There is never a moment when you truly know if you are ready for leadership.
There isn’t an exam or an interview; and there isn’t a permission you need to wait for. There is just that uncomfortable dialogue between your values, your talent and your fears debating among themselves whether it is time for you to step forward.
Then one day you will be tapped on the shoulder by the gentle touch of your potential and you will know that this is your time to make your difference.
You cannot prepare for when this will happen, but you can welcome it when it does. The privilege of leadership is that it is no respecter of titles or status; it sits lightly on your soul waiting for you step into the moment and be you.
You see, leadership is not an external construct or model or a frame, it is within you and it is the whole of you. It is your anxieties, your weaknesses, your history, your childhood, your actions over years, and your extraordinary gifts.
Leadership happens when we accept that this bundle of frailty that is us, has the capacity to make a difference, just by being ourselves and in the moment choosing to act.
Yesterday we completed the 2022 LBCambridge2 Leadership Programme. Over two residential sessions six weeks apart we worked together. Faculty and delegates wrapped in their histories and their willingness to share and grow together. I am a little exhausted, but I am also inspired by the remarkable humanity, openness and generosity of the people I met. Every one of them a remarkable leader and people who are gong to make an extraordinary contribution to their worlds of work and in the communities they live in and serve. I am so lucky to know them now.
Leadership is not about grand gestures or even power. Leadership is to hold what matters to us in our hearts, to honour these things with our words and deeds, and then to live our lives trying to make things a little better.
The people of the 2022 LBCambridge2 cohort have changed my life for the better and now they will change their worlds even more than they did before.
Leadership is the way we honour our good fortune and use the blessings of our lives. Leadership is the story of our difference. Leadership is the hope we share that by noticing we can make things better.
Take care xx
