SLINGS AND ARROWS

About a year ago, I told my pastor what I thought about leadership.

I said it was:

"...like walking out alone onto a battlefield but never being really certain from which direction the next volley of arrows will come."

He laughed at that, though I'm not sure I had eloquently captured what I meant. Rather than being paranoid and insecure about the people behind you, I was trying to show that being a leader is really quite lonely.

And that's what I think he found amusing. He must know it too.

And it is - you're constantly caught between the world above and the world below, trying to shape direction, lift others up, keep accountable, pass on difficult information (in both directions), take responsibility, and to do all that with confidence and self-assurance rather than arrogance and independence. It is tricky. And it is lonely.

So why in the world then, would someone with a terrible fear of loneliness take it on?

That's a question I find myself asking a lot. The only answer I've got so far is that I actually just can't help it. I want to see change; I have ideas and visions and drive, and I'm fed up with the status quo. What's more, I like people and I like seeing them flourish. And in the world I grew up in, all of that adds up to make me a leader, whether it's a title or not.

The problem is that I'm not very good at it. And that means that I have to choose between being a leader with back-bench frustrations, or a leader with front-bench inadequacies.

I'm not being bashful; I genuinely don't think I'm very good at this. For reasons I don't fully understand, it never seems to quite work out as loftily as my ambitions. As ever with these things, disappointment seeps into the gap.

That isn't to say of course, that I'll always be this way. I'd like to get better. I'd like to manage my frustrations without them flashing across my face every five minutes. I'd like to be able to report upwards without fear of exploding a situation, and cascade downwards without being the constant face of bad news.

I'd like not to be whispered about in IMs and flunkbook messenger, or 'handled' as an agenda item in management meetings. I'd like to be completely able to say what I think without being afraid all the time, and I'd like it if I could light up the world with ideas and innovation, instead of always feeling as though those fledgling thoughts are about to get zipped out of the air with negative arrows.

I think I need a little self-confidence. I'm supposed to be a warrior after all; the battlefield ought to be where I feel the most alive. I guess I'm just not too well-practiced at standing out there, knowing who I am, confidently and graciously blocking those 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune'.

And sometimes, I realise, they're not coming from any direction at all, other than inside my own head.