I recently ended a Leader As Coach workshop with a picture of my two granddaughters, Reese and Isabel, on the screen. Besides using the oportunity to show off both my granddaughters as well as my photography skills, I had a very specific reason for this closing message.
I have the joy of traveling all over the world teaching coach like skills to leaders and executives. I consider it one of the ways that I achieve world work and have impact that is measured by the faces of those attendees as I then know that the way they see and lead others will be forever changed. And I get to travel and see parts of the world I never imagined seeing in my life time.
I miss my family when I travel. My wife, my grown children and especially Reese and Isabel. It is not quite the same when I Skype to talk and see them on screen. I am called "Flat Papa" when we Skype call. It suffices when I am gone and never quite replaces real live touch. Hugs and kisses can never be quite duplicated over the internet!
Back to the workshop. After two days of working with this latest batch of leaders I had a picture of these people being the leaders that will be leading my granddaughters some day or developing the leaders that will a generation from now. I imagined how Reese and Isabel will spend much more of their waking hours working for leaders like those I had in that classroom. More hours than they will likely spend with their parents as well as their own children. Imagine the impact these leaders will have on their careers and their lives personally.
It was the evening at the end of day one of the two day workshop after our nightly Skype call that it hit me. These people, or ones much like them, will greatly influence how my girls will be engaged at work. We know that the number one reason someone leaves a company is because their boss sucks. What if Reese or Isabel were to have that experience? Maybe this was defining significance and purpose for me? Maybe this world work I do is intended to impact the experience that children like Reese and Isabel have when they enter the professional workplace a generation from now. That thought truly cemented how important the experience is that I can give every time I get the chance to have present and future leaders in our workshops.
Therefore, I placed a picture of my two precious granddaughters at the end of the slide deck and closed the two day experience with those two beautiful faces looking down on the classroom and said "Don't screw it up!"
As todays leaders continue to step into classrooms and workshops I applaud them for continuing to learn what it takes to be a significant leader and to realize the responsibility and honor it is to lead lives. And don't screw it up!
