Leadership is about dealing with what is, rather than what you’ve planned for. When I started this series on the Leadership of Letting Go, I didn’t foresee that my laptop would have a serious accident today, when I was arriving at a client’s office. I was upset for a moment after it happened, who wouldn’t be?! Then I realized, there’s nothing I can do about this, right now. This is something over which I am powerless, i.e. a big opportunity to practice letting go. (Did I mention, I skipped my last back-up.) I took a few deep breaths, rang the doorbell, went into the meeting and spent two hours focused on my client’s issues.
Once the meeting was over, I was able to turn my attention to my unresponsive laptop. contact my local computer support. The machine is a write-off. Fortunately, the experts have been able to salvage the hard disk. In a few days, I’ll be fully operational again. In the meantime, I will do my best to let go of the need to be ultra-responsive to emails.
Leadership is about dealing with what is, rather than what you’ve planned for.
Photo: David Mingay, iStockphoto