Picture
On this Valentine’s Day, I figured a good topic of conversation would be that of love. It is not too often that love and leadership are thought of as being paired but Paul Petzoldt was a man who seemed to have a firm grasp on how the two were intertwined.   

Paul is viewed by many as the father of outdoor education. As the first lead instructor for Outward Bound USA, he pushed his students to learn how to think for themselves and use the outdoors to gain insight in their lives. From there he established the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) where Outdoor Leadership took hold in order to provide the field with more experienced and knowledgeable leadership. He was one of the innovators of the Leave No Trace principles many outdoorsmen live by today and his stories and quotes still reverberate through the minds of many. One such quote stands out to me as being the perfect Valentine’s Day quote for the working environment:

"I have three rules for leaders in the outdoors: You have to know where the people you're leading are coming from, you have to know what you want to do with them, and you have to love them."

This quote seems to not only apply to the outdoor field, as Paul intended, but to any workplace or group working towards a common goal. As a company that facilitates relationship development and leadership, we’d like to know what this quote says to you. What are your strategies of showing your group members that you care about them? 

-Tyler 
 


Comments

Fritz Harbridge link
02/15/2011 5:19am

One definition for love is a positive emotion of regard and affection. From our point of view, love and leadership overlap. I think good leaders acknowledge constructive behaviors that their team members make with positive reinforcement and recognition. Leaders often show their regard for their team by creating an opportunity for everyone to contribute beyond the minimums of their job descriptions and create an environment for healthy personal contributions and skill use. Those who are able to expand their job descriptions by contributing from the whole of their resources tend to love their jobs and the people they work with. That love of the job helps to lead to further, voluntary contributions to the team. Those contributions are inspired from positive loving leaders.

Reply



Leave a Reply