authentic leadership

so as I lay low and collect my thoughts on the next project for dance ceres and possible winter auditions for new dancers... i've been given a great book: Authentic Leadership, by Bill George. obviously, i work at a start-up by day, so our environment is one where we are continually looking towards innovation in the work place and ways to do things better, so these types of books surround me!

But I am so grateful to have them reiterate what i have felt in my heart all along about anyone running any kind of business... INTEGRITY is key to being a great leader!

I wish i could read this out loud to a former employer:
"While developing fundimental, unique values is crucial, intergrity is the ONE value that is required by every authentic leader. Intergrity is not just the absence of lying, but telling the whole truth, as painful as it may be. If you don't exercise complete integrity in your interactions, no one can trust you. If they can not trust you, why would they even follow you?"
-Bill George

then there are other great moments like "competition needs to be channeled through purpose and discipline"

Or from David Gergen, "People will entrust their hopes and dreams into another person only if they think the other is a reliable vessel"

then of course, once he quoted Nobel prize winning Poet, Derek Walcott's "Love after Love" I was sold!

There will come a time when with elation you will greet yourself,

arriving at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other's welcome;

saying, sit here, Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was yourself.

Give wine, give bread, give back your heart

to the stranger who has loved you all your life,

whom you abandoned for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes.

Sit. Feast on your life.

I seek nothing more than to inspire others the way i am inspired by so many! I will let the next project evolve out of this passion.