Have You Written Your Passionography?

I've been asked about my passionography assignment and if I would share it.  The passionography is the result of self-examination and surveys of others about yourself.  The following are what served as inputs to ponder while compiling a passionography:

• Understanding of your personal strengths
• Your personal skills
• What is important to you
• Strongly held beliefs that are aspects of your personal faith/values
• Survey of what others think that you feel is of importance
• Survey of others of how they view you as a leader

From: faithoncampus.com

With all of that input, you then begin to formulate your own personal passionography with respect to your leadership outlook.  As you will notice, the first paragraph is what I used as input into my leadership manifesto.  This is a very personal document and serves as a compass to revisit in order to reset my direction.  

Think of the passionography as saying, "This is who and why I am"  The leadership manifesto says, "This is where I'm going and how I'm going to go about it"  The two together are like a map and a compass - they work together to guide you on your journey.

If you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to comment or shoot me an email at jgriffin@seniorsguide.net.

My Passionography

 Importance of Leadership

 Everyone is a leader in some way, but not everyone accepts the responsibility of leadership.  Leaders influence and inspire – in both negative and positive ways.  When we accept the responsibility to be influential and inspirational to others, it is then that we are stepping out of our comfort zone of complacency and self-absorbed egos to put our focus on others.  How can one possibly think they can influence someone else without first understanding those they desire to influence?

 Personal Impact of Leadership

 I have been blessed by having influential leaders in my life.  Mrs. Cain, my high school chemistry teacher that told me that I was good at a lot of things, but she’d love to see me narrow the focus to be great at a few things.  Tony Gossett, my first mentor, made me memorize chapters 6-8 of the book of Romans, to understand human struggle and the opportunity to have quality in life through a real and growing relationship with God.  John Yancey, my second mentor, challenged me to write out every verse in the book of Proverbs that was related to the use of our lips, tongue, mouth, or spoken word teaching me to power of life, death, success and failure that our words can have on ourselves and others. Michael Woolstrum, my current mentor (at various times in the past 12 years) has taught me the value of selfless living, high work ethic, and focus on others.

The life and legacy that I see in these people has influenced and inspired me to want to grow in personal and spiritual maturity.  I could only hope that my life can influence and inspire at least one person as much as they’ve done for me.

 Personal Leadership

 I love God and love people, but understand that many do not feel that same way.  I’ve met many people who “don’t know and don’t care” about God, but seem to have a love and care for humanity.  Meanwhile, I know others who love God, but somehow miss the mark when dealing or caring for people.  I am not implying that my love for God and people is perfect, but I’d like to think that I am intentional and authentic when relating to another person.

I want “to leave the world a better place”.  I want to achieve great things and help others do the same or surpass those achievements.  I want people to have a choice to know my God in a real and personal way.  I want to help people discover what makes them “come alive” and find ways to incorporate that into their life’s journey.

What does this have to do with leadership?  Everything.

Jim Elliot, a missionary killed in Ecuador while trying to evangelize the Waodani Indians, said “Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.”  (Shadow of the Almighty, by Elisabeth Elliot)  For some, this quote takes on the meaning of bold, in-your-face Bible thumping evangelism.  For me, the quote takes on a different meaning when paired with this quote often attributed to Theodore Roosevelt: “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care”.

I do not want to simply be a road sign declaring how many miles one has traveled or how much farther they have to go.  I want to be a tour guide for many on this journey called life, providing maps of navigation through the tough terrain of disappointment and grief and celebrating on the summits of the mountains of blessing and peace.

There is nothing more rewarding to me, than to see the miraculous change in a person’s eyes when they’ve encountered God in a real and personal way.  My hope is that intentional servant leadership and success will open the doors that will permit me to introduce others to my creator and the ultimate servant leader, Jesus Christ.

What are you passionate about? Please share.

Week 14: The Umbrella of Trust....

Just when one thinks it doesn't get any better than this - it does.  Our team has crested, yet another summit.  We've climbed the mountain of "Journey" this week and found TRUST at the top.

This week, we were individually assigned the task of comparing our journey to a movie of our choosing.  We were then asked to meet within our teams and openly share those journeys with one another while taking the time to really pause and reflect on each one's journey.  Our team met on Saturday for dinner and spent 6.5 hours on this exercise.  Each one's journey was truly unique.  There was intentional vulnerability in the discussion - from the sharing of the journey, the ensuing discussion, and insight from the team.  I continue to learn more about each person - and I am amazed and blessed by their journey.

Humor me for a moment and imagine that our team has just climbed Mount Journey and reached Trust Summit.  We're experiencing a new beginning of a new day together as the fog of self (ego, fear, control) is burnt off by the morning sunrise (vulnerability).  There's this brisk air of excitement of the new day....clarity, hope, inspiration, openness, respect.

Last night in our leadership class, each team was asked to summarize what we've learned so far in this leadership series with respect to living out our values, faith and ethics in leadership.  Our team came up with "The Umbrella of Trust" - see picture to the left.

We all have the umbrella, but we also have to be intentional in its use.  When the rain comes, we can either do nothing and get drenched and soggy with the elements of the storm or we can make the choice to open the umbrella and experience covering.  The elements we depicted in the picture were elements of self and of others - ego, fear, "in the box", conflict, etc....  We viewed the umbrella of trust as enabling each of us to navigate the storm - not necessarily get out of the storm.  When the umbrella of trust is open, the catalyst or enabler of the benefits of trust is intentional vulnerability.  Trust and vulnerability enable openness to feedback, respect, reconciliation, inspiration....all of the list in the picture above.  This whole concept is still forming in our minds....who knows, there may be more to come on this.

In our Economics class, it was a night of critique and rebuttal presentations.  Each team's SWOT analysis was given to another team to be critiqued.  That critique was provided back to the original team so that they could put together a rebuttal.  Last night, each team was responsible for two presentations - 1) Critique of another team's paper and 2) Rebuttal of the critique on their own paper.  Similar to the night we had marketing presentations, I enjoyed watching each team present as it gave people who normally do not speak up in class a chance to talk.

All of the presentations were good.  The exercise provided the opportunities to give constructive criticism and feedback to another team while receiving similar criticism and feedback on your own paper.  Some winced, squirmed and showed forced smiles as they fought back the temptation to defend themselves, while others graciously nodded their heads with understanding.  It is always hard to hear criticism, but I believe, as a whole (not just our team), our cohort is developing a trust for one another that we ultimately understand that we're all trying to help each other.  We're not here to try to make someone else look bad, but rather, we are encouraging each other to finish strong in this MBA marathon.

Thank you team #2 for graciously receiving our critique and thank you team #3 for taking the time to read and critique our paper.  I had to open my umbrella of trust many times during the evening, but I'm so glad I understood my choice to do so.