Only Connect: Confessions of a Reluctant Leader

Abstract

Being Dean gave me direct experience of being a leader trying to work connection. I learned some things about connection, but I should warn you that that learning largely takes the form of having better questions rather than having answers. My approach is to try to learn from both moments of disconnection, my screw-ups, but also from moments of real, felt connection. A few caveats about my approach are important to mention. The first caveat is that my focus is on me. I have some access to how I felt, what I was thinking, and what I did or didn’t do, much of which I collected in a journal I kept along the way. I have much less access to what others are feeling and thinking, so my focus will always be on me and from my perspective. I feel confident that the other people involved in these interactions could easily remember them differently if they remember them at all. I don’t believe that my memory and even my journal is a good record of events, but rather that it is a good record of my feelings and how I was making sense of events. The second caveat is my purpose is to make a better, clearer story. But it also means this is a work of fiction.