EQ and IQ: What matters when leading?

 

 

LEADERTIP #10: HOW TO CONNECT WITH PEOPLE

From: http://growingleaders.com/blog/ 

It used to be that I.Q. was more important than E.Q. to leaders. In other words, the person with the highest I.Q. got to be the leader. Today—it’s now more about E.Q. than I.Q. Our emotional intelligence, or the way we manage our emotions and the emotions of others are key to connecting with and leading teams. Consider this: Success in school is about 75% I.Q., and 25% E.Q.  Once you enter your career, it’s just the opposite. Good leaders cultivate good people skills.

Emotional Intelligence is the sum total of four ingredients:

1. My self awareness
2. My self-management
3. My social awareness
4. My relationship management.

So How Do Leaders Connect with People?

Many leaders make the mistake of separating leadership from relationships. This happens when a person steps into a position of leadership and assumes that everyone will follow them because of their position.

“People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” -Dr. John C. Maxwell 

Four Word Pictures

1.THE ANALOGY OF THE HOST.

(Take initiative and make them feel comfortable)

Every interaction has a host and guest. Good leaders “host” the relationships on their team. Knowing what a good host does in their home, we ought to be able to do it with people everywhere. Leaders set the tone and create safe environments to grow.

2.THE ANALOGY OF THE DOCTOR.

(Ask questions. Probe and poke with until you see a need)

Doctors ask questions before they give answers. As you attempt to discern people’s needs or team problems—ask questions, until you can see where they are. Only then do you try to address their needs. Don’t give a prescription before a diagnosis.

3.THE ANALOGY OF THE COUNSELOR.

(Become an active listener and discern what you hear)

Just like a good counselor, your verbal and non-verbal skills communicate you understand. Leaders must be active listeners. They realize listening motivates faster than great speeches. We earn our right to speak by listening.

4.THE ANALOGY OF THE TOUR GUIDE.

(Don’t merely travel with them but get them to the destination)

Leaders are not travel agents who merely tell people about a destination. A leader’s people skills must result in their ability to take people to a destination. Our purpose isn’t to be liked by people, but to take them on a journey and to reach a goal.

Leading Difficult People
Every leader is going to face difficult people and draining positions. Every teacher can say the same thing about their classrooms. What’s more, almost every parent will face the same dilemma in their home. They will have kids who drain them because they are so much alike, or because they are so different, the adult reaches the end of their rope and has no strategy to deal with the child. The following ones are common to leaders, teachers and parents. Let me suggest a strategy for each difficult student, and what I’ve found to be a healthy strategy to lead them:

TYPE                                                            STRATEGY
1. The Sherman Tank: rides over people.    1. Consider the issue; stand up if important
2. Space Cadet: lives in another world        2. Find and develop their unique gifts
3. The Volcano: explosive, unpredictable    3. Remove from crowd, listen, be direct
4. The Thumb Sucker: self-pity, pouts        4. Don’t reward; show them to real trouble
5. The Wet Blanket: always down               5. Be honest, don’t cater or let them lead
6. Garbage Collector: attracts the worst       6. Challenge their statements; force honesty
7. The User: demands much time, energy    7. Set boundaries; require accountability


Ten Truths Every Leader Should Know About People
Throughout my career, I have learned people skills from some of mentors, including John Maxwell, Andy Stanley, Shawn Mitchell and others. The following are a list of ten realities that I use as reminders of the basic needs my team members have:
1. People are often insecure. Give them confidence.
2. People like to feel special. Honor them.
3. People look for a better tomorrow. Give them hope.
4. People need to be understood. Listen to them.
5. People lack direction. Navigate for them.
6. People are needy. Speak to their needs first.
7. People get emotionally low. Encourage them.
8. People want to associate with success. Help them win.
9. People desire good relationships. Build community on your team.
10. People seek models to follow. Set the example for them.

Questions for Reflection

1. Are you a natural “people person”? Why do you believe this?
2. What’s the most challenging type of person for you to lead? How do you do it?

Forgiveness and Leadership

Posted on aboutleaders.com.  

I have had the unique pleasure of hearing this esteemed speaker and expert on leadership address several conferences and young leaders.   This is a new piece from him that seemed of interest to share.  Here is a piece he shares on forgiveness and leadership.

Drew Dudley, on forgiveness and Leadership:

I’m almost 36 years old, and I’ve been to the funerals of 15 of my friends.  I’ve been to only six weddings.

