QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

These questions are meant to be thought provoking
​and arouse curiosity. Enjoy.
The definition of leadership I have adopted over the years is:
​
‘Creating outcomes that matter’
As a leader, what outcomes matter to you?
In 2010 Barack Obama told the Rolling Stone magazine;
​
"The issues that cross my desk are hard and complicated, and oftentimes involve the clash not of right and wrong, but of two rights. And you’re having to balance and reconcile against competing values that are equally legitimate."
How do you balance competing values that are equally legitimate?
In their book, An Everyone Culture, developmental psychologists Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey state:

"In an ordinary organization, most people are doing a second job no one is paying them for. In businesses large and small; in government agencies, schools, and hospitals; in for-profits and nonprofits, and in any country in the world, most people are spending time and energy covering up their weaknesses, managing other people’s impressions of them, showing themselves to their best advantage, playing politics, hiding their inadequacies, hiding their uncertainties, hiding their limitations. Hiding."
​
They conclude that, as a result, neither the organization nor its people are able to realize their full potential.
What comes to mind for you as you reflect on their assertion?
In his influential book The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Stephen Covey elaborates on a timeless wisdom when he says:

"Each of us tends to think we see things as they are, that we are objective. But this is not the case. We see the world, not as it is, but as we are—or, as we are conditioned to see it. When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms."
How is this true for you?
In his classic 1946 book Man’s Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl says:

"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom."
How do you experience this "space"?
The song lyrics below are from the song Unwritten by English singer/songwriter Natasha Bedingfield

I am unwritten, can't read my mind
I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand
Ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that
​you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
No question here—just something to think about.
Theoretical physicist Jonathan Archibald Wheeler stated:

"As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance."
Where has learning created more questions for you?