How Leaders Learn

Chapter 10 Ditch the Blinders

Learn to make—and check—your own judgments

The words “trailer park” can conjure up all sorts of negative stereotypes—of poverty and ignorance, of kids in ratty clothing and weeds growing up through a mobile home’s supports. I’ve experienced those stereotypes. When I tell people that I grew up in trailer courts, I can see their assumptions in how their expressions change: I must have had a disadvantaged youth or I’ve had limited experience of the world.

But their images and assumptions have nothing to do with the reality of my childhood. In many ways, I can’t imagine having had a more idyllic upbringing or a more expansive view of the world because I grew up in trailer parks—in a new town every few months until ...