I’ve learned a lot from the people I’ve lost.

When I was 19 years old, my parents let me host the last-day-of-school party (the one that’s been recreated in countless high school comedy movies) at our place on the lake.  I remember leaning against the cottage, snapping a photo of two of my friends as they snuggled watching the sun set, and lamenting out loud how I didn’t have someone special in my life.
My friend Scott, one of those musician/athletes with the perfect left brain/right brain balance, sat quietly next to me for a moment before saying, “Drew, for a guy who has a lot going for him, you spend a lot of time talking about the things that you don’t have.”

The Person You Are

Too young to recognize the value of a friend who tells you what you need to hear instead of what you want to hear, I shot back:

“You just think I have a lot going for me!  You don’t know what it’s like to have all this pressure!

To have everyone telling you how much they expect you to accomplish in your life!  You don’t know what it’s like to try to live up to what everyone wants!”

Scott looked at me for what seemed like an awfully long time.  Finally, he said quietly, “Drew, you don’t give your friends enough credit.  We don’t care about you because of the guy that you might become one day.  We care about you because of the person you are now.  You should try doing the same thing.”
A few weeks later, Scott was rear-ended while driving our friend Tim to work.  Both of them were killed instantly.

Profoundly Valuable Lessons

When I got a job at my university bar, a young man by the name of Jason Abraham worked with me on Tuesday nights. He was tremendously well-liked on campus, and I asked him once why so many people seemed to be drawn to him.

With a laugh he told me that, “I just try to avoid doing things that might cause me to have to say ‘I’m sorry’.  I’ve found the best way to do that is simple: every time you talk about someone, act as if they’re standing directly behind you.  Your life gets exponentially better.”

In late February of 2000, Jason was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and was gone less than a month later, a few days short of his 24^th birthday.

Never diminish the person you are in the name of what you hope to become.  Speak of people in a way you’ll never be ashamed to have heard.  Two profoundly valuable lessons I learned from people who never got to become the people they were going to be.  The thirteen others that were taken too soon left me with equally important insights that shape me to this day.  I share their wisdom wherever I can, especially to remind young people to avoid a mistake I made: assuming their value to the world can only be delivered “one day” instead of today.

No Universal Measuring Unit for Pain

Recently, after a presentation where I shared some of these stories, a young woman approached me.
“Drew, I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your presentation,” she said.  “And to let you know that I feel terrible for all of the pain you’ve gone through in your life.”
We began chatting for a few minutes, and she began to share some of her own powerful stories.  She was an international student studying in British Columbia, but before she had come to Canada, war in her home country had forced her family into a refugee camp, where she lost both her parents and her grandparents to illness.
Stunned, I asked her, “How can you say you feel terrible for the pain I’ve had in my life, when yours so obviously dwarfs mine?”

“Well,” she said, “I’ve discovered that there is no universal measuring unit for pain.  Hurt just hurts.  So why bother comparing it?”

“The more important lesson I’ve learned about pain,” she continued, “is that only hurt people hurt others.  So if I want to be the type of person who does not hurt others, I have to let go of the things that have hurt me.  I have to heal.”

Only hurt people hurt others.

As I sat on the plane home after that conversation, I realized the profound implication of accepting that fundamental truth: leaders must heal in order to lead.  We have to let go of the things that have hurt us to ensure that they don’t rise up and cause pain to someone else.  I realized that meant that leaders have to forgive.

The problem is that can be tremendously difficult, because the reason we allow so many conflicts to go unresolved is because we want to win.  We feel as if someone has wronged us in some way, and though the continuing conflict sucks value from our lives, we’re not willing to finally put it to rest, to forgive, until someone acknowledges that we were right.  That we rightly “won”.

The most inspiring leaders I know aren’t interested in winning—they’re interested in succeeding.  I think it’s crucial to remember that sometimes success is not possible if we insist on winning.

There is no weakness in forgiveness.  In fact, I think that leadership often begins only where forgiveness begins.



I’ve lost too many people in ways that I cannot control to not tell anyone who will listen that if you can save a relationship, business or personal, simply by saying “I’m sorry” or hearing “I’m sorry” (and the latter is often harder than the former), do it.  The fact is that most people reading this will have someone who is no longer in your life who you wish still was, and the only reason they’re not is you haven’t been able to say “I’m sorry”, or hear “I’m sorry”.

