leadership dot #2065: middle

A colleague commented on yesterday’s post where I shared the list from the Minnesota Women’s March of ways to be engaged in activism. What he appreciated was the fact that there were many options and that it acknowledged not everyone would believe in everything or want to be actively engaged in a full-out common effort.

Many people have become so passionate about issues that there has developed an “all or none” mentality. You are for the Affordable Care Act or against it – precluding the possibility that you may like parts of it and want other components changed. You are for abortion or not, again, not allowing for nuances or exceptions that may shift your view. You are pro-Mac or pro-PC; a fan of charter schools and anti-everything-else, a believer in climate change or not.

More often than not these days, you choose a side.

How much more refreshing if you choose to listen or to “study” as the MN March list suggests. Or to learn more about the issue rather than blindly staking a claim for one position or another without fully understanding it.

In this season of gray skies, embrace the ambiguity that gray brings. You don’t have to jump from one side to the other, merely acknowledge that there is a potential for overlap in the vast middle in between.

Thanks, Brian!