My daughter asked at dinner last night, “Mom, do you keep working because you have to or because you want to?” She is 45 and in a hellish job with no support from her boss, and colleagues who second guess her every decision. I can see how she would look at her 65 year old mother and think, why would I keep working if my work were as frustrating as hers. My work has been that frustrating at various points in my career. However, my work is different and better now than it has ever been.

Why? First, I work where I want to. I now do the kind of work I did in corporations full-time for a long time, part-time and with public agencies. Second, I work when I want to. I teach online and can do that at 4 AM if I want to spend the day shopping or taking my grandson to the zoo as I will next week. I’ve structured my “live” work to fit into one day a week so that I have days when I work at my computer (teach) for a few hours and then I’m free to read, see another daughter, go swimming with my husband, or vegetate with a good book.

I’m working now toward certification as a coach with the International Coach Federation. I’ve been coaching since about 1990 but have never pursued certification. I can’t seem to stop going to school and probably won’t until my brain gives out. But this is a desire, not a need. I am learning many more effective ways to coach than I had been practicing. I’m loving my coaching work in ways I didn’t love it before.

So what is the answer to the question, “Do I keep working because I have to or because I want to?” I keep working because I feel most alive when I’m working. I keep working because I love the interaction with students, consulting and coaching clients, and professional colleagues. I keep working because I’m married to a depression era guy who still wants to save $.02 on every dozen eggs we buy, and I don’t want to live that way. So, the answer is complicated. I love my work and don’t want to give it up. I love my husband and don’t want to fight with him over whether I shop at Trader Joe’s or the warehouse supermarket. I work because I have to, but having to is as much about my psychological make-up as it is about money.

My grandson, Lachlan, has two grandmothers, although he had three when he was born five years ago. His father’s mother died a few years ago, so now he has me, and my first husband’s second wife. I tell you all this just to point out the extension of many families to step-grandparents, step-aunts and uncles, and other family that isn’t biological. My son-in-law’s sister serves as grandma more frequently than either of his real or almost real grandmas as she lives in Minneapolis where he also lives, and I live in Northern California.

I’m thinking about all these relationships as I’ll get on a plane on Friday to go to Minneapolis to retrieve my grandson for his annual trip to California. It is a sweet and special time for me. He was nine months old on his first visit, so this will be his sixth visit with us. Us changes. The first two years, Lachlan came to visit me and my husband (who is not his biological grandpa), Grandpa Murray. Since then I’ve shared him with my daughter Blake, his loving auntie, who has two step-children of her own, and lives twenty minutes away.

I love thinking of things to do with him. One of his favorites is the Oakland Zoo, where the animals interest him not at all, but the rides are entrancing. From the time he could walk, he has loved the cars that go round and round on a stem like a merry go round. On our first visit, he rode the cars eight times and cried when I pried him off of one to go home. He also loves the San Francisco Bay ferries, as do I. For the last two years, the only time I ride the ferry is with him–Oakland to the Ferry Building, Ferry Building to Sausalito, lunch in Sausalito and return. We’ve also ridden a fire engine from San Francisco to Sausalito and back, visited the Discovery Museum, and eaten at various restaurants where the wait staff is always surprised at how well behaved he is (thanks to mom and dad, not to me).

With each year I realize that he is a different kind of precious than the year before. Now he has long hair. His voice is deeper and he has opinions. I’ve been hesitant to buy him any books because I’m afraid he has outgrown his several year love affair with Spiderman. What could be next?

There is a bit of anxiety in this anticipation. As he gets older, I’m less sure of myself as entertainer and confidante. He will take the lead this year, rather than Grandma. I am working more than I have worked for the last six years, so I will not be with him every minute. Although I’ve protected as much time as I can, I know I’ll be torn, like a new mother, when I’m away from him. Overall, I know that the fear and worry are only about wanting him to have a good time, and wanting us to have a good time together.

It is 8 AM here in Oakland, California and I’ve already received a text message from my daughter telling me she’s too tired to talk, an email from a coaching client telling me she has no internet and would I text back my confirmation that I’ve received her message that she cannot keep her appointment today, a ping-back from one of the pesky Viagra infestors of blogs to my posting about weight loss, and at least 50 emails. I have not yet visited the website of my three graduate classes this morning, but am sure there are 30-50 postings there for me to read. I did fill out an application for CCE’s (continuing coaching education credits) for my Appreciative Coaching classes, but have not emailed that application yet. I’ve posted to Facebook and am here writing my blog. All of this electronic communication is exhausting.