And guess what? That’s making you a less effective leader.  I’m not saying it’s making you an ineffective leader – but it is making you less than what you can be.

Forgiveness

The difficulty for me? I’m not good at forgiveness.  As I sat on that plane flying home, realizing that I could never be the leader I wanted to be without letting go of some of the things that have hurt me, I was rocked by the fact that I simply couldn’t do it.  There were certain people I wasn’t yet ready to forgive; certain feelings I couldn’t yet let go; even though I knew I had to.  That remains true to this day.

I’ve shared this idea in a number of places and have often been told that’s the problem: forgiveness isn’t something we can just “do” sometimes.  Recognizing its importance is one thing, acting to make it a reality is another.

The fact is this article isn’t to tell you that you need to let go of everything that’s ever hurt you, and everyone who has ever wronged you, right this moment.  However, what I think we need to do is recognize just how powerfully important it is to do it as soon as possible.

How important it is to ask ourselves each day, “am I ready to forgive?  Am I ready to make myself and my life better?”

Questions are Powerful

The answer may not be yes today, it may not be yes tomorrow, it may not be yes for a long, long time. 

However, I am convinced that recognizing the importance of the question is a crucial step in leadership.  I believe that the answer to a question asked every day will come faster than to a question asked every week, or month, or year.

Questions are powerful in leadership.  Even in the times they don’t bring us answers, they remind us of the importance of seeking them.

All rights belong to the author and his contribution to about leaders

http://www.aboutleaders.com/bid/173459/Forgiveness-and-Leadership

Six Simple Resilience Practices - Week Six: Commit Explicitly to Your Resilience

Below you will find Doug Silsbee's 6th and final installment of his resilience practices writings.  We hope you have enjoyed learning about resilience from a coaching professional and are able to find ways to apply it to your own life.
_______________________________________________________

Commit Explicitly to Your Resilience

Most of us, at least most of the people that are reading this, are very willing to invest in learning particular competencies and capabilities that allow us to produce what we want in our lives. Too, most of us understand the importance of eating well, exercising, and taking care of ourselves.
However, for many, it is a new and revelatory way of thinking to recognize that resilience itself is a capacity that we can invest in, that we can build. Resilience is essential and pre-requisite for maintaining our focus, energy, and persistence in life. And, at the core, resilience is virtually synonymous with the self-generativity that produces aliveness, fulfillment and joy.
Thus, I differentiate resilience from a mere coping strategy, or a set of tools that allows us to endure more for longer. Rather, a commitment to resilience is in fact the entry point to a life-long pathway towards your own integrated development, including physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual components.
In saying this, I'm not assuming that's what you were looking for when you decided to read this. Many people discover a need for resilience simply through a felt need to better manage what is on their plates. Yet, when we really move into it, and we commit to our resilience as an on-going project, we slowly wake up into all the possibilities that a committed practice of self-cultivation reveals.So, now, you get to choose. Presumably, you've read the first five installments of this series. (If not, subscribe below for access.) Review them again. Remind yourself of which really spoke to you and opened something up. Choose perhaps two of these five strategies to really work with, and that complement each other.Then, create a plan. Be specific and concrete. In your plan, address:
·       What, specifically, will you do on a daily basis to work with that particular tool or practice? Weekly?
·       What structure will you build into your already busy life so that this keeps your attention?
·       For the sake of what are you doing this? How will you remind yourself of this?
·       Who will you make a request of in order to support you and hold you accountable?
·       What additional reading, coaching, or other resources will help you deepen your understanding of this and keep it fresh and evolving?
Notice your commitment. Is it firm and clear? Or, soft and gushy? If the latter, how can you mobilize your energy for this by re-orienting to your purpose for doing it? By being present with the real choice that it represents? By choosing a resilient perspective? By engaging someone else as a partner through making a request? By recognizing that, in a sea of commitments where you sometimes feel out of control, this is a place where you do have control?
Now, make it happen!


