- Despite your best-laid plans, your life as you envisioned it might not work out just as you had it drawn out on paper or at least in your mind. Life has a way of throwing you curve balls. It is up to you to adapt to new realities as they are revealed to you. As one author pointed out, being responsible means being response-able. It is not what happens to you, but how you react to the situations that are presented.
- Everyone has a role to play — you included. Contribute where you are to the best of your ability. If Plan A did not turn out, then move to Plan B and work hard to make it happen. Adaptation is going to be a big part of the 21st century, and it applies to you as a leader too.
- You will likely inherit the team you lead. While there are those who will build a team from scratch, picking their players from the workforce at large, generally you will become the leader of a team that already exists. You will have to work with the cards you are dealt, fitting people and their passions and skills to the tasks at hand. Good leaders make every team they lead better!
- Find the right role for everyone. Too many times we have people performing in roles that they are not suited for. They may even be unhappy in doing their jobs because it is not what they really want to do. Not everyone has the flexibility to move people around, but with project management you might be able to take a so-so performer and make them a star by having them do what they are good at.
- There is a balance between work and family. We each need to find that place where we honor people at work and at home. This particular task is not easy because of the role models we might have in our heads. The real issue is not to ignore one over the other. If you are married, you will have to work at this with your spouse.
- Last, but not least, Remember that you can delegate authority, but not responsibility. In the movie it was Uncle Billy, who made bank deposits, and was the person who misplaced the $8,000. Yet, when George Bailey went crawling to Mr. Potter, he took responsibility for the missing money.
6 Leadership Lessons from the Movie, It's a Wonderful Life
There are a number of good lessons to be learned from watching the movie and applying it to your life.
After my annual watching of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, I thought it good to reflect on the leadership lessons that I garnered and have experienced personally that coincide with the movie.
