Something I’m Truly, Seriously, And Really Very Proud Of
After touching down in Birmingham last night, I received a call from Running Antelope.
She said there was a big surprise waiting for me here at the office.
And she wasn’t kidding.
I received an official letter, congratulating me on being accepted into the 2007–2008 class of Leadership Tuscaloosa.
In their own words…
Leadership Tuscaloosa has been established on the basic assumption that while leaders can and do emerge without formal training, they will emerge more quickly and with a higher commitment to the public good if their development is undertaken as a serious and conscious objective.
This year just so happens to be the 25th anniversary class of Leadership Tuscaloosa. And unlike the last several classes, they held the class size to exactly 40 participants for this year. So Leadership Tuscaloosa alumni/officers interviewed all the applicants, in sets of 2 or 3 at a time.
Now, imagine if you were going to a job interview, and you were interviewed simultaneously with the folks who were going up against you for that job. Yeah, a tad unnerving, to say the least. But a pretty cool test, if you can really call it that.
On a personal and professional note…
I’ve wanted to do Leadership Tuscaloosa, quite frankly, for a very very very long time. Because I’ve always known how fundamentally crucial leadership and business training is for people’s businesses to be successful. I saw that while working for my father’s construction business years ago.
One of the questions we were asked was…
Are leaders born or made?
And now with a bit of time to think that question over, I prolly would have phrased my answer a bit differently, altho the content of my answer is still largely the same…
In my opinion, neither.
Leaders are honed.
And it’s not a one-step *poof* hey-you’re-a-leader kinda thing. To me, being a good leader is a continual process of evaluating your own skills and ideas, being completely honest about your own weaknesses and shortcomings, and finding people who complement your own skills to put on your team. But that process has to start somewhere.
Now I just can’t wait to find out who’s in the class with me.
Am I stoked?
You betcha!
|| posted by chris under business, community || comments (2) || ||
It’s an interesting concept to say the least..
comment by Elisabeth — August 25, 2007 @ 10:01 am
Congratulation on your acceptance, Chris!
We have a similar program here run by the Chamber of Commerce, that I participated in during 2006.
The program had a tremendous impact on my personally and professionally; I’m so thankful I was able to do it.
Our program is setup so that one person from each class is asked to return for the following two years to co-chair the program, and I was fortunate enough to be asked, so I’ll be doing my third “tour of duty” in 2008.
I have no doubt that you’ll be a leader among leaders with your program, and I’d love to hear your feedback during and after the program to see if Tuscaloosa is doing things we’d like to incorporate into our program.
Again, congrats!
comment by Jason — September 13, 2007 @ 10:34 am