Hello, and welcome to my blog. Thanks for joining me, I hope you like what you read/watch/hear and keep coming back for more. I want this blog and website to be a source of inspiration for you all, a place for us all to grow in life, work and play. The main premise behind me wanting to do this blog is that I am really interested in Organisational Culture and Leadership and I want to explore this in a fun and meaningful way. I have called the website The Leadership Thread because through my own development I have picked and pulled information from many different sources, not just your typical places. I have learned lessons from TV shows, colleagues, walking down the street, BBQs, basketball games........and so on. For me leadership is not something grand and fancy that you only see in guys with suits, it is not always the big grand gestures that make people turn their heads. Leadership lives in the day to day actions of those that lead. It is the fabric of what it is to interact and work with people on a day to day basis. I believe that the traits needed to be an effective leader thread themselves throughout our lives and don't just exist in work, but also in our family lives, our hobbies and our social circles. I want to explore this and see how behaviours and actions transcend place, position, friendships and organisations. Leadership is about people. It is about engagement, sharing, trusting, supporting and guiding. Belief in a leader can be very hard to build and very easy to bring down. Leadership is lonely, it can be very difficult, however it can be ultimately rewarding. So......How am I going to do this? I am going to do it through a number of different ways. I am going to start through this blog using my own articles as well as having some guests submit their own work (I promise I won't take credit for work that is not my own!!!!). I will also be working on a podcast in which I will interview some really interesting people who I feel have a great story to share. To top it off I will post great content I find on the web that I think you all will enjoy. I will also post interesting stuff on my Twitter feed and other social network platforms as these roll out. There are a couple of other interesting projects that I am working on that I will share with you all at a later date. Before I go I want to explain to you the picture I have chosen to use for my website. This picture was taken in October 2014 when I was on holiday in the South of Spain with my family. I was walking along the beach and noticed the sand was just wet enough to leave some great footprints that my wee girls were making as they walked in front of me. I took a couple of pictures of their footprints alongside my own. From the moment I took the pictures I loved them. To me these pictures symbolise how I am no longer walking through life on my own. I am now doing it with my family. In my daughters eyes I am the leader of the family (we all know that the mums are the real leaders of our families), but we both let my girls believe that I am the leader. Not just are my daughters walking by my side on my journey, they are looking to me for advice and guidance........that is some serious stuff right there!!!!! I can't mess this leadership opportunity up. I have to be the best I can be at all times to make sure that I am a good example for these two little girls. However, how did I learn how to become a father? It did not come from books, I can tell you that much. My learning came from many different places. The influence of my own father, sports coaches growing up, my childhood heroes, bosses, friends and foes. I have taken small threads of good, strong, redeeming qualities and wove them into my own version of fatherly leadership. They have all helped me learn how to be a great dad. I therefore used this picture as a symbol of leadership, the people you lead will walk beside you, but they will also be looking to you for inspiration, guidance and support. If you keep your distance they will resent you and act out to get your attention, if you get too close and friendly they will take advantage of your seemly good nature. If you don't put in place the right expectations of good behaviour they will test the limits. However if you give them the freedom to explore, within the correct parameters, if you allow them to make their own mistakes and don't judge them when they fail, they will continue to look at you for leadership and support. Ok, that is it for now. Thanks for taking the time to read this initial post. I hope you found this interesting and will at least give me a chance to entertain you with future posts and content. Peace and Happiness to you all!!!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorMy name is Andy Smyth, I have spent the last decade working in the field of Sports Development, where I have had the pleasure of working to grow leaders within local community sports clubs in Scotland. Archives
August 2017
Categories
All
|