An inspiring voice

Posted by Kelly Lewis Share Your Voice

A voice that inspired me on Friday while delivering a Leadership Development program to a group of Educators:

"...It is possible, of course, that we are all so busy using time-saving devices that we don't have time to do anything meaningful. Or we might have the right intentions, but instead of acting, we decide to wait - until we are out of school, until we can afford a down payment on a home, until we can finance college for our own children, or until we can free up time in retirement. We keep waiting until we run out of "untils." Then it is too late. Our plane has crashed and we haven't done anything about it. We have lived our lives but we have not led.

...true leadership comes not from the sound of a commanding voice but from the nudging of a inner voice - from our own realization that the time has come to go beyond dreaming to doing. The question of course is, What to do? The answer must be determined by each of us in accordance with our own circumstances and values, but the past has given us clues.

Leadership is found most often in simple acts of self-expression, when conscience overcomes reticence and we made our presence known by challenging a falsehood that has been advertised as truth, calling injustice by its name, stopping to help another, or on one memorable occasion, daring to take a seat at the front of the bus.

We think of great leaders as famous, and some of them are, inspiring others to follow: Gandhi kept on his desk a bronze casting of Abraham Lincoln's hand: Martin Luther King Jr. carried in his heart Gandhi's doctrine of creative nonviolence; generations of community activists have found their calling in response to the summons of Martin Luther King Jr.

There are, however, many more models created by people whose names will never be etched in marble or memorialized in a book. LEadership can be found in the reliable presence of a parent, the outstretched hand of a friend, the extra effort of a teacher, and the determination by any of us not only to ask the best of ourselves but also to encourage others to live lives rich in accomplishment and love."

--Foreword by Madeline Albright; Leading from Within: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Lead