A Peek On My Checklist

So this is my third Leadership Conference at Manhattanville and like many others (I hope…I doubt I’m the only person making checklists out there) who will attend,  I have a few of things I want to learn or at least get some light shed upon.

Leader’s Smile

Yes, a smile. But by smile I mean the one defined as: a pleasant and agreeable appearance, look or aspect (thank you dictionary.com). Of course, we are all unique and our smiles will be unique. But I need to be schooled on the outer appearance qualities of a leader, because not everyone will get a chance to get to know a leader personally. So they will judge that book from its cover and I don’t want to be caught in a rugged old paper cover.

Cologne or Deodorant

Both cologne and deodorant are used to shield humanity from our constant body wastes. But they work slightly different at least in general. Cologne introduces a definite new scent to an individual while deodorants simply restore ones smell without the sweat. My point, well as a leader, do I strive to look for a certain definite and ideal atmosphere (cologne smell) and impose it on the ones I lead or should I work towards identifying and uprooting the weeds among the society I lead and ensure it remains like that, like deodorants do?

Pen or a pencil

By now I’m sure my subheadings interpretations are already predictable, well welcome to my world of checklists and to-do lists writing style. I digress. Any ways, this one is obviously a straight forward one. When you use a pen its more permanent (provided you are not a whiteout fanatic) and the opposite is true for pencils because it is easy erase its marks.  As a leader there are times you will have to make final cut decisions and stand by them no matter what and sometimes as a leader you can simply act as a moderator and not necessarily make final decisions just draw the plots suggested by those you lead. Hopefully this conference will enlighten me on when a leader ought to use ink and when to refer to a No.2.

I’m sure there are other appropriate titles for these three excuses for subheadings I used like etiquette, assertiveness, humility, fairness, openness etc. But that’s what you get for peeking.

PS: if you wanted a more serious talk on leadership strategy take a look at this TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

Cheers.

- Geoffrey Rugarabamu, Manahattanville Leadership Conference Committee Member (since 2009)