I just returned from the Annual Institute for the HealthCare Financial Management Association in Seattle Wednesday and I attended the Region III Toastmasters Conference this morning to facilitate a presentation on leadership. I saw extreme positions of leadership at these events.
In Seattle, there were 27 rows of vendor booths. A CFO who has also served HFMA in a leadership role for years, visited each and every booth. I heard there were over 300 booths filled with sales people that wanted to sell something, a daunting gauntlet to run for a CFO. Yet she did. Why? (We’ll come back to that).
Contrast that to the Region III Toastmasters conference. We had volunteer speakers who were presenting on a variety of topics and due to the early morning session, there were not a lot of attendees. As the facilitator or host for my speaker, I went out to round up some attendees. This is the response I received from more than one alleged leader; (these were people that had served District and International roles in the organization)
“What’s the Topic; Leadership. Been there done that.”
When I asked the CFO why she visited each booth, she replied, “for two reasons. First, we could not host a show like this without the support of these vendors. We should thank them. Second, every year I learn something new.”
Now as a follower, which leader do you feel more inspired by? Which one are you willing to contribute your time and energy to?
So have you “Been there done that” OR are you still learning something new every year?
“Leadership…. Been there, done that.”
Had to laugh out loud when I read that one. Not because it is surprising, but because it is so typical of people to think that a title, or having read a book (or part of a book), somehow makes them not only a leader, but an excellent leader.
Great leaders have many things in common, but among those things are the process of continual eduation and learning about themselves, the people around them, and about leadership as well.
Sadly “we don’t know what we don’t know”. As a result we don’t see our weaknesses, we are unaware of how we are viewed by others, and we are blind to our own possibilities for growth.
Toastmasters believe in personal growth, yet here we have a perfect example of someone who believes that they have “had enough” personal growth in the area of leadership. Let’s hope that their eyes get opened on a small issue that helps them grow and not a larger issue that has a more dramatic, and negative impact on them.