May 2015 Leadership Reflection

May Leadership Reflection:

Leadership Lessons from the Butterfly

        Some readers may already be aware that I’m a lifelong butterfly fan. Like many people around the world and across time, I’m fascinated by these amazing creatures that emerge from their tiny eggs, crawl along the ground as caterpillars, retreat into a chrysalis, and emerge to soar through the wild blue yonder as winged wonders of great beauty. Butterflies are key players in the world’s tropical and temperate ecosystems, creating and maintaining symbiotic relationships with the plants that they pollinate, ensuring their own and the plants’ continued survival. Some butterflies – like the famous monarch – migrate across continents on an annual basis in order to maintain the circle of life that sustains them and the plants with which they are mutually interdependent.

        What can leaders learn from the magnificent butterflies of the world? Several leadership lessons can be gleaned from these miniscule messengers of beauty. Here are just a few of them that have come to mind as I’ve been enjoying the Central Illinois springtime.

·         Cooperation is essential to surviving and thriving. None of us is completely independent; we are all interdependent on each other and with the animals and plants that share our planet with us. It is very difficult (although sometimes necessary) for leaders to act unilaterally; we need the cooperation of others in order to achieve worthwhile goals and keep the circle of life going from one generation to the next.

·         Our lives unfold in cycles. When we are younger, our range of influence as leaders may be somewhat limited; like caterpillars, we crawl along the ground and may not be noticed by the world at large. However, following a transformative experience (which may involve a period of reflection or reinvigorating rest), we ride the winds of change and enjoy a much broader scope for exercising our leadership skills, just like newly metamorphosed butterflies are able to carry out their useful work of pollination once they have emerged from the chrysalis of preparation.

·         Every ending is the start of a new beginning. All of us encounter surprises and disappointments in life; they are unavoidable aspects of the human condition. When an ending brings us disappointment, we should try to wait patiently for the surprise that signals a new beginning – like the caterpillar that spins a chrysalis around itself, goes to sleep (as it were), and eventually reawakens to an entirely new phase of existence, transformed by its metamorphosis into a magnificent denizen of the air.

·         Work that is done without recognition may prove to be the most important work of all. Butterflies and other pollinators do their work “behind the scenes,” as it were, where few people may ever notice it. Nonetheless, the work that leaders do incognito is perhaps their most valuable work of all. As J. R. R. Tolkien observed, “Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere” (The Lord of the Rings: Book 2, Chapter 2).

        Countless poems have been written about butterflies and the multiple meanings that have been attached to them throughout the ages. Here is one of my personal favorites, which brings to mind the butterflies that I used to see in the backyard of my childhood home. The sight of a butterfly never fails to surprise and delight me, even to this very day.

“To a Butterfly”

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

I’ve watched you now a full half-hour;

Self-poised upon that yellow flower

And, little Butterfly! Indeed

I know not if you sleep or feed.

How motionless! -- not frozen seas

More motionless! and then

What joy awaits you, when the breeze

Hath found you out among the trees,

And calls you forth again!

This plot of orchard-ground is ours;

My trees they are, my sister’s flowers;

Here rest your wings when they are weary;

Here lodge as in a sanctuary!

Come often to us, fear no wrong;

Sit near us on the bough!

We’ll talk of sunshine and of song,

And summer days, when we were young;

Sweet childish days, that were as long

As twenty days are now.

Resources for Further Exploration

·         http://lepidoptera.pro/ à Here is a massive online infohub about all things butterfly!

·         http://www.life.illinois.edu/pollinatarium/ à Visit the University of Illinois’s very own Pollinatarium in Urbana for interactive learning about butterflies and other pollinators.

·         http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/visit/family-of-attractions/butterfly-house.aspx à The Butterfly House in Chesterfield, Missouri, features a tropical butterfly conservatory where visitors can meet and greet butterflies up close!