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He was straight from the sandlot. Ballcap cockeyed. Game face on. Dust-covered head-to-toe with dark streaks where it mixed with sweat. His bat and attached glove are resting on one shoulder. The baseball in his other hand is battered and frayed. He’s wearing a Band-Aid on his right elbow as a badge of commitment and sacrifice. The poster’s caption says, “Play to Win.”

It was a gift from my 8-year-old daughter. She said, “When I saw this, I had to buy it. This is you, Dad.”

I recently read Reality-Based Leadership by Cy Wakeman, and the thing that stuck with me the most was the subject and title of the first chapter: “You are the source of your suffering, and that's the good news.”

The reason that is the good news is because it is empowering. If we are the source of our suffering—at work, at home, in life—then we are also the one with the power to change and/or eliminate our suffering. It is not up to our boss, our coworkers, our families or any other external person—it is up to us.

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.”