Looking Up by Michele Sullivan

Author:Michele Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harpercollins Leadership
Published: 2019-12-27T16:00:00+00:00

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The biggest life we can live is not an independent one—it’s an interdependent one.

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He goes on to explain that the act of remaining independent keeps us from important interdependent gestures, like asking friends if we talked too much at a meal or expressing hurt feelings over something someone else did or said. The deeper and more significant our relationship with another person, the more damage independence can do. I think we all know what happens when one person in a relationship feels he or she is unnecessary. Suddenly, what began under the banner of partnership or collaboration or unity becomes divided into what you do and say and what I do and say. There is no “we” or “us” except maybe in physical proximity.

If I’m a very independent leader in a corporate setting, I might be around my team all day long. I might even spend more time around the people I’m charged to lead than I do by myself. However, if I never express my feelings, never ask for help, and never ask those around me for feedback on how I’m doing as a leader . . . how I can do better . . . where I’ve already gone wrong . . . then I’m not a member of the team. I’m just a figurehead. The others might work well together and be truly interdependent on one another, but my actions reveal that I operate independent of them.

I realize how this might make you feel if you’re someone who built success on being independent. What I can tell you from my own experience is that in most settings there’s a fine line between independence and interdependence. The way you can usually tell which side you’re on is your personal and corporate growth. Independence has a ceiling. Without others, you will only grow so much as an individual. Has your personal growth stalled in recent years? Without others, your efforts will only climb so high. Has your latest venture plateaued?

This isn’t to say you can’t go very far independently. There’s no doubt you can. But eventually, every solo artist is faced with a critical question: Which is more important, continued growth or continued independence?

This was a question I had to ask myself often as a young teenager. Like most people that age, I’d been dreaming of more independence. I wanted that storied chance to express my own ideas and take my own actions, without having to ask for opinions or permission. Michele’s version of To Kill a Mockingbird; Little Women; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, all in one. My parents were good about giving my siblings and me test runs in this department as we grew older. They were more aggressive with me, though, probably because they felt the need to fight back any tendency I might have had to embrace shyness and indifference. They’d learned enough about little people to know that a quiet life at home was the easier path for someone in my shoes, but not necessarily the best path.

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