Sunday, February 27, 2011

"Advanced leaders" - making the most of senior (legal) talent

Does your organization make good use of its senior (by age) counsel and other leaders ages 60+?  If not, it may be overlooking an amazing resource.  Poetically stated:

"Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocle
Wrote his grand Oedipus, . . .
When [he] had numbered more than fourscore years...
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were past."
Leadership That Longfellow Would Appreciate, quoting a verse familiar as "Nothing is too late," in Morituri Salutamus by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

As a Baby Boomers, I am one of those for which "there is a nagging sense that their generation hasn't yet fulfilled their responsibilities to those who follow."  Leadership That Longfellow Would Appreciate.  Yet to under-utilize even more senior leaders is foolhardy:

"[A]dvanced leaders . . . find opportunities for change in the cracks in the system, in the white space where nothing is written.  Rather than try to change the establishment all at once, they fill gaps, create new alliances, and forge new pathways."
The Traits of Advanced Leaders.  Not enough is written about "advanced leaders", so it is good to see that the two above-cited blog posts are part of a series on Innovations in Health Care from Harvard University's Advanced Leadership Initiative.

This summary was prepared by Perry Cone and is posted at www.leadinginhouse.com/

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