Leadership - A discussion of traits, characteristics, and current news of leaders.

I was fortunate last evening to spend time on behalf of an important cause. I met with several charter members of the Brea Education Foundation, a local non-profit organization that develops resources to provide students of our school district the tools and materials needed in order to maintain and advance their educational opportunities.

The meeting was worth noting on this page because it reminded me how much good and productivity can come from people who care passionately about a shared vision.

Vision is critical to achieving anything extraordinary.  Author Jonathan Swift said,

 "Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others."

It is interesting to me how simple and achievable something can seem once a visionary idea (often dismissed as an impossible dream) has been identified and effectively articulated. Proper execution must follow but the impetus to begin, to formulate a plan, to organize resources only follows after all participants understand and grasp a united vision.

Ten months ago the Brea Education Foundation hardly existed. Last night we saw how the seed of this foundation contributed to the development of the Global IT Academy.  Only an idea last January,
the Global IT Academy is now operational at Brea Olinda High School in southern California thanks to a shared vision.

The Global IT Academy is an innovative model for cooperation among the University of California - Irvine, technology business leaders in the U.S. and China and high schools students located in Brea, California and Dongguan, China. The result is a unique high-school based accelerated learning program that offers course work that combines

Shared vision and commitment to purpose led to cooperation among the private and public sectors, and high school programs more than 5,0000 miles away in China and southern California. What will we see in 2006? If it is noteworthy, it will start with shared vision.