Practical Leadership - after EuroCo

I was thinking about the title of this post for bit longer than I usually do. One of the reasons being that I wanted to write about two things that seemed at one point totally different deserving different posts. No, it will be under one topic and that's it :)

Coming back from EuroCo

Imagine - it's 5 in the afternoon and the conference ends, people are leaving home (airports, bus/train stations, etc) and 2 Estonian girls know that they have at least 5 more hours to "kill" before they can start heading home. So, we made it to Vilnius, found a place to hang out, enjoyed good food and some tea. Everything is still quite fine. Then comes the decision to rest in the car while we wait for the others and almost the same time comes information that 2 Latvian girls are now ready to join us. Okey, so we meet them, they want to go to this party, I want to sleep in the car, so be it. (Just for your information, McDonalds parking lot near train station is not the quietest place to be at trying to sleep).

If you managed to think along, you'd know that there is one girl trying desperately to get some sleep, 3 girls at a party and 1 girl still not with us and the time just goes by. It's past midnight when we first hear from her, so we managed to get nearer to the place she's at. And that's when it really strikes me - all of us waiting in the car, we are absolutely widening our limits, our minds. There is high tension, because all of us are tired and can't wait to leave this city, but still - no one says a word.

Many times when we come across these situations, we find it hard to keep our mouth shut or just avoid certain topics in order to keep the thin line of balance. That to me is leadership in practise - always recognizing the situations around us and acting accordingly. Realising that we are not leaders only when we are with our own team but also in our everyday life.

The role of the leader should never be put 'on hold' - it should reflect to ourselves and to others in all of our actions!

Stay tuned for part 2 ...