One of the greatest hindrances to progressive leadership is nostalgia.
We find something that works and then flog that dead horse till we are dragging it up the mountain.
I am a great believer in tradition.
I am a great fan in reflection and learning lessons from my past but I am also realising that this can easily turn into nostalgia.
It is a liar. It is a selective thinker. It is easily convinced that everything was perfect, when it was far from it.
Nostalgia helps you remember the beautiful, lovely moments of success and forget the pain, stretch and chaos it took to get you there.
If you want to be a leader that brings change and leans into the new, you need to flush nostalgia out of your system.
Traditions are brilliant, lessons we have learnt from the past necessary, but doing the same thing you have always done will always get the same results.
If you are using the same systems as you were 10 years ago everything has changed, (in the last 10 years, facebook, twitter and instagram have completely changed the way the world communicates). Social media has brought new words, new customs, new problems in with it. Therefore systems and processes must change with the crazy changing landscape of society.
If you are singing the same songs from 5 years ago, in a leadership context, you are stuck in a moment.
If you are reading the same books,
Writing the same sermons, with the same jokes and the same themes,
Speaking the same language,
Wearing the same clothes, from the same shop, that you bought 5 pairs on sale a few years ago,
Sitting in the same seat, in the same cafe, drinking the same coffee…
I would guess some of your leadership outlook and strategy is stuck in a nostalgic moment.
I love routine, I love drinking tea and lighting a candle and pursuing truth but I need to continue to remind myself what CS Lewis wrote
‘There are far better things ahead, than those we leave behind.’
Are you stuck in a moment?
Then innovate something.
Today.
Speak soon
Amanda
