Big Idea Daily | On Becoming a Leader
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by Warren Bennis |
“It is not in the still calm of life or the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulty. Great necessities call out great virtues.”ABIGAIL ADAMS |
BIG IDEA
Self-Invention = Key to Leadership
FROM THE BOOK“I cannot stress too much the need for self-invention.
To be authentic is literally to be your own author (the words derive from the same Greek root), to discover your own native energies and desires, and then to find your own way of acting on them. When you’ve done that, you are not existing simply in order to live up to an image posited by the culture or by some other authority or by a family tradition. When you write your own life, then no matter what happens, you have played the game that was natural for you to play. … it is your task to break out of such limits and live up to your potential, to keep the covenant with your youthful dreams.”
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Brian's Notes
Did you know the word “authentic” literally means to be the author of our own lives?
To be effective leaders, we must do the work to create a guiding vision of what we truly want to create with this one precious life of ours. We must passionately fall in love with the promises of life and our chosen path to making our vision a reality while living in integrity with our deepest values, and earning trust along the way as we push our edges, take some risks, and learn just how to go about making it all come together.
That is the essence of leadership. And, it starts with self-invention—being willing to sit down and write the story of our lives the way we think is best.
(How’re you doing with that?)
Reminds me of Abraham Maslow. In Toward a Psychology of Being, he tells us: “The group of thinkers who have been working with self-actualization, with self, with authentic humanness, etc., have pretty firmly established their case that man has a tendency to realize himself. By implication he is exhorted to be true to his own nature, to trust himself, to be authentic, spontaneous, honestly expressive, to look for the sources of his action in his own deep inner nature.”
Todd Henry echoes this in Louder than Words in which he helps us discover our “authentic voice.” He says: “Here’s a question worth pondering: While your work speaks about you, does it really speak for you? Does it represent you well? Does it reflect the authentic you?”
Plus: “Your authentic voice is a gift. How will you offer it to others today through your work? Answering that question is your life’s mission.”
Matthew Kelly has some similar wisdom in his great book Perfectly Yourself where he tells us: “Listen as I whisper three of the most powerful words in history into your ear. The great artists and scientists know the power of these words. Allow these three words to permeate every corner of your being and every aspect of your life, and you will live a life of such authenticity that has rarely been witnessed. Simplify. Simplify. Simplify. Which parts of your life are confusing, congested, or cluttered? Simplicity is the way to clarity.”
(btw: Matthew tells us: “We complicate our lives because we don’t know what we want.”)
Remember Ingredient #1 for leadership? A Guiding Vision. We must know what we want.
So: WHAT DO YOU (REALLY!!!) WANT?! And, how can you simplify your life so you can focus on what truly matters to you? (Now a good time to take a +1% baby step?)
Big Ideas
01: LEADERSHIP BASICS
02: SELF-INVENTION
03: BLESSED IMPULSE
04: WHAT WILL YOU EXPRESS?
05: TRUST
“Ernest Hemingway said that the world breaks all of us, and we grow stronger in the broken places. That’s certainly true of leaders. Their capability to rebound permits them to achieve, to realize their vision.”WARREN BENNIS |
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