Day 14: Being Leaders with our Discipline

Today is Day 14, which is 2 weeks of the Omer . . . . . . Ha-yom arba'ah asar yom, shnei sh'vuot la-omer.

At the conference I'm attending, we have heard from incredible leaders - former vice-president Al Gore, president of the NAACP, the head of Planned Parenthood, current politicians, Jewish leaders in social action - who have chronicled a bit of their own and their organizational journeys to improve and continue to strive to make the world better.  Just as they have allowed their discipline to enhance their leadership, it is out time to figure out how to do the same for ourselves.  

THE OMER INTERSECTION: Gevurah + Malchut;  Discipline + Leadership

Who knew that discipline could have so many facets?  What seemed at first glance to be probably the most straight-forward and practical of our intersecting values has yielded all sorts of wonderful insights and opportunities for growth.  It all culminates with this last day of malchut, sovereignty/leadership.  The whole idea of working on our discipline - for ourselves and with others - has been a means for us to establish more control over the aspects of our world that we hope to change.  In many ways, gevurah is about becoming, and now that we have gotten to the end of the week, it is important to celebrate what our discipline has led us to become.  Of course, we always have more to achieve, more growth to find.  My engineering brain has been trained to seek out continual improvement.  But without stopping from time-to-time to recognize what our discipline has led us to be, we might continue changing without improving, going down paths of discipline that lead us away from our goals instead of towards them, and we might even get burnt out from the sense that we are doing all this work without seeing the benefits.   

THE OMER CHALLENGE: 

So, how do we apply this idea?  Good leaders must reflect on how they have led and make adjustments.  How many times have politicians adapted new approaches in order to stay relevant and effective?  Or on a more practical level, how many baseball players have changed their swings in order to compensate for changes in hand-eye coordination or injuries?  How many aging basketball players hone their fadeaway jumpshots (I'm looking at you, Michael Jordan) over the course of their careers so that they do not have to put as much stress on their bodies by charging at the basket every possession?  Not only does such an approach help avoid injury, but it also makes for a more complete player - one who can hit a shot when the defender gives him room, or can blow by him to the basket, should the defender get too close.  
Now, it is up to us to make some adjustments for ourselves - to tinker towards utopia, as a wonderful book about the public school system in America discusses.  The reason we build up our forms of discipline was so that we could improve ourselves and reach new goals.  Today is the time that we take to assess some of those goals.  
TASK: Let us take out any list of goals we might have (I'm going to consult my New Year's resolutions I referred to earlier in the week) and fill out a self-assessment.  We have to ask ourselves, "What did/will it take for me to get there?" "Am I on the right track to achieving this goal? If not, what adjustments to my discipline must I make?"  And if we have managed to achieve a goal on our list, then we should ask two questions:
1) How has this made me a stronger, better person?  How has the accomplishment of this goal changed my life or the lives of others?
2) Now that I'm at this plateau, is there any further development I hope to make in this area of my life?

I know that these ideas may not at first glance look like they have a ton to do with leadership, but being able to self-assess and adjust one's behavior to align more with one's values is paramount to one's ability to make similar decisions in the best interest of a company/family/relationship/team/other-venue-of-leadership.  And in the end, doing so frees us a little bit from the feeling that life just happens to us.  Just as I mentioned in the lead-up to the omer, life happens quickly, and it can sometimes feel as though life is just happening to us.  When we discipline our behavior to align with our goals and the person we WANT to be, then we live out our time - we may not control everything around us, but we have the tools to respond in ways that bring life and blessing to this world.

OMER REFLECTION:
Rachel's birthday was a success!  Thank you to anyone who reached out to her - we both get lifted up when we hear from loved ones.  Between the time we spent together and with colleagues and friends and newly acquired friends from across the country who are also at this conference, we have done a lot of yesod, bonding, as well.  And it takes discipline to be able to manage to have time for all the events and the people in such settings.  But what a worthwhile endeavor.
The rest of yesterday's post involved a reflection on the major events of yesterday.  And on facebook, at this conference, even with random strangers in the elevator - sure enough, there has been a lot of bonding over the discussion of what the death of Osama bin Laden means.  Anyone I asked had something to say.  I don't know if this is a shared moment of joy, relief, confusion, justice, or any other label, I just know that the world shared an experience.  And though I know this is a misquote of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr (only the second half of this statement is his from a 1967 speech, "Where Do We Go from Here"), this snippet I've seen on a few facebook pages offers a summary of a lot of what I've been hearing from people: ‎"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that"


And from a Jewish perspective here's another reflection that I agree with in parts and not as much in other parts, but found the read to be quite thought-provoking: 


Now, get ready to move on to a week of . . . tiferet - compassion!