Crucibles of Leadership by Robert Thomas
Summary
Crucibles of Leadership looks how crucible moments in life often have significant impacts on how we operate as leaders. These crucible moments can occur professionally and personally as well. Many times, it is a personal experience that has strong emotional resonance which can serve as a learning moment for an individual. These moments are often far more impactful on leadership than simply taking a course. A key aspect regarding these crucible moments is to be aware of the opportunity to learn that they provide for the person. If a person has a willingness to learn and grow from such moments, they can reap tremendous growth. Furthermore, an individual can learn how they learn and grow from such crucible moments. By identifying the system and process for how they learn, they can then set themselves up for more learning from more crucible moments as life progresses. It is this purposeful approach and willingness to learn and grow which increases their leadership capability.
How it influenced me
I have recently experienced a few crucible moments including traveling to all 50 states and meeting with gym and brewery owners, 2 per each category per state, and learning about entrepreneurship. The trip itself was full of learning moments from the meetings, the conversations with people, the museums and so forth, but also from the trip in it being a great adventure. After the trip I have experienced another crucible moment looking for a job and dealing with the financial blow from such a delay, the expenses of the trip, and the poor planning I had. While I had been learning from these crucible moments, the notion of being aware that other crucible moments will occur in the future and how I can learn from them resonated with me. I have heard that you can learn from everyone you meet and made that a focus of mine during the journey as some people were incredibly insightful and others didn’t seem to be of the same caliber. I realized the onus was on me to find that lesson and that I did. This means for crucible moments I need to realize the onus is on me to learn from them. How this looks is not only to reflect and learn, but to be purposeful in determining how that crucible moment will have a tangible takeaway for the future along with a life theme. I have developed life themes from experiences which I believe will help me and potentially others navigate life with more joy and success. Being more purposeful in the creation of life themes from crucible moments will aid in more purposeful growth.
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