Doug Silsbee, PCC
Presence-Based Leadership Development
• Presence-Based Coaching for Leaders
• Training and Mentoring for Coaches
• Author, The Mindful Coach and Presence-Based Coaching

828-254-2021
http://dougsilsbee.com
3717 Bend of Ivy Rd.
Marshall, NC 28753

Six Simple Resilience Practices - Week Five: Choose Your Perspective

Another word from Doug Silsbee:
 ______________________________________________________
Choose Your Perspective

Our perspectives are notoriously malleable and subjective, and what we consider to be truth is, upon investigation, rather elusive. Consider what a Fox News viewer and an NPR listener might say when asked about how we might best address the Iran issue! Or how you and a loved one can sometimes experience friction, each knowing that your interpretation of a difficult interaction is the inarguable truth!
Consider how your experience of a sculpture changes as you walk around it and view it from different angles. The sculpture itself is just there. Yet, our experience of it is shaped by our perspective. Two kids, each viewing a sign painted green on one side and red on the other, might have real trouble agreeing about what color it is, when both are actually right.
We can expand this notion to address non-physical things. On one given day, we might think "They can't pay me enough to do this job!" The next day, we're on a roll, and we think to ourselves "I can't believe I actually get paid to do this!" Same job. Same us. Different perspective. And, different experience of self within the situation.
Resilient people recognize the power of perspective, and understand that they can actually choose a generative perspective on any situation. Viktor Frankl famously said, after spending years in a Nazi concentration camp, "The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitudes." Frankl's resilience, derived from the internal locus of control that this wisdom represents, was instrumental in his inspiring survival of one of the most traumatic experiences that anyone could have.Choose a situation that feels difficult, or energy-sapping. Now, list at least four or five different perspectives on this situation. (e.g., "It's not fair." "This is challenging me so that I have to develop new skills." "It will be over soon." "I have dealt with more difficult situations in the past." "I have other resources that I can access in this...." You get the idea.)
Now, for each perspective, step into it as you would try on a new dress or shirt in the store. Try each perspective on and see what it feels like. Find specific, grounded evidence that this particular perspective is actually true. See that you can, by doing this, make any perspective the Truth about the situation, just as one kid saw red and the other green. See how grounding your perspective in solid evidence changes your experience of yourself in the situation.
Now, choose the most resilient, generative and liberating perspective and reside firmly in it, so that it becomes your felt experience, rather than simply an intellectual construct. Make it yours.


Doug Silsbee, PCC
Presence-Based Leadership Development

828-254-2021
http://dougsilsbee.com
3717 Bend of Ivy Rd.
Marshall, NC 28753

Six Simple Resilience Practices - Week Four: Choose and Act from Purpose

Doug Silsbee, a coach who focuses on leadership development says:
_______________________________________________________
Choose and Act from Purpose

The essence of resilience is making choices, in the moment, about what we focus our attention on and what we organize ourselves towards. This can, of course, be hugely challenging. At the same time, it is fundamental to building agency in our lives: the capacity for action, no matter the circumstance.
President Obama, in a fascinating 2004 interview, said that he frequently asks, "How does this connect with a larger sense of purpose?" He explained, "The most powerful political moments for me come when I feel like my actions are aligned with a certain truth. I can feel it. When I'm talking to a group and I'm saying something truthful, I can feel a power that comes out of those statements that is different than when I'm just being glib or clever."
We can access a different feeling about a particular activity by connecting it to a larger sense of purpose. We can ask ourselves "For the sake of what am I doing this?"
For example, I generally don't get excited about marketing. The message that you are reading has a marketing intention; hopefully readers like you will become interested in my work and we will develop a deeper relationship. Yet, my motivation and passion gets ignited by writing these little pieces for people that I know and care about, and who I believe will derive something of value that they can use in their lives. The real purpose for this is to support people in waking up, in the fullest sense, in their lives. If it generates business, of course, that's great. However, first and foremost, I orient towards the purpose of accelerating the development of people in my network. Connecting the writing to that purpose is much more energizing for me, and is what allows me to produce this message (and coach leaders and even write whole books!)Ask yourself this: For the sake of what are you doing what you're doing? Find the purpose, deeper and more meaningful than the immediate goal, that a given activity serves. Connect the dots:
·       "I am hiring a professional video producer in order to deliver this message in the most powerful possible way and make a tangible difference for viewers." (That's different from "keep me on track in the project.")
·       "I am exercising for the sake of feeling fully alive, energized and creative for my clients." (Different from "losing weight.")
·       "I am letting my assistant go because she will be more fulfilled in a different job and I need a different level of support in order to do mine." (Different from "she's incompetent.")
Experiment with this. Consider a current task or project with which you are struggling for motivation and focus. Describe, on paper if you wish, why you are doing it. Note the reasons... which reasons feel like "should's?" Which reasons feel mobilizing and inspiring?
Now, organize your attention around the latter. Center yourself in those purposes, connecting, in your awareness, the activity to the purpose it serves. Note how your relationship to the activity changes as you connect it to purpose.

