The Leadership Imperative: Making Your Leadership Your Life
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Word count: 468
Summary: The author describes a vision of leadership that you
can use throughout your career. It's a vision that will also
help enrich your life.
The Leadership Imperative: Making Your Leadership Your Life by
Brent Filson
Nearly all leaders I've encountered are underachievers. They're
getting a fraction of the results they are capable of. And in
most cases, it's their fault. Their failures are the result of
the choices they make. For the opportunities to consistently get
more results are all around them all the time, theirs for the
taking.
For instance, to start getting more results than you are
accustomed to getting, you simply have to change your mind-set.
You should aim to make your leadership your life and your life
your leadership. If you don't, you diminish both your leadership
and your life.
To have the change in mind-set really sink in so it changes you
in a deep, fundamental way, you must cultivate two dynamics: a
vision of the purpose of your leadership, and the dedication to
realize that purpose.
The word "vision" has been used and misused ad nauseam. The
trouble is that most leaders misunderstand it. When they think
"vision", they look at themselves, at what they can do for
themselves. To do well for yourself, an inward focus is the
wrong place to look.
Here's a vision that you can carry with you for the rest of your
career, for the rest of your life. I call it the Leadership
Imperative.
I WILL LEAD PEOPLE IN SUCH A WAY THAT THEY NOT ONLY ACHIEVE THE
RESULTS WE NEED BUT THEY ALSO BECOME BETTER AS PEOPLE AND AS
LEADERS.
This vision has two parts: one is result-accomplishments and the
other is the betterment of the people.
You are never more powerful as a leader as when, in getting
results, you are helping others be better than they are -- even
better than thought they could be. Guided by the Leadership
Imperative, you'll find that the jobs you take on, the career(s)
you have, will, in terms of your doing well by them, take care
of themselves.
However, vision alone is not enough. You must be dedicated to
realizing it. Realizing this vision means living not an easy
life for ourselves but a hard life for others.
There are many ways to make such realization happen, and it
should be our life's journey to find them and put them into
action. The point is that when you turn the focus of your
ambitions away from yourself and toward other people, when you
become truly ambitious for their success, your success will take
care of itself.
How do we really let our leadership sink deeply into our life
and change it and shape it throughout our lives? By dedicating
ourselves to passionately realizing the Leadership Imperative.
2005