Maybe you’ve voiced your opinions, shared your ideas, and fought for other methods, and all of it has fallen on deaf ears. Maybe you’ve tried to be a change agent at work. That’s a fact we must accept, but there is one thing you are fully in charge of-yourself.
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There are many things we can’t change in life, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. It doesn’t mean you can’t take personal responsibility for your role in whatever is going on at work. It doesn’t mean you can’t openly share your ideas and offer alternatives. But that doesn’t mean you can’t voice your opinion. Sometimes other people are calling the shots. When you disagree with what’s happening at work, do you stand up for what you believe? When you see something that you believe is wrong, do you just complain, or do you do something about it? When things aren’t working, do you criticize, or do you offer an alternative plan? But words without action are meaningless. Whatever it is, we don’t like it, and we share our displeasure with anyone who will listen. Maybe we think there’s a lack of leadership from the top or the company’s strategy is all wrong. We often complain about things that are going on at work. What would this world be like if every one of us held ourselves responsible for making it a better place? What if the change we wanted to see in the world had to start with us? I’ll do it when everyone else does it, and that’s not going to happen because the opportunity has been missed.” When I asked this person why he wouldn’t go ahead and make that sacrifice-to start with the man in the mirror-he said something to the effect of, “Because I’m just one person, and my sacrifice won’t matter. Who among us wouldn’t make a sacrifice by trading our gas guzzler for a more fuel-efficient-even electric-vehicle? But he was bemoaning the fact that the president hadn’t seized the moment. In the opinion of the person I was speaking with, President Bush had the responsibility to take this opportunity to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. Bush had failed as a leader because he didn’t capitalize on the opportunity to rally the citizens of our great nation around a cause after the tragedy.
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I vividly remember a conversation I had after 9/11 in which I was told that President George W. And words without action are meaningless. We don’t take the time or the effort to remedy the situation we only call attention to it. We rail against injustice or point at the wrongs others are doing, but we fail to examine the person in the mirror. All too often, those of us who consider ourselves leaders take to the soapbox to complain about what is happening around us.