The Introverted Leader » communicating http://www.theintrovertedleaderblog.com Insights and tools for introverted leaders Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:57:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8 en hourly 1 Acceptance http://www.theintrovertedleaderblog.com/acceptance.html http://www.theintrovertedleaderblog.com/acceptance.html#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 03:29:47 +0000 Jennifer Kahnweiler http://www.theintrovertedleaderblog.com/?p=182 Presence
Peter is an older man who puts one foot in front of the other as he sweeps the street each morning in front of the local school. I have seen him each December on my daily walks on this small island tucked away in the blue seas of the Caribbean. As drivers go to work, they give him a slight horn “toot” in their morning meet and greet. Peter looks up and responds with a gentle nod of the head. He then goes back to his task – walking the same steps every day, cleaning the same stretch of road.

One morning, it was cloudy and when I stopped to say hello. I asked Peter if the locals welcomed the gray skies. He smiled his sweet smile and said in his beautiful, slow and cadenced voice, “You know, we just accept it.”

I came home from our lovely holiday relaxed, with new vigor. Then my website crashed, a client disappeared and on and on. I then remembered my gentle street sweeper friend and his calm demeanor.In a slightly altered version of a popular question, I now ask,  ”What would Peter do?” And almost always the answer is acceptance. If I do that first,  I can move into action if necessary. Sounds  a lot like the successful introverted leaders I researched. They don’t go into a panic and react to circumstances they cannot control, even in the midst of chaos.

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