The point being, of course, you never know when or where you will meet the contact that changes your life. Grauer was retelling this story at this year’s Wharton Leadership Conference. Like myself, he is a committed ‘And/And’ practitioner and not afraid to preach it.
Grauer talks about embracing our personal contradictions. The best leaders are those that “exemplify a line from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”: “Do I contradict myself? … I am large, I contain multitudes.” Amen. You can be a big thinker and details oriented. You can drive the action and stand back and reflect. There is no either/or. It’s And/And.
It’s a waste of time trying to confine leadership to one or two attributes. It’s about what you can do, not what you can’t. Where Grauer struck another chord with me was on his reflection that intimacy is vital. It is important to relate to people on a human level. Look in their eyes while shaking their hands. Learn something about them. These are lessons he has learned over time and I join him when he says: “I believe that a career is a long reflection on self-improvement.”