On the days when I am firmly attached to my computer and cell phone for most of the day I make do with these forms of communication. But make no mistake. They are not REAL communication to me. My work with real people at real geographic places gives me energy. Electronic communication saps my energy. I’m sure this is related to age. My daughters seem happy to interact with the world via their Blackberries and iPhones. All three of them have healthy realtime relationships as well–husbands, business associates, children, and friends. One of my daughters owns a spa. She sends lovely embellished emails to me about getting my eyebrows waxed. Another uses her Blackberry between meetings and locations to keep in touch with her workmates and her family. My middle daughter uses her iPhone to relax as well as to communicate. She is hearing impaired and can hook herself up to music and videos at whatever volume suits her, as a way to shut out the sometimes overwhelming amount of communication that comes into her hearing aids.

I have adjusted to all of this. I Tweet and I post to Facebook. I use the older electronic technologies of blogging and updating my website. I give webinars, and teach online. Most of my coaching is done by phone, rather than face to face. At the end of the day, though, I’m exhausted rather than exhiliarated. Interacting with a rectangular object is not the same as a live person to me and never will be.

After more than seven years away from the leadership literature, and the responsibility for developing and administering leadership development within large organizations, I find myself both teaching about leadership and developing leaders, now in the public sector. Ten years ago I was, when I had time to think about it, often frustrated by the ephemeral nature of leadership and its development, and I find that I see it now as very different.

I’m looking at leadership from beyond the active duty of my own leadership inside organizations, and my responsibility to get my hands dirty in the day to day decisions about individual leaders and teams. What I’m pretty sure of now is that leadership is still dangerously lodged in the myth of the individual, and that it is about people, but not about any one person. A leader is never effective without able colleagues, enthusiastic direct reports, and candid advisers. Even brilliant leaders are fully human, which is to say, they have behavior and beliefs that get in the way of their being fully effective.

I’ve also thought recently that those of us who have lost the will to endure organizational life might make its best leaders. Many older retirees from organizational life (I’m not talking here about official retirement, but the choice to leave organizations for a final time due to lowered tolerance for the ego driven decisions that are too common there) have perspective, experience, and have already fought the good fight long enough not to need to be king of the hill, or queen for a day, or whatever ego driven vision we might once have had about being leaders. We are more willing to collaborate. In fact, we prefer it, as it spreads the responsibility and creativity around. We are more patient, having both grandchildren and health issues that require it. We see the humor in more things, rather than throwing tantrums because they are not going our way. We see the advantages in hiring people smarter than we are, and with whom we don’t have to agree. It’s easier to disagree and remain colleagues, friends, and parents. We can see that our approval or agreement isn’t always helpful or even right.

As boomers officially retire in greater numbers, I hope that some will choose to return to organizational life after exhausting the pleasures of the tennis court or the river cruise. We need leadership from people not so invested in the title of leader, but in the responsibility for enabling greatness throughout organizations.

I had a long phone conversation with my mother this morning. I sat with my husband at breakfast while we reviewed the day before (we hadn’t seen much of each other), and read the paper together (yes, we still read the paper, as well as reading Times Reader on the internet). I reviewed my notes and slides for my afternoon webinar, and then I panicked.

I have a free day.

I don’t normally have free time, so this is always a condition that causes anxiety. I want to fill it up with lists of stuff to do, people to see, projects to complete, and things I can check off of my lists. As I was making a cup of decaf, rather than walking downtown for my morning caffeine jolt, I realized that I could take the whole day (or most of it) for myself.

This was one of the things my mom and I talked about. When I reached her it was 11 AM her time, a time when she would usually be out running her community (this is only a slight exaggeration). “Oh,” I said, “you’re having a home day!” “Yes,” she replied with no apology. This is NEW for my mom, who passed on this busy gene at least to her oldest daughter and middle son. Our busy genes have worked overtime to enable us to accomplish quite a lot. My brother is still biking every day, sailing his sailboat across the Atlantic in the fall, and building cabinets and attaching crown molding after a very busy and successful career. I, two years older, am still HAVING a career and loving all that I do.

I’ve said sometimes derisively about my mother, “She does not self-reflect. She doesn’t want to so she makes sure there is not an extra minute when she might.” I’m pointing one finger at her, and of course, three fingers at myself. Writing is my form of self reflection and so today I realized that I had time to think and write about the 10 Daily Habits I’d like to create as part of my coach certification assignment. Then I’d like to take another stab at outlining a book about change when we are older than 50. I might even finish the book by my bedside that I’ve been too tired to read at night. That might be going too far.