The Adoration of St. Joan of Arc
Who you are as a person determines who you are as a leader.
This is an undeniable truth.
It’s not possible to be a visionary leader if you do not have the ability to connect to the vision that lies within you, cultivate it, and share it with others. You cannot be a magnanimous leader if your heart does not hold generosity. And you will not be seen as a leader of great character if your soul has lost touch with truth, integrity, humility, loyalty and faith, and has instead taken hold of arrogance, resentment, denial, blame, vanity, jealousy or feelings of victimization.
Thus, your ability to be a great leader not only lies within you, it must come directly from within you, finding its source in the fabric of your being.
To be a better, wiser, more effective leader you must start by looking within.
I feel so strongly about this truth that when the Lead Change Group, of which I am a member, decided to write a book together about character-based leadership, this is the topic on which I chose to write. As I stated in Chapter 5 of The Character-Based Leader: Instigating a Leadership Revolution One Person at a Time, “To be a leader of true character involves understanding who you are, within yourself, at your deepest and most personal level.”
I believe this is why so few of us ever become truly great leaders; so few of us are connected at our deepest level to our True Selves. Instead, our own truth is buried beneath layers of fear, feelings of unworthiness we pick up along our early journey, immersion in “lack” rather than abundance, and perhaps even a sense of victimization depending on life’s circumstances we have had to overcome.
If you are feeling deep down in your core that you are unworthy to lead, no matter how many leadership classes you go to you will find yourself unable to break through. If you are feeling a deep sense of victimization – of corporate circumstances, industry change, the economy, etc… then it will be almost impossible to motivate and inspire others. And if you have taken upon you a burden of lack, always perceiving the world as a “glass half empty,” finding and connecting with authentic purpose will be elusive.
Instigating a Leadership Revolution
In the book, I focused on three leaders who I believe were strongly connected to who they were at their deepest, most personal level. These are men who very easily due to circumstances could have viewed themselves as unworthy to lead, unsure of their purpose, and unlikely to inspire great change in the world. Yet all three of them were so connected to who they were, what they stood for, and the vision they wanted to bring to life. They overcame great obstacles in order to ignite great change in the world, obstacles that, quite frankly, would have toppled others. Two of them you are very familiar with and one of them will be an inspirational new example of persistence and authenticity.
As I state in my chapter, “Leading by transforming from within, and encouraging others to transform from within, is genuinely at the core of Character-Based Leadership.” It’s where you must start.
I hope you will join me and my 20 Lead Change co-authors, for whom I have an overwhelming amount of respect, as we instigate a leadership revolution, one person at a time! You may buy the book at www.CharacterBasedLeader.com!
Photo of The Adoration of St. Joan of Arc by Isara.
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7 Response Comments
I couldn’t agree more! Finally, someone agrees with I have found to be true for quite some time. I always say to look within yourself because the answers are found there. If you look and you are empty, then you need to build your character.
You cannot be a leader if you do not see the future as a positive outcome. You cannot be a leader if you constantly urge your reports to do something because it makes you feel comfortable or secure.
You must feel and believe it inside of you. Then it will radiate outward. Insecurity also radiates outward. Don’t let it. Take on character based assignments that make you feel secure because you’ve done it. That’s what I’ve done in the past and it works.
Excellent post and words to live and manage and lead by! There are better answers and by looking in yourself, you can find those answers.
Thank you so much, Henry. It’s an honor when I see that my experiences resonate so strongly with leaders! I appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective here, as always!
true! Which is why taking the time to figure out who we are and to work out the bumps in our character is so important!
I couldn’t agree more! This is why my life’s work moving forward it helping people connect to their True Selves. 🙂 Thank you for taking the time to be here and to share your thoughts, Margaret!
Leadership as derived from character is the key towards dynamic change. As a student of Ken Blanchard, I completed my EMBA last year in a program that I longed for. Blanchard’s belief is America is suffering from a lack of character based leaders and built the program upon a model designed to help leaders transform.
We are surrounded by a leadership examples within corporations like Enron and Fanny Mae. We have goverment leaders who are seen in a similar light. We are at a crossroad and the time has come to press in to find character based leadership in others and in ourselves. President Lincoln is an example of one who was turned down dozens of times from numerous leadership opportunities. He held his course and ended up as a leader I respect. He did not wallow in victimization but drew upon his faith and his character to lead this nation out of slavery.
I am one who takes joy in walking alongside others in an effort to see them get from point A to point B. A paradigm changer in action who believes in a God who transforms us as we go to work on developing our inner man. I end with a motto I live by. The world is round and ideas are flat, my friend is a messy mortal so come dance with me in the mud.
Jim Kees ~EMBA
Jim, this is an exceptional comment, thank you so much. Congratulations on the EMBA, that must have been a phenomenal experience! And you will be happy to know that Lincoln is one of the 3 men I write about in the book; he has my utmost respect as well. And as I mentioned to Margaret, my life’s work moving forward is helping people connect to their True Selves, which is the starting point for doing the work on our inner selves you so eloquently mention. Cheers to dancing in the mud!