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You are here: Home / Employee Engagement / Wednesday@Work Poem…Punctuated Leadership

Wednesday@Work Poem…Punctuated Leadership

June 10, 2009 by David Zinger 2 Comments

Punctuated Leadership

…

How do you

punctuate your leadership?

…

Are you a “.”

bringing work to an end

having the answer

knowing when to stop?

…

Are you a “,”

with just one more thing

creating lists

merely pausing but never stopping?

…

Are you a “@”

head bowed

in reverence to screen

streaming yet another email?

…

Are you a “!”

jumping around

shouting announcements

making declarations?

…

Are you a “()”

keeping things inside and together

keeping things out

building a silo?

…

Of course you’re not

a punctuation mark

but what mark

will your leadership leave?

Perhaps your answer

is exactly the punctuation needed.

This poem was inspired by Neil Postman, an education critic, who once wrote, “children enter school as question marks and leave as periods.”

Filed Under: Employee Engagement, Working Poems - Zingers

Comments

  1. Steve Sherlock says

    June 10, 2009 at 6:41 am

    Good question! I’ll go and ponder it.

    The initial response is my leadership style focuses on the action verbs (plan, do, review, do), and the inclusive pronouns (we, us), and less on the punctuation at the end of the sentences.

  2. David Zinger says

    June 10, 2009 at 7:37 am

    Steve:

    I think verbs and inclusive pronouns are more what “it is at” in leadership. Of course it never hurts to have a little punctuation. Thanks for the comment.

    David

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David Zinger

Email: david@davidzinger.com
Phone 204 254 2130

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