I m sure that there is not a person here who can t relate to the enormous amount of change that effects each of us daily in our role as leader. So let us spend a few moments reviewing the purpose of today s session. In the time that we have together, I would like to explore change as it effects today s leaders, impacting who we are, who we would like to be, and what we need to do to be successful leaders in the 21st Century. I like to examine what others have written and observed about this skill called leadership. The best way to get people to venture into unknown terrain is to make it desirable by taking them there in their imaginations.
Imagination is that place where the future is created.
Think about all the things that five or ten years ago we thought were unimaginable, that now exist. So in the new millennium, our ability to lead will be a function of our ability to constantly look at ourselves and question our knowledge, our style, our willingness to listen, to learn, and to grow. Having knowledge or acting like we do will no longer make us great leaders. In other words, everything that we have been taught, and everything that we have learned, could possibly lead us astray in the future unless we begin to accept the fact that change is a constant. It may be one of the few constants we have in our personal and professional lives.