Leadership Notes -- Thoughts on Leading People and Making a Difference in Organizations

Word count this issue: 514

Estimated reading time:  3.15 minutes

Greetings from AC 212 enroute to work for the next couple of days with young leaders in Alberta’s credit union system. I’m looking forward to the work. And I have been thinking too about elders. This Sunday is the amazing Sun Run in Vancouver where me and about 60,000 of my closest friends will run, walk or wheel 10km in what I think is the largest community based 10km in Canada if not North America. The cathedral team is the largest ever but we’re down a member this year. George Fuller died at the age of 87 in January of this year. Last year, George walked the 10k at the age of 86 in his slow, plodding way. Our team captain waited for George to finish, which he did. Her waiting for George last year said more about how we should be living and working together than anything I have written or said on the subject. And then, just this morning I ran into an old boss of mine in the Air Canada lounge. He and his wife were in transit from Pheonix to visit her ailing mother. Both are in their early 70’s now, and they are dealing with a cancer as well. There is then in my excitement about the work with the young leaders this week, a poignancy. 

Whether you are as old as George, or even bit younger like my old boss, or if you are one of the 30 somethings I’ll be working with this week, you and I are called to look out for one another. Sure, you  can challenge yourself, you can constantly improve, and be a success in life, (what ever that means!). And at the end of the day, remember that you wouldn’t be here without other people. People who loved you, people who pushed you, people who believed in you, even when you did not believe in yourself. As much as you are you, you are also the result of a whole bunch of others. And you contribute every day to other people, both positively and negatively. We are interconnected and interdependent in ways we are only now beginning to understand. 

I believe that our collective work is about it’s about building a better, just and peaceful world for all people, starting right here and right now. That is the work to which George Fuller dedicated his life. Was he perfect? Not on your life. But in the same way he slowly walked the full 10km, he lived his life, making a difference one person at a time. It is the work my former boss and his wife dedicated their lives to. Are they perfect? Not at all. And they are working, one step at a time to make the world even a little better. It is the work that each and everyone of us is called to. To slowly and gradually be making a positive difference, one person at a time.