{ Leaders: Truthful, Credible, and Real }

Rejoice! My spring of discontent is behind me, the Missouri Scholars Academy has disbanded, and the MR340 is postponed. All great experiences, but their collective dissolution leaves me, finally, with time to refocus on goals:

• Tell important stories
• Create something out of nothing/build a media empire
• Build skills to make the service organizations I work for even better

The first one will satisfy me in the short term, both financially and emotionally. The middle will do the same for coming years. And as I researched social innovation strategies to enhance the last point, I found encouraging words completely relevant to my long-term pursuits:

“Over and over, the people I interviewed acknowledged the difficult social, political, and cultural terrain in which they operated, and expressed how valuable it was to communicate [dilemmas] clearly, directly, and publicly. Highly ethical, they were most concerned with being truthful, credible, and real—not convincing, persuasive, or right.”

– “Leading Against the Odds,” by Aspen Baker for the Stanford Social Innovation Review

The takeaway of the article, for me, was that leaders can stay creative by making changes, exploiting gray areas, living lives of “deeply held ethics and values,” and addressing conflict head-on. This is good advice for business and nonprofit leaders, but also for journalists willing to create meaningful stories. Yes!