Why do you do what you do? For the money? For the power, the prestige, the position or the glory? Why do we do what we do? Mark Twain said, the two biggest days in every person's life are; "the day they were born and the day they figure out why"? If you separate this question from leadership you won't get either right. If you lead any group of people it is the people who will accomplish the challenge before them. Relationships will win out over great talent and resources. The Wright brothers won out over Samuel Pierpoint Langley, David beat Goliath, a young and underfunded nation with muskets and pitch forks battling Great Britain, a world power, is defeated by a fledgling nation of farmers with great leadership and becomes a free and independent nation. Purpose must precede leadership like attitude precedes behavior. Today, people need money like always but even though money takes care of many things it has never provided a person with enough to find meaning and purpose. The quest continues in the world even today.
Why do you choose the things that you choose? When making a decision is it more about advancing your goals, your vision, your desires, and/or your agenda? Do you choose what you want, or do you consider what's best for the team. Selfless leaders are usually humble leaders with many followers. Today, it appears that more and more people are choosing what they want without considering others. Leadership isn't about your personal agenda as much as it is about a bigger agenda. Certainly leadership is about influence and every day you and I are influenced or influencers for good or for bad. It may not always be that obvious but every decision we make and every step we take, takes us somewhere. Selfishness or Selflessness is contained in every decision we make. Are you getting the results you want or are you getting the results the team needs to get? If the leadership is selfish their will not be a team just a group of people going through the motions.
If you want a breakthrough leaders must take responsibility for your current results. Results don't come from public statements but rather from public or private attitudes which produce behaviors that produce the culture we adopt. This is also true in our workplaces. Therefore leadership must take the following steps:
Be transformed from selfishness to selflessness.
Go under the water to find the actual results you are getting and accept responsibility for those results.
Change attitudes that change behavior. Develop new habits that produce different results.
Cast a compelling vision that others will get excited about.
Include your team in the process and trust them to make good decisions. You don't know all the answers.
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