Which end is which?

Light is meaningful only in relation to darkness, and truth presupposes error. It is these mingled opposites which people our life, which make it pungent, intoxicating. We only exist in terms of this conflict, in the zone where black and white clash.

Louis Aragon

(1897-1982)

Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.

Yousuf Karsh

(1908-2002)

Carve a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

(1929-1968)

The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.

Joseph Campbell

(1904-1987)

The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path.

Jim Rohn

(1930-2009)

So many thoughts tumbling around my head today. So many. I am not sure which way is up, or which end is which.

This week saw the start of a year-long leadership programme I've been selected to participate in and our first few days have been been interesting and illuminating but have left me wondering anew, what next? I don't know where I fit any more. Where I want to fit any more. All I know for sure is that it's not where I am.

One of the things I was most excited about when I found out I'd made it through the rather rigorous evaluation process was the opportunity to participate in some additional assessment activities and receive personalised feedback. Using a range of tools and tests we've had our competencies and our personalities prodded and poked and perused. And it has been fun. Hard work. Challenging. Confronting. Out-of-the-comfort-zoning. But fun. Much of the feedback is still to come but there has been plenty to consider in the meantime.

Already I feel I've learnt a lot about myself and some of my twenty fellow cohorts and it's been fascinating to observe myself and others and how we react to the same situations sometimes so very differently, and then reflect on why that is. It's a privilege to be granted the time to self-evaluate and to be evaluated in this way.

A few things that have struck me during this week too though are assumptions being made by some attendees and some assessors alike about what leadership and success entail. Those that have left a somewhat sour taste for me are:

~that only those who have ambitions for senior management roles can be influential leaders or role models

~that we should focus our attentions solely on developing areas of weakness or lack in our repertoires

~that people cannot learn to function effectively outside their natural inclinations (which seems to me to contradict the above point but in one case were opinions both expressed by a single person)

~that self awareness is something for others and women (seriously!) to worry about

~that some personality types are better than others (without qualification or context) and that mine is not much valued as leadership material despite the fact that my performance had me selected in the first place

~that influence is the same thing as manipulation

Yeah. No.

I quite strongly disagree with these opinions. Not unequivocally in all instances, as I believe it probably is true that if one wants to express one's leadership style in the context of being the successful President of a country, for example, then one is more likely to succeed if one's personality does not tend towards the introverted. And I agree that seeking to round one's self out is useful and that gaps or weaknesses provide readily identifiable development opportunities. However....

I will refrain from jumping onto my little soapbox here and now as it's late, I'm tired, a little bit grumpy and I'm bound therefore to just rant rather than reflect. I do feel I might need to revisit some of these ideas at some point soon though to get my thoughts clear and well-organised. Funnily enough, something I'm not supposed to be able to do very effectively because my natural inclination is more towards the unstructured and spontaneous - heaven knows how I've survived this long and managed to deliver project after project successfully. In this, if nothing else, I mean to prove them wrong.

There was lots and lots of good stuff that came out too and I will take the time to reflect on that as well. To remind myself that not all men still live in the 1950s and that sometimes square and triangular pegs are needed to make those smug round ones feel a bit uncomfortable and consider their shape too.

Not surprisingly really, I find myself at the end of this opening gambit on the programme with a lot more questions floating around in my head than answers. And that's okay I guess. It's a relatively dark place I find myself in right now though. Manageably dark, but dark nevertheless. And I might need to dwell in the murk for a little longer it seems. I'm confident that the light will grow brighter though. That the way will become clearer. In the meantime, I hope that my character's developing apace.