’ve been good as my word. I think I was actually making the promise more to myself than to him. You see,” here he paused and looked around at the faces of each manager, all of them in their thirties or early forties, “this brings me to my most important leadership lesson, and the most painful. When I was where you are now, I was all about work. I loved it, I wanted to succeed, I was hungry. How many of you are like that?” He waited for a show of hands. “I thought so. If your hand hadn’t gone up, I would’ve wondered why you were on this program. When I was in the place you are now, I expected the rest of my life to fit in to my work; in fact, I insisted on it.”

He picked up his glass of water and peered into it as if it were a crystal ball, then took a sip and continued. “I can tell you now that I didn’t have any idea my choices then would result in my first marriage falling apart. I didn’t clue in until it was too late. I’m estranged from my children from that marriage. There are two of them. I want you to know there is little for me to be proud of in who I was as a father and husband in that marriage. But now, here I am, at age 54, and having a second chance to finally get it right. I remarried and have two more kids. And do you know what getting it right means to me now? It means my work fits into my life. I still love my work, it matters deeply to me; this organization and its future are important to me or I wouldn’t be here talking to you. But let me tell you, what I lead, what my leadership focuses on first and foremost is my life. I am here to lead my life, and yes, work is part of that, but whatever I do in offering leadership to this organization fits in to my life, fits in to the people and things that matter to me, or else I don’t do it.”

And for you, how’s the fit? What have you been choosing to lead?
© The Edgework Leadership Group, 2010