Leading is BEING–Not Doing. What’s Your Reality?
Leadership is about BEING – not DOING.
Yep, putting your feet on your desk and looking out your window is leading. You must make time to pause reflectively. You must make time to contemplate. You must make time to go deep. You must maintain your awareness of self and the values (and the “intolerables”) that guide you.
Warren Bennis, the pioneer of the contemporary field of leadership studies, believes:
Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.
Dee Ward Hock, the founder and former CEO of the Visa credit card association counsels:
Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time in leading yourself—your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers.
Pat Murray, a Vistage speaker of the year, declares:
To lead is to mobilize and guide the energy and talent of others in the pursuit of a worthwhile end.
What is your “worthwhile end?” According to Pat, finding time for “deep thought” ensures that you will take “reliable action.”
Whatever the definition, leading well is about BEING – not doing.
So, who are you? “What do you fear? What lies do you tell yourself? How do you embellish your truth and write your own fictions? What reality are you creating for yourself? Put your feet up and watch this powerful TedTalk to find out:
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