I am still basking in the enjoyment I experienced at the 2012 Byron Bay Writers Festival. One of the speakers was Geoff Gallop, former premier of WA and now an academic at Sydney University. He spoke about the many challenges faced by political leaders and quoted Paul Keating from the 2002 Curtin Lecture. Keating:
Leaders are significant in history. There is more to history than the determinism of events; personalities do matter, the scope of their minds matters, their courage matters, their capacity to make people believe, matters. And leaders carry that singular burden, responsibility. Being trustee of the nation’s safety and its future directions, and the pressure that that involves, makes a leader’s thought processes different from other ministers or officials.
Leaders need support
I provide one on one leadership coaching support to leaders in the business sector be that a corporation, a not for profit an SME or their own small business. I see one of my roles at being a professional companion to my clients as they face the loneliness that goes with needing to have the courage and skill to “make people believe” by, as Keating said, thinking differently from their team and their other stakeholders.
This is why there are lots of truisms said about leaders: my two favourites are:
Leaders absorb the pain, and
It’s lonely at the top.
Are you feeling the loneliness of leadership?
If you are, seek out a professional mentor or coach who can act as a safe sounding board for you and provide the confidential time for the reflective practice that is essential for effective leadership – for thinking differently.
