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Many years ago I started a practice of taking the time during this week of Thanksgiving to show my appreciation to those working for me. When I started working in Higher Education, this translated into showing my gratitude to my students for allowing me to be a part of their lives. This year, for only the second time in 18 years, I find myself in a position where I have no one working directly for me nor am I working directly with students. But this won’t stop me from showing my gratitude.
In a previous article, I described that to me the real meaning of life is to be able to discover how we want to feel and to create a life that allows us to have that feeling as often and as long as possible. For a number of years I’ve believed that this is the real meaning of life, but until recently I’ve not been able to clearly articulate what I want to feel. I’ve been narrowing it down for quite a while, able to understand the feeling but not able to articulate it completely.
A Tough Time
The past year has been hard for me. I’m currently in a position in our organization where I have to help get new initiatives launched. Most of these initiatives involve change that touches thousands of students and hundreds of faculty and staff. As you can imagine, this kind of change is rarely popular when it happens, though it is almost always very good in the long run. With all of this change, the team I work with tends to take the brunt of the unhappiness. After a while it starts to seem like no one really wants to hear from me.
On top of all this, the work itself tends to become all-consuming. Short deadlines tend to lead to an incredible amount of work to do each day. Working from home makes it way too tempting to just pop into the office for five minutes, only to leave three hours later.
A couple of months ago, I started to recognize that the work had become all-consuming, taking all of my mental energy. It was around this same time that I had one of my greatest “a-ha” moments. Being constantly “beat up” by folks that didn’t want to hear from me about more change was really taking a toll on my attitude. As I reflected on this, I was finally able to discover my “it”, the “what I want to feel”.
How I Want to Feel
The thing that gets me “going”, that really gets me energized is being able to feel the appreciation of others for helping them to become better. I’ve spent the last year actually getting the opposite. Not only have I not been getting appreciation from those that I work with, at times I’ve gotten open hostility. Which, of course, has been causing the opposite effect for me.
Recognizing that I needed to do something, I decided to carve out time for myself and go back to the area, topic, field, whatever you want to call it that has always given me energy: leadership. I started studying, practicing and working with “leadership” over 15 years ago and with my current position and workload has caused me to drift away from it.
Before moving into this position, I had started writing a book on Reflection Leadership but got side tracked by a new topic (social media in education). So in an effort to find an escape from my day job, I recently decided to start working on Reflection Leadership again. But this time, instead of just writing to myself I decide to start this blog. My hope was that as I suss out my thoughts around Reflection Leadership there would be others that would appreciate my work and help me to clarify my thinking.
What I’m Thankful For
The end of this week marks the end of my second month with the Reflection Leadership blog. I could not have hoped for any better results in the last two months. Everything I initially wanted out of this project has happened. I am extremely enjoying writing on a regular basis. It now gives me something constructive and engaging to occupy my thoughts and it has given me energy and renewed my passion for leadership work. Working on this blog has given me enough satisfaction that my day job has become infinitely more bearable. The reason for that is that my work on this blog again allows me to feel the appreciation of others.
Sometimes the appreciation comes in the form of a comment to something I post. Sometimes from a tweet on Twitter. Sometimes it’s just that I gained a handful more Twitter followers yesterday or someone influential retweeted something I posted. And sometimes it’s just that folks actually came and read what I had to say.
So during this week of Thanksgiving, I want to thank YOU for allowing me to be a part of your life and sharing my insights that hopefully help you to be better at whatever you do. I appreciate what you do for me by just being here.
Tom, this is such a personal post! I am thankful that you decided to blog, as I enjoy your writing very much. I am hoping in the future we can correspond more and compare notes, as reflection is one of my favorite subjects with regards to leadership, teamwork, creativity and life in general.
Twitter is such a supportive community to be in. As your following grows you can always find someone to bounce ideas with, find appreciation, conversation and a great ammount of flow. No small feat in our current culture! Funny how life always has what we desire or need, just not always at our reach or within our immediate circle.
As for your “day job” as you put it, you might try unabashedly asking for the positive side. Say someone is angry and criticizing your work. Listen closely and try to understand. Then, ask: “Is there anything you feel I am getting right?” That question will open a window for that person to consider a wider feedback, moving away from the strong defensiveness that informs relentless criticism. Try it. You might be surprised by the outcome.
Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving and so glad to make your acquaintance!