GLN conversation ~ Leadership beginnings

Earlier this year I was approached to become a Director of the Global Leadership Network UK (GLN) and having accepted the appointment I had a “conversation by email” where we explored my background and some leadership related topics.  The discussion that ensued is reproduced here in an unedited format.  (Note that the Global Leadership Summit (GLS) is the flagship conference for the GLN which is held in Chicago in August each year.  This includes talks from Leaders around the world and is rebroadcast around the UK later in the year.)

Can you name a person who has had a tremendous impact? Maybe someone who has been a mentor to you? Why and how did this person impact your life? 

For most of my life, I have drawn encouragement and inspiration from authors.  In my early career, I found myself travelling with work a lot, and often found myself browsing the airport bookstores.  Here I found my inspiration from authors such as Peter Drucker, Ken Blanchard, and Tom Peters, and more recently I have enjoyed reading Jim Collins, Seth Godin, Simon Sinek, Craig Groeschel and others.  

The most significant impact on my thinking has come from John C Maxwell who started talking intentionally about leadership in the ’90s.  Before that, as I recall, a lot of the literature was about effective management.  John Maxwell brought leadership to the fore, and I found that I really resonated with what he had to say.  It was for this reason that I joined the John Maxwell Team a few years ago.

Inrecent years I have also found tremendous encouragement and challenges to growfrom a variety of people, both on a one to one basis and in MastermindGroups.  The person who has had perhaps the greatest influence in a one toone role has been my son, Adam.  We have spent many hours talking aboutbusiness and leadership, and I inevitably find our conversations enlightening,often challenging, and always encouraging.  

How do these conversations come about? Where do they take place? How have they changed you? What have you done as a result? Can you provide an example?

I can vividly recall the day, standing in our kitchen with a laptop open on the table, when we decided, "let's build a website together".  The internet was in its infancy in the mid-'90s and Adam was still in Junior school.  I'm not sure that we ever made that website, but it played a part in getting Adam started on making computer games to sell to his friends on 3½” floppy disks in the playground at high school.

Weoften used to discuss business topics as he was growing up and he waspassionate about his entrepreneurial interest in web design; building stunningwebsites for people while he was still in education.  Adam graduated with 1st class honours indigital & web design and started his own web design company some 15 yearsago, which was about four years after I had launched my business.  Weinevitably had loads of questions to explore, and although I had some years ofexperience in sales and marketing from my previous employment, these issues nowhad a more immediate impact for each of us on our own business.  

Afew years ago, I felt an urge to pursue my core passion of speaking, coachingand training, and to focus particularly on leadership.  I can still hearAdam's words to me, after 10 years of building his own business: "Dad,I've learned more about leadership from you, than from any book, or from anyoneelse".  

Thosewords gave me the confidence to put down the work I had been building for thelast 10 years and start out earnestly in this new direction.  Over thelast 5 years, pretty much every conversation we've had has included adiscussion about some business-related topic, whether it was how his businesswas going, how mine was going, or about some leadership issue or another.

Akey turning point and learning point was when Adam showed me a poem, which Inow have on the wall of my office, entitled "The man in the glass" byPeter Dale Wimbrow Sr., which says: 

"The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass."

(see for example: http://www.inspirationpeak.com/cgi-bin/poetry.cgi?record=155)