Leadership Lessons: Daniel
Continual learning and sense making must extend throughout my career as a leader. In fact, to be a success leaders must make sense of things.
Continual Learning
One contributor to career growth is being a continual learner.
As such, Daniel certainly fit that pattern.
How so? Well, late in his life, after nearly 70 years in leadership, he was continuing to research, Daniel 9.2, thus, to learn more, Daniel 9.22.
Consequently, Daniel’s willingness to execute the basics every day was an example of his wise behavior.
Behaving Wisely
The Hebrew word sakal is often translated behave wisely. Thus, I choose how I act.
Additionally, other words or phrases that translate sakal include: be wise, be instructed, have understanding, prosper, and have good success.
So, acting wisely is a factor in my long-term success.
In addition, Daniel paired behaving wisely with both discernment and making sense of things.
Clearly, he recognized this precept: to be a success leaders must make sense of things.
Leadership Insight
Now, at this point in his career, Daniel was a seasoned senior leader with great influence.
That said, he was still building out his capacity for discernment and sense making.
As a result, that learning increased his ability to behave wisely.
Moreover, his ability to make sense of things brought him great revelation, parts of which he didn’t completely understand, Daniel 12.8-9.
Make Sense of Things
Practically, some take-aways for leaders from Daniels life include the following:
1). Most critically, be a continual learner throughout your career.
2). Then, build sense-making skills through deliberate practice and persistence.
3). Remember, with great insight comes great obligation to share your thought leadership.
4). Finally, thought leadership as a result of sense making is best shared in humility, not handed down with arrogance, Daniel 9.3-5.
Thus, to be a success, leaders must make sense of things.
However, to make sense of things, leaders must do the hard work of getting the details correct through building experiential insights, Proverbs 2.3.
Apply This Today!
Clearly, late-life skills are often the result of early-career self-discipline. So, build that solid foundation at the start.
Knowing, by itself, is of limited value because it must be paired with wise doing.
Discernment and sense making accompany experiential insights. Unfortunately, I don’t enjoy that growth if I’m bitter and blame others for difficult outcomes.
For an impactful leader, discernment and insight come through carefully managing day-to-day life challenges. So, be that leader!
Where can you do a better job of sense making as a leader? What’s at risk if you don’t?
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