Leadership Training

For the last three days, I have been happily not reporting to my normal job site, instead attending a course on Trustworthy Leadership.  Since my company paid roughly $800 for me to attend this three day leadership course, I WISH I could talk about all the new leadership skills I have...but the fact is, I really don't think I learned anything new.

This should not be taken as a negative endorsement for the instructor of the class I've been taking the last few days, but rather a statement of my opinion that if you have been to one leadership class, you have been to them all.  And during my time in the Navy and a supervisor at PSNS, I have been to more than one leadership class.  You learn about pushing and pulling leadership styles, different personality styles...yada, yada, yada.

Despite not gaining a lot of original knowledge this time around, the class was enjoyable, and a good refresher.  The teaching technique for the most part revolved around watching clips of movies, and then discussing the leadership, team forging, and disciplinary styles used.  Very relaxing, although in a few cases, I saw some key scenes of movies that I have not gotten around to watching yet.  Let's see if I can come up with a list of movies and scenes.  An asterisk marks a movie I had not previously seen.



Band of Brothers*
Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid*
White Squal*
Gettysberg
Miracle*(which we watched all of)
Shacklton*(which we watched the whole SECOND half of...*
Lean on Me*
Hunt for Red October
K-19*
Hoosiers
Stand and Deliver*

Ummm....that's about all I can think of for now...other than learning that I am People Oriented Harmony Seeker Personality type, I also learned I really need to get motivated and watch all of Band of Brothers...what a kick-ass series that looked like.

The gentleman teaching our class had Parkinson's disease...and it was eye opening.  A graduate of the West Point before becoming a trainer for the Navy working at the Idaho Falls Prototype, then finally starting his own training company in the late 80s, you could tell he used to be a very active type guy.  Now, when his Parkinson's is acting up, he has to hold a marker in both hands to write on the dry erase board.

From past talks with my wife, I think seeing this kind of thing effects men more than women.  I am terrified of what I saw...a guy that used to work for the bomb disposal unit in the Army, now needed to keep one hand in his pocket to keep it from trembling.  I admit to being impressed by the fact that he still taught the class.  I worry that I might be a wimp and give up when faced with that kind of adversity.

As my wife reminds me, that in one reason to enjoy what you can of life in the here and now.