Passionate Leadership

Posted by Energy Wire on January 6, 2011 at 11:00 AM

Wake up! The world has changed.  And it is not going back to the way it was.  Yet, there are many companies winning today, growing today.  Why?  Is it innovation?  Being purpose driven? Being service driven?  It could be any of those, think about your favorite local restaurant, a winning sports team, the recent election.  Win-ship follows leadership.  And today we all need to juice up our leadership.

What makes for successful leadership?  Why is it that certain companies and organizations are so well known, so successful?  So profitable? It is leadership.  There are probably more books about leadership than religion, yet leadership doesn't need a book (author's do).  Leadership is what sets an organization apart from the others in their crowded competitive space, and provides the fuel to continue to fulfill their purpose.

Leadership for the future is based on five key ingredients. Ingredients that can not be taught, but ingredients that can evolve and mature through life experience.

Leadership comes from 5 key drives:

Passionate commitment to purpose – Successful organizations are purpose driven.  Successful leadership keeps everyone’s focus on a singular purpose and doesn’t get side tracked by the everyday breakdowns that are part of our life.  When leaders lose sight of purpose, the organization begins to take a path of self destruction.  Create your purpose.  State your purpose.  Live your purpose.  Ignite others through your purpose.

Setting unachievable goals – Or at least very high goals.  Goals that are set to meet success, are set too low.  Leaders understand that organizations need inspiration, they need stretch-goals.  Stretch-goals create internal buy-in, excitement, passion, commitment and momentum.

Bigger picture perspective – Leaders hold the big picture while adjusting the strategies to move forward. Leaders have the ability to see the underlying challenges,  hold the ever increasing amount of data points and understand the ramifications of action and inaction.

Self confidence balanced with self awareness – Too often leaders implode because of their lack of self awareness.  The ego runs afoul because of the lack of one’s own moral compass.  Leaders need strong enough egos to be self confident as they head into the winds of challenge.  And successful leaders have a high self awareness of themselves.  This awareness comes over many years of breakdowns that ultimately lead to greater understanding of who one is as a person.

Balance of intelligence with emotion – The greater the emotional capacity the greater the chance of leadership success.  Rational intelligence is necessary, it is the cost of entry.  And emotional understanding and connectivity is what leap frogs one into successful forward moving leadership.

Leadership is the most important component for your organization.  And the challenge every organization has, is to make sure they have the right leadership in place for the times.  Organizations must be much more intentional about leadership choices for today's new economic environment.

When an organization makes the wrong leadership choice it sets itself on a path that is often hard to recover from.