I’m reading The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner for my current class, and I never say this about textbooks, but I heart this book! It speaks to every inch of who I’d like to be as a leader and higher education professional. One of the very last chapters is about the necessity of celebrating values and victories, because “celebrating together reinforces the fact that extraordinary performance is the result of many people’s efforts.”

I was on the receiving end of such celebration a few days ago. At a fabulous reception hosted by TWU’s Graduate Student Council, I was presented with the inaugural Pioneering Spirit Staff Award. The two people who nominated me for the award introduced me and shared with the audience why I was a good candidate for the Pioneering Spirit award. I’ve always been a sentimental person, and their comments were so sweet and overwhelming and amazing that I started to tear up. Thankfully, I managed to hold it together and everyone was spared the sight of me snot bubble crying.
         

All photographs courtesy of the Texas Woman’s University Graduate Student Council.

image courtesy of Ohio State University

“Exemplary leaders are forward-looking. They are able to envision the future, to gaze across the horizon and realize the greater opportunities to come. They imagine that extraordinary feats are possible and that the ordinary can be transformed into something noble.”

Kouzes & Posner, The Leadership Challenge