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Leadership

Generous Leadership

Healthy leadership is an act of generosity. And wise generosity is an act of leadership.

Let’s run a thought experiment. Let’s say you don’t consider generosity as one of your core gifts. Oh sure, you give where you can, and you aren’t stingy. But you are not seen by yourself or others as particularly generous.

Continuing with that thought experiment, let’s say you often find yourself (by design or accident) leading people. At work, home, church, school, or a junkyard. Wherever it might be, you are one of those people that tends to end up leading.

Well, to wrap up …

Belize, Generosity, Leadership, PathLight,

Generous Teaching

I’ve got an exciting announcement buried at the end of this article. So please bear with me for a few paragraphs.

Teachers are in the news these days as the nation moves toward reopening classrooms. It got me thinking about the selflessness of people who dedicate themselves to education. Teaching, and serving the educational system in general, is a way to be generous to our future.

Years ago a PathLight colleague asked me if I thought systemic change was best done from the top down or the bottom up. The question was in the context of a decision about how …

Freestarters™, Leadership,

Taking a Walk? Or Charting a Course?

John Maxwell has said, ““If you think you’re leading, but no one is following, then you are only taking a walk.”

Now look, I’m not the leadership guru John Maxwell is. But I take issue with his comment. Mostly because it is wrong often enough to make me pause and object.

Good leaders define reality, as Max De Pree famously said. But sometimes the process of defining that reality is remarkably lonely. A leader can be on a very long solo walk before anyone realizes she’s onto something. What looked to begin as a lonely ramble through the woods ends …

Family, Generosity, Leadership, Philanthropy,

Crescent Wrench Generosity

Most of you who read this blog know how I worked at Goble Properties with my father, side by side, for 25-years. But of course I worked with my Dad long before starting my career. For instance, from the time I was old enough to read I was marking tires at the wrecking yard. One childhood experience with him taught me what I call Crescent Wrench Generosity.

I was young, probably 8-years old. For whatever reason Dad had brought home a tank of acetelyn and oxygen (used for cutting iron). The tanks were in the side yard standing against the …

Goble Properties, Junkyard Management, Leadership, Random Thoughts,

The Morning Welcome

Each morning when I arrive at work I say hello to the folks who sweep the streets, maintain the landscaping, pick up the garbage, and touch up paint on the curbs. They do the overlooked but crucial jobs, allowing the rest of us the luxury of focusing on our jobs.

My office is on the second floor of a shopping center. The retail businesses are on ground level, offering such things as health foods, jewelry repair, cooking utensils, and pizza by the slice. Most of them open about 10 AM.

Typically I arrive at my office around 8 AM. So …

Junkyard Management, Leadership, Random Thoughts,

Community is Not Transactional

A few months ago I had a meeting with a young man with big dreams. It was a get to know each other conversation over bad coffee (do not EVER buy a Starbucks cappuccino … not going to make that mistake again). The guy across the table was an idealist. The good thing about idealists is they push all of us to be better. The bad thing is they are never truly satisfied with anything, like a grumpy perfectionist armed with moral arrogance. But then maybe the coffee was just souring my mood.

Our conversation meandered across a variety of …

Junkyard Management, Leadership, Philanthropy,

Which Part Are You?

Last week I wrote about junkyard wisdom and used the line, “Junk cars, like broken people, often have the parts to make something whole.”

It triggered some fun/silly exchanges with friends about what car part they actually are. One said he was a UV joint because he held things together, another said a seatbelt because he was strong but passive, and another said a spare wheel just waiting to go but enjoying the downtime (sounds Covid induced to me). There were others, but you get the idea.

So I was thinking about what spare part I am, and the metaphors …

Junkyard Management, Junkyard Wisdom Book, Leadership,

What’s Wisdom Got To Do With It?

Apologies to Tina Turner for hijacking her song title and making it worse, but the question of the day is why junkyard … wisdom?

Everybody understands the junkyard piece, at least they do when they read my bio. I grew up working Saturdays and summers in our family’s wrecking yard – aka junkyard – and it shaped my perspective on the world. I see life through the prism of a family business that bought junk and sold parts.

But how does wisdom fit into this perspective?

Wisdom is elusive to define. It is many layered, showing up in …