Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Proactive thinking and leadership

One of the characteristics of a good leader is to be proactive and anticipatory. Wayne Gretzky used to talk about skating to where is puck is going to be, not to where it is...good leaders know where the puck is going to be.

Given this, as social work leaders I think we have an obligation to think about "where the puck is going to be" when it comes to human services. We've been hearing news about state tax revenues already being lower than projected, which does not bode well for human services. What can we be doing now, how can we be proactive, how can we keep more cuts from coming to the fragile services that are helping the most vulnerable people in our communities?