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With the Fourth of July holiday just behind us, after we have eaten the hotdogs, indulged in the apple pie and vanilla ice cream and oohed and aahed over the fireworks (or drone display in some places), let’s stop and reflect a little on the actual purpose behind the holiday. We celebrate the fourth as Independence Day, the day the Declaration of Independence was signed by the 13 colonies. The Declaration was drafted principally by Thomas Jefferson, who would become the third U.S. president in 1801. 

Sometimes it seems we choose characters for our leaders over leaders with character. 

This week we celebrate our country’s Independence Day. It reminded me of a quote attributed (though I have not been able to confirm) to George Washington. He is quoted as saying, "Character is the bedrock of success, for it shapes our actions, earns us respect and inspires others to greatness."  

In another quote, he wanted to maintain “the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.”

This year’s theme for the Association for Talent Development’s annual conference was Recharge Your Soul. The theme was consistently reinforced in various sessions and other conference activities. The message may have been worded and delivered differently, but the key takeaway was that incorporating rest (or breaks) is essential and required to improve our performance.

You may have noticed an increase in topics related to mental health, burnout, stress or compassion fatigue. This is not by coincidence as we see from various research studies. 

I recently attended a conference for women in leadership hosted by the UT System. There was a track of programming designed around the book, “Leadershift” by John C. Maxwell. 

One of the topics from the book centered on transformational leadership and its importance, particularly in the workplace. The text explains how transformational leaders feel things others do not feel. For example, a different world cannot be built by indifferent people. Passion creates energy and tenacity in people. It should fire up leaders and those who join them. 

19th-century American humorist Josh Billings wrote a one-liner in his 1886 edition of complete works that seems to be the source of several adaptations. He wrote, “I honestly beleave it iz better tew know nothing than two know what ain’t so.” 

I’ve heard it said, “Our problem is not what we know, it’s what we know that just ain’t so.” 

As you know, there are many leadership styles. In your careers, you have probably experienced several different ones. I have always been drawn to inspirational motivation; therefore, transformational leadership resonates with me. I feel that most of us in the public sector are already looking to improve our world and are not solely focused on self-interest.

Being in a new leadership role with the Institute for Public Service and being a member of the IPS Leadership Team, I have recently spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of leadership skills I need to make our new SMART Initiative successful. I have read many books and attended numerous presentations. However, there is one area that isn’t often discussed, I assume since it is not relevant to many leaders. What I have recently been on the search for is “How do you lead when you don’t know where you’re going?”

One of these days I aspire to learn to paint. To really take some image I have in my head, to apply colors and blends and hues and textures to a canvas, and to be able to recognize it as a close approximation. I admire anyone who can do this in any medium or artistic frame. 

Most would agree upon the reasons we call this art. But today, I could take the same paint, the same brushes, the same canvas, and the same image and compared to the painting a real artist completed, mine would not even qualify as art. Not even if we called it “modern art” or “abstract art.” 

Jefferson County announced it is receiving of one of the inaugural awards for Excellence in the Application of the Opioid Litigation Principles.

I am a self-proclaimed overthinker; if there’s a way to ruminate on something, I’m going to do it. Recently, for Leadership Academy, I started reading “Reality-Based Leadership” by Cy Wakeman. I have been pleasantly surprised by this book, and even a few chapters in, I have found some valuable lessons. The biggest takeaway has been related to my overthinking. In the book, Wakeman notes that stress is not caused by what happens to us, but rather by the stories we tell ourselves about it. In a chain of events, the one thing that we can control is the way we think about it.