Leadership

On my last post I mentioned the Surveyor's leadership or lack of role in the community.

A couple of people commented about it and I want to touch on it briefly and then move along.

Regarding the persons comment about the APLS and if someone wants to form leadership they need to essentially shut up and get involved in the survey world to make a difference.
I agree 100%

Now to my main man Dane's comment of a lack of leadership. He was touching on the lack of Surveyor leadership in the public community. This is my fault for failing to clarify my statement, however Dane knows me very well and understands that I think about the big picture not just the little survey world.

OK, all that said lets talk about leadership.

I use to define a leader as someone that I would personally follow into battle. I have recently discovered that this is a very poor way to gauge a leader especially since there are so many in different fields.

Are there many that I would follow into battle? Hell no, because most industry and field leaders are not the people behind the scenes driving the truck.

This year I was accepted into Scottsdale Leadership which is a community program that educates one on every aspect of city and the shows different kinds of leadership roles one can assume from sitting on boards to public office to volunteering. This program also puts one in touch with community and business people that are generally hard to gain access to.

The reason I am going through this program is to further my understanding of the big picture, further myself and to of course meet the people I desire to associate with.

A well rounded sense of community is very important to any business person, this is impossible to emphasis enough.

Now comes the Surveyor role or lack thereof.

I belong to some organizations and aside from myself I have never seen nor heard of a surveyor getting involved in the community at any level except to suck up to townies to get contracts. (Note: This is in my world, others probably know more.)

Is this a bad thing? Absolutely.

Why? Because no one knows what a Land Surveyor is, they are completely unaware of what we do, what our value is and how important we are to society and order.

This ladies and gentlemen is our fault. Yes that's right our fault.

Is it any wonder that society has taken on the image role of the surveyor as the scruffy guy with ripped jeans that come their house and appears to be doing nothing because they can't see it, or how it has become OK for for some donkey to charge $50 an hour and totally screw an entire profession, that people are stabbing colleagues in the back by filling complaints instead of talking, that designers and engineers that used to be great clients are now trying to push jobs through without a survey, this list goes on and on and on and on.

Landscapers get more respect than we do and we are often mistaken for one because people hear "land" in our job description. We are at the bottom of the barrel for recognition because no one knows what we do.

To this I say WHAT have we done to ourselves? This situation should be the polar opposite and a survey should be an expected part of life just like consulting a doctor or an attorney.

I think it is time for the Land Surveyor to put themselves in the public eye. This will make it a more respected position in society.

Join a chamber, networking group, go through leadership, sponsor an event, volunteer, do a job fair, do something.

We are at a critical time in our profession and it has become imperative that we advance or we will regress. We will be left behind by others that seek advancement and yes technology. We can no longer be stagnant if we want to be a "Profession" as opposed to a technical skill.

Associating with other surveyors is a great mirror and a great learning tool but it is not enough for us to progress. There is a whole big world out there that needs to know how awesome most of us are.

I personally refuse to be part of all that negative stuff and am striving everyday to become the surveyor that is expected to be a part of things. I am working toward being a leader in the community and establishing associations with successful people that can help me advance in every aspect.

Bottom line, we as individuals have a lot to offer but we are doing a really bad job of execution and I personally think all of us can do much better.

Do I have all of the answers? No. I can only take responsibility for myself and encourage others to do the same.

So now it is time for this leader to wrap up for a 4 day weekend and prepare to eat and drink to much.

I highly suggest all of you do the same. Monday we can all do it again and again.

Happy Thanks Giving