I Want to Start a Movement: Let’s Grow Leaders

I was browsing LinkedIn the other day and came across this quote by John Quincy Adams: “If your actions inspire someone to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.” I’m sure that it’s going to be one of my favorite sayings for 2020. It recognizes leadership as a behavior rather than a title, and that is too smart to pass up! As they say in literary circles, let’s deconstruct this and take it for a spin.

In his quote, John Quincy Adams leads with “inspire someone to dream.” As most of us who have followed leaders or been led by others will tell you, we had to do the work, but we also recognize that we needed the inspiration. Someone had to call us to action and challenge us to think differently, then we had something to run with and run for. In many ways, we can see that we were given permission to think that something could be better and we used our gifted-ness and our talents to make it so!

What about learning more? The reality is that some of the things we were/are tasked with are things we simply didn’t know how to do. So although we were inspired, we had to do some extra work to acquire the knowledge and develop the skills…and we learned more in the process. By following the inspiration and learning more, we did more; and as human beings, we became more than we imagined. It is through this process that we start to see ourselves as role models and leaders of others.

Everything starts with inspiration. Let’s continue to celebrate the beginning of a new year — not just with resolutions of losing weight, eating healthier, exercising more, and quitting something — but with inspiration that will lead to learning something. My hope is that it will in turn lead to doing more (differently) and being better than any of us can imagine.

Here is my inspiration for you, that…

· All children have a great start in life

· All families have what they need to help their members have a meaning-filled life

· All people, regardless of our differences, have lives valued in our community, with equal chances and choice for love, work, and friendship…for true authentic inclusion.

While these statements are not reality yet, we have the power to make them so. Let’s all be leaders…think BIG in 2020.