To Boldly Go: Good Leadership Advice?
Making bold leadership decisions is more difficult than ever
When I was growing up, I wanted to work on a starship.
Science Officer or Captain — I wasn’t too fussed.
I just loved the idea of flying out into the unknown, meeting new people, and exploring strange new worlds. Throughout my life, I have embraced leadership challenges and intentionally taken myself out of my comfort zone, even when it might have been easier to continue along a particular path.
Those words ‘to boldly go’…they have lived with me since I first met Spock and Captain Kirk over 40 years ago.
Growing up, being bold meant making fast, decisive decisions. I probably thought it meant being brave. A bold person would surely jump in rather than be reticent.
Later, as a soldier, I thought being bold was a virtue linked fairly close to being heroic. Captain Kirk would have done it this way, and who doesn’t want to be heroic?*
But now that I am moving towards ‘middle adulthood’ (this article is great), I am not so sure whether being bold is what I want to be. As I have grown older, with more and more responsibilities, making choices has become more and more difficult: it is one thing to make decisions that impact yourself…
