Becoming A Great Leader

The term Leadership often connotes such things as one's ability to motivate, to manage others, to guide, to influence, to inspire, to be courageous, to take risks, to be fearless, to be creative, to be a role model, to take responsibility and so on. The ultimate aim appears to be to lead "others" into new and uncharted waters where they individually or collectively will achieve some preconceived goal.

In many cases approaches to coaching individuals to become great leaders focus on the development of new skills that will allow them to be more powerfully influential. The general focus is therefore directed outwards, that is "what can I learn to get others to do what I want or need them to do".

Unfortunately, what tends to happen is that by taking such an approach being a Great Leader becomes a task of learning how to convince "others" that what is being asked of them is somehow in their own best interests, whether or not it actually is. Therein lies there reason why leaders find themselves repeatedly having to revisit and reinvent their repertoire of "leadership skills".

When one's aim is to get others to do something that is ultimately against their deeper core human values one will always be confronted with motivational problems among those they are trying to lead. As we all know this "motivational" problem is one that many leaders find resurfacing regularly in their organizations.

When motivation becomes a problem again, what do most leaders do? Well they look to find new ways to try to "influence" others to do what is not inherently desirable to them. In other words they try to find new ways of "fooling" others to follow them. Of course this strategy will only last so long until the "followers" begin to realize that, after the rhetoric has subsided, they are no longer feeling inspired by the leader's strategy of words.

Is this to become therefore a never ending battle? Is there no end to this cycle short of enslaving the followers in some way and forcing them ultimately to do what the leader wants? Unfortunately this is the road that some "leaders" have taken, and continue to take.

Well in my view there is a solution but it will require that the leader adopt a new definition of leadership that will significantly test his/her inner resolve. Let me explain.

I wish to coin the phrase "Personal Leadership. By this I mean one's ability to follow or be guided by one's own core human values, felt as emotions and which live deep within the heart of the individual. Now for some this may sound a bit vague if not dubious. Especially so perhaps for many corporate leaders who rely on their training, their intellect, their skills, and their ability to analytically make decisions.

They have, in other words, relied heavily on what they have stored or accumulated in their brain or mind. Hence the idea of relying on something that smacks of vague emotional reactions or feelings may make some leaders cringe if not feel terrified.

In order to try to allay some of these concerns I will elaborate further on the concept of