ITIL Foundations Certified!

What a week . . .

Just spent the last few days learning the basics of ITIL - Information Technology Infrastructure Library.  Sounds exciting, no?  While the class wasn't earth shattering, many of the concepts made complete sense in blending the IT world with the business world through the use of best practices and a clearly defined set of processes to bring value to an organization or business through the use of technology.

There were many takeaways in terms of leadership within this training.  One concept which stuck out in my mind was the relationship between responsibility and accountability.  There can be one person or many people responsible for completing a task, but only one person is accountable for it's completion.  Being a leader means accountability.  The buck stops with you in good or bad and you get to receive either the praise or the condemnation if a project is either a success or an utter failure.  Being a leader means being able to handle both sides of this particular coin after it has been flipped.

What does being responsible vs. being accountable mean to you?

Thought for the day....

I was pondering in the shower this morning about my pursuit of leadership, leadership knowledge, and what it means to be a leader.  Most people, especially in the corporate world, seek a leadership position to feel that he or she is finally a leader.  Then it dawned on me.  This is such a simple concept, but I think most of us blow right over this simple fact: leadership is a quality, not a position or title.  Be a leader wherever life has you.  Serve others, lead well, and the leadership "titles" will certainly follow.  


We've been going through the Beatitudes in church the past several weeks and Jesus' sermon on  the mount is so many things, including an upside down view on leadership (at least our modern views on leadership).  "Be humble," "Hunger and thirst for righteousness," "Be pure in heart," "Be a peacemaker."  Not things you find in too many tomes on leadership in the 21st century!