There are times in my life when I play the part of the follower rather than a leader. A short while ago I sang a song in church called “Lead Me”. In the song, the man is talking of the pressure to be the leader of his family (wife and children) and then ultimately decides that he cannot be a leader unless he is a follower (of God). So, in a sense, the father plays both parts, a leader and a follower. I would say that this is true in my home life.
In my work life, I am more of a follower than a leader though mostly I feel that I work independently with an occasional check in with my manager to make sure I am doing my job. I have more solo projects than team projects but I think that will change soon due to shifts in the workload of my team. I have been a leader of a major migration project for the last (8) months but now that the project is over (or soon will be) it is back to working in a vacuum.
The U2 song, “I Will Follow”, is about Bono’s love for his mother who died while he was young. Much has been written about U2 lyrics so I am not here to open a new discussion or add to an existing one. I do remember first hearing this song around Christmas time when I was in my teens. I received the album, “Boy”, (on LP) as a gift. My step grandfather saw the album cover and asked me, “Who are the U2 Boys”? I still chuckle as I think about that remark. I wore the LP out (like I did for most of my U2 LPs) by massive amounts of listening to it and I still have that LP somewhere in my closet.
Speaking of following, my manager is following in my footsteps. I was asked (on short notice) to travel to Malaysia and declined the offer. This would have been the same type of business trip as when I recently travelled to Romania as we are rolling out a project in the Asia Pacific region now instead of EMEA. Anyway, my manager offered to go in my stead. We spent a little time together on the phone as I prepped him for the presentations that were expected of him and then he decided to do something totally against his nature, to start a blog about his trip. So he is following in my footsteps. I walked him through setting up his blog and give him a few pointers. If you want to follow it (pun intended), you can do so here…
http://wallace-malaysia.blogspot.com
Jon
No comments:
Post a Comment