Doug Silsbee, PCC
Presence-Based Leadership Development
828-254-2021
http://dougsilsbee.com
3717 Bend of Ivy Rd.
Marshall, NC 28753

Six Simple Resilience Practices - Week Three: Make Requests

Doug Silsbee continues to shed light on what resilience really means and how we can achieve it.
______________________________________________________

Make Requests

I have coached many successful entrepreneurs and executives who struggle with their tendency to over-commit. These are people with rewarding jobs who love what they do, but who get exhausted and lose touch with themselves and their non-professional relationships, sometimes at tremendous personal cost.
Often, people like this (and I include myself!) don't see the places where others could help. We have built strong identities as Doers or Problem-solvers that perpetuate our tendency to over-commit.
A key resilience strategy is to be in the business of making requests. I often work in depth with coaching clients around this important competency, which many successful people do poorly! 

Requesting includes, but is much larger than, simply delegating tasks to others. When we make a request, it can be a request for a specific action, for a hamburger at a restaurant, for information, for someone else to take on part of what we're doing, or a move into a different kind of relationship. We make the request by identifying what we need and when we need it. Then, we engage in a conversation with someone else about the request, such that this person can understand and deliver what we need.As a resilience strategy, making requests is fundamental.
·       In order to formulate a request we have to look at ourselves in our situation and discern what we need within it. That's a significant move, and untangles us from the sometimes overwhelming nature of complex situations in which we can't find any suitable course of action.
·       Staying in action is central to resilience; making a request is a form of action. Whether or not the other person commits to delivering on our request, the act of requesting engages us with others and mobilizes energy, the antidotes to stuckness and overwhelm.
·       Third, the result of a request, made clearly and fulfilled by the person we asked, is that we now have support, a hamburger, a service, or something else that we have identified as a need. 
Work with this for a week. Note, during the course of the day, when you make requests. Bring more intentionality into this process, recognizing that the request itself is a powerful act. Several times a day, take the time to clarify what you need in a situation, and formulate a specific request that you can make of someone, which, if fulfilled, will be helpful to you. Then, make the request and see what happens.

 



Doug Silsbee, PCC
Presence-Based Leadership Development
828-254-2021
http://dougsilsbee.com
3717 Bend of Ivy Rd.
Marshall, NC 28753

Six Simple Resilience Practices - Week Two: Discern Where You Have Control, and Where You Don't

 Please enjoy the following ideas from Doug Silsbee, a coach focusing on Presence-Based Leadership Development.
_______________________________________________________
Discern Where You Have Control, and Where You Don't

I, like many of you, get paid to solve problems. It is easy for me to move quickly into a complicated situation, and to see all the challenges and constraints that are inherent in the situation.
Here's the problem. When we organize our attention around constraints, constraints are all we will see. We become immobilized when every course of action seems to lead to other problems. And, often, there is much in any given situation over which we don't have control. The sum total of seemingly immutable facts can seem paralyzing.
So, it is critical to learn to differentiate what we have control over and what we don't. In a given situation, it can be very helpful to actually list out, in two columns, what we don't control and what we have some level of influence over. In the first column, we might list the sorry state of the economy, a boss's attitude or behavior, institutional constraints, budget realities. In the latter column, we list things like our own attitude, the priorities that we set for the day, the particulars that we delegate to a team member, or an exploratory conversation with a possible ally.When we discern the difference, we begin to relax around the givens that we have no control over. And, we begin to see that there are real actions that we can take that are, in fact, empowering. They are unlikely to solve the entire problem. Yet, they get us in motion and provide us with a sense of agency. We become more resourceful.
Practice this. Consider some situation that you face that seems intractable. Prepare a piece of paper with two columns titled "Out of My Control" and "Under My Influence." Then, simply list as many factors as you can in both columns. See what possibilities are revealed through this discernment.

Doug Silsbee, PCC
Presence-Based Leadership Development
828-254-2021
http://dougsilsbee.com
3717 Bend of Ivy Rd.
Marshall, NC 28753

Six Simple Resilience Practices - Week One: Become Present

One of our strongest values at mygapyear is sharing.  We have come across some great authors that have produces some very valuable works that we would like to share with you.  For the next 6 weeks we will be sharing the works of Doug Silsbee, a coach from North Carolina who focuses on Presence-Based Leadership Development.  Please note that the below text is WRITTEN BY DOUG SILSBEE and simply being shared by mygapyear in the hopes that it will benefit those following our blog.  Please check out Doug's website for more information on his practice.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Become Present

This is the foundation of all the rest of the moves. It is simply the recognition of choice.

