Friday, June 12, 2020

What does it take to effect lasting, meaningful change?

As events have unfolded across our country during the past several weeks that’s a question I’ve been asking myself. And it’s the same question in a different context that leaders ask themselves every day when they wake up and try to place a dent in the world.

The type of change so many are clamoring for is both necessary and overdue. Yet there will always be those who stand in opposition to the change advocates.

Those opposing change pose thinly veiled “questions” challenging the basic premise that change is needed. Individuals and entire groups asking for change are discredited. And systemic, institutional problems are either ignored or pretended to not exist.

We are each the sum total of our experiences and my experiences are most definitely not the same as many of my fellow citizens. I can’t pretend to understand the path that you’ve walked but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try. So how do we begin to effect lasting, meaningful change?

Lasting, meaningful change only occurs when we understand the need for the change and then muster the willpower to make it so. And to understand the need for change we must embrace what every successful leader already understands: Every day we must question what we think we know and then run towards what we don’t know to expand our perspective. Only then are we able to better understand the change that’s needed and draw upon reserves of strength to see that change through.

Stay safe. Stay healthy. Be strong. Lead well.

Chad