A leader sees greatness in other people.  He nor she can be much of a leader if all she sees is herself.   ~Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou left us this week, only her words will proceed to guide us and inspire u.s. for decades to come.  She was a woman of great backbone and spoke of courage often.  Her life was a colorful tapestry of divergent experiences.  Borrowing from Wikipedia, I learned this about Angelou'due south groundwork.

At the age of viii, while living with her female parent, Angelou was sexually abused and raped by her mother's young man, a man named Freeman.  She told her brother, who told the rest of their family.  Freeman was found guilty but was jailed for only i 24-hour interval.  Four days after his release, he was murdered, probably past Angelou's uncles.  Angelou became mute for about five years, assertive equally she stated, "I idea my voice killed him; I killed that man because I told his proper noun.  And then I thought I would never speak again, because my voice would kill anyone…"  Co-ordinate to Marcia Ann Gillespie and her colleagues, who wrote a biography about Angelou, it was during this period of silence when Angelou developed her extraordinary memory, her love for books and literature, and her power to listen and observe the world around her.

She became a poet and writer after a series of occupations as a immature adult, including fry cook, prostitute, nightclub dancer and performer, cast member of the opera Porgy and Bess, coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and journalist in Arab republic of egypt and Republic of ghana during the days of decolonization.  She was an actor, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television set programs.

And this calendar week the Washington Postal service featured a number of memorable quotes from Angelou.  These are ii of my favorites—one on courage and another on how she worked.

One isn't born with backbone.  One develops information technology.  And you develop it by doing small, mettlesome things, in the aforementioned style that one wouldn't set out to option upwards 100 pound purse of rice.  If that was ane's aim, the person would exist brash to pick up a five pound bag, and then a ten pound, and and then a 20 pound, and then along, until 1 builds up enough muscle to actually pick upwardly 100 pounds.  And that'southward the same mode with courage.  Yous develop courage past doing courageous things, small things, but things that cost you some exertion – mental and, I suppose, spiritual exertion.

I accept kept a hotel room in every town I've ever lived in.  I rent a hotel room for a few months, leave my home at six, and try to be at work past vi-thirty…I never allow the hotel people to modify the bed, considering I never slumber there.  I stay until twelve-xxx or one-thirty in the afternoon, and then I go dwelling and endeavour to exhale; I look at the work around five; I have an orderly dinner—proper, tranquillity, lovely dinner; and then I go dorsum to work the next forenoon.  Sometimes in hotels I'll go into the room and in that location'll be a note on the floor which says, Honey Miss Angelou, let the states change the sheets.  We think they are moldy.  But I only allow them to come in and empty wastebaskets.  I insist that all things are taken off the walls.  I don't want anything in at that place.  I go into the room and I feel as if all my beliefs are suspended.  Aught holds me to annihilation.

When faced with life's challenges, may all leaders take the courage and discipline of Maya Angelou.