When I was angry (I had a bit of a temper as a kid!) my mother would tell me to stop and count to ten before doing anything rash. The primary power of this doesn't lie in the counting or even in the period of time that allows us to choose a wiser course of action. The major benefit of this little trick is that, in the very moment of choosing to count to ten, we are exercising choice, rather than acting out of the force of instinctual habit.

Many of us have had such experiences: we have an emotional reaction to a situation, we respond automatically and our response makes the situation worse than it was.

The fundamental principle underpinning all of our work on resilience is that, lacking the inner state of presence, we are much more likely to constrict our field of view and react to events in ineffective and habitual ways. When we are fully present and relaxed, we are able to see and choose a full range of alternatives.

One of the quickest and most reliable means to bring ourselves into the present is to do a quick body check, bringing our attention from the abstract and chaotic world around us into a quiet awareness of our own internal state. Do these steps, one at a time:

·       Let go of whatever problem you're wrestling with for a minute.

·       Notice how you are sitting, or standing; notice your shape. Straighten your back, letting your shoulders drop, and bringing your gaze up horizontally.

·       Breathe, taking a couple of deep breaths and noticing how your chest rises and falls with each breath.

·       Sense the pressure on the bottoms of your feet where the floor is pressing up, and, if you're sitting, the pressure on your back and buttocks where the chair is holding you. Take a moment to feel this.

·       Notice any places where your body is particularly tense, and simply let those places relax.

So, what happened? How is your inner state different? From this present state, what alternatives are revealed?

With even a little practice, this series of shifts in attention can take almost no time. Like counting to ten when you're angry, it's making the choice that is important. The simple act of choosing, in the middle of the urgency of your day, to stop and become present, is itself an act of resilience. (Another centering practice can be found here.)

While this can be used as a simple stress management technique, I've never been an advocate of increasing our ability to endure fundamentally unhealthy situations. Rather, my claim is that coming into the present is the foundational first step in any process of self-mastery.

Practice this often during the coming week. Repetitions will build, over time, your capacity to manage your inner state and to be at choice in any circumstance.

Doug Silsbee, PCC
Presence-Based Leadership Development
            828-254-2021      
http://dougsilsbee.com
3717 Bend of Ivy Rd.
Marshall, NC 28753

Leadership: More than a Buzz Word

If you Google the word “Leadership” you come back with 439 million Hits.  WOW! 
We hear all about corporate leadership, youth leadership, personal leadership, leadership this, leadership that - What does leadership really mean?

That is a loaded question!  Leadership has come to take on so many different meanings over the past decade that its true meaning has been defined, redefined and maybe even diluted.  I have studied leadership, taught leadership and engaged in leadership but pinpointing a definition is still very difficult for me.  The definition that I have found that works best for me was referenced by Stephen R. Covey in “The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time.”

“Leadership is communicating people’s worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.” (Covey, 2008, p. 41)

Along with the above definition, my view of leadership is grounded in Inspiration, Empowerment, Awareness and Action.  Let me explain.

Inspiration:  How does a good leader/boss/teacher/parent/friend encourage someone to accomplish a task?  How does someone see how they can contribute to the greater good?  How does one feel connected with a task or project?  Great leaders are able to relate to people and knows how to tap into the passions of individuals to ignite a fire within each individual.  What motivates or inspires one does not motivate or inspire everyone, good leaders know how to illustrate meaning in multiple ways.

Empowerment: Leadership should not be something that can be held onto.  It should not be synonymous with power or titles.  True leadership is something that allows others the opportunity to grow, thrive and achieve with help and support from others.  A leader’s job is to give others the tools, skills and processes they need in order to be successful.

Awareness and Action:  A true leader is someone who sees an opportunity and steps up to meet a need.  Leaders are aware of their surroundings, the physical and the human, and are able to see potential.  Leaders will identify the possibility and take steps towards making it a reality by tapping into the talents and skills of those around them.

What does leadership look like to you?  What attributes to you value in a leader?  What are you doing that makes you a leader?  How will you lead yourself?