Over the last couple of weeks, I have written on Leadership and Management … Consultation … Resourcefulness… Certitude… Cleanliness… Commitment… our Core Four …. and Confidence. I write on character leadership and education. Actually, I study, teach, speak, educate, train, facilitate, sing, dance, cartoon, write, blog, vlog and create on same. It is part of my purpose.
With that in heart and mind, I am also a business educator with a focus on HR, Strategic Leadership, Organizational Behaviour and Entrepreneurship. I am intrigued in and passionate about the experience of learning. For me, learning has myriad forms. Still, at its core… it implies key steps; acquiring new information, applying it through practice, assessing the results of such practice, and adapting where necessary. This provides us new information to cycle through again. At its simplest, learning is about acquiring, applying, assessing, adapting in a life long and constant cycle.
That said, and drawing from my work as a business educator and with Epic Engage, I am now planning for a weekly blog post that will take this A4 process and apply it to matters around HR, Strategic Leadership, Organizational Behaviour and Entrepreneurship… with an emphasis on the role character leadership and education can play in building ever more effective leaders and teams at school, work, business and community.
To commence such a journey, I first ask that you engage this conversation between Simon Sinek and Rich Diviney. Rich refers to attributes where I would suggest Virtues. Rich suggests that skills are appropriate for known situations and that character (our attributes or the practice of Virtues) are ever and even more valuable in times of change and challenge. “High performing” teams especially excel when things go awry. That considered as possibly new information, please also consider these 118 Virtues.
The first Strategy of The Virtues Project is Speak the Language (of Virtue). It implies that to speak same, we must learn of their meaning. Character is not simply about being good or strong. It is the application and practice of Character in its myriad forms; Virtues. Building Character requires us to understand that it has many facets, faces and forms that are each required under different circumstances. Character Leadership at it bests is situational where we call upon the practice of Virtues necessary and appropriate for a given situation. And we all have access to that practice. We simply put them into practice. Practice makes permanent.
But to start, we must first learn the language… new information.
LEARN on CONTENTMENT
So, my thought this day is that you consider the Virtue of Contentment.
Consider my own thoughts here. Consider this final scene from Castaway. Read the Virtues Reflection Card. Reflect on it. Consider my words and that scene in Castaway. Acquire any new information you can.
Now, what would the practice of this Virtue look like for you at school, work, business or community?
Learn of the Virtue. Put it into practice. Observe and assess results internally and externally. Tweak. Try again.
And again.
I suggest the conscious practice of Contentment and the learning of and through it might be a solid launch pad for this learning journey around which I will be blogging. What would Contentment look like for you, moving forward? This day and week, I am pondering same. It will require my own Acquisition, Application, Assessment and Adaptation. Then, each week going forward, we will look at some aspect of business, education, HR, strategic leadership, organizational behaviour or entrepreneurship and examine it from the angles of learning and character. But, this week ahead, I am going to study, practice and learn on the capacity of Contentment to make me more effective at school, work, business and community.
Are you with me?
Peace, passion and prosperity…
Barry Lewis Green, The Unity Guy with Epic Engage.
“Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. ― Abraham Lincoln