Page 66 - Green Builder July-August 2017 Issue

FROM THE TAILGATE

New Offerings for the Sustainable Minded By Ron Jones

Want to be a true leader?

Look ahead, not back.

UR ANNUAL ECO-LEADERS EDITION provides a lot of
interesting information on what’s new and advanced in
our industry. But I hope it also serves to stimulate one’s
Othinking about what leadership is and what it represents.
It isn’t easy to come up with an original statement describing
leadership, at least one that is meaningful. Most attempts to distill
the essence of leadership into a sentence, a slogan or a marketing
campaign end up sounding cliché and contrived.
This subject has inspired the authoring of countless volumes, going
back as far as recorded human history can take us. We’ve all been
treated to the inspirational and motivational efforts of the greatest
minds and clearest voices in literature, philosophy, military science,
politics and many other disciplines.
One of my favorite quotes on leaders and leadership is attributed
to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who suggested
that if you have to tell people you’re a leader, you probably aren’t
one. Yet, individuals, companies, organizations, even nations, go to
great lengths (and expense) to convince others that they lead in their
arena, sector or specialty.
Interest in the subject of leadership has also spawned numerous
programs and training platforms to teach us how to develop our
abilities and refine our skills as leaders. In researching this, I came
across one such endeavor that uses the analogy of horses in herds
and teams to illustrate different styles of leadership—leading from
the front, leading from the side, leading from the rear—suggesting
that each category has its advantages and strengths.
In the building industry, and all the individual elements that make
up that whole, we are in an endless quest to position ourselves as
leaders. We try to set a direction that others will follow in order
to reinforce and thus secure our perceived achievements in the
hierarchy. But we also hope to advance strategies and goals that
will lead to our ultimate success. While some of us are averse to change, preferring to maintain the
This is the point at which we experience self-selection, because familiarity of the status quo, others are irresistibly drawn into the
there comes a time when each of us must choose one path or another. roles as champions of change. Regardless which group we reside in,
We decide whether we are comfortable following the herd, working we are all carried on the current and denied the option of remaining
to secure our share of the overall opportunity and provide stability, static. We are subject to progress whether we desire it or not. And the
safety and a measure of predictability for ourselves and those we building industry is certainly as dynamic and diverse as any other.
work with. Or, we determine that ours is the course that presents a I believe that leaders look forward, not back; that they seek the
different set of challenges and risks: the ones that come from what light of discovery and move toward it. They couldn’t resist even if
we commonly call “pushing the envelope.” they tried. They are who they are. GB

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