Here's a vision that you can carry with you for rest of your career, for rest of your life. I call it Leadership Imperative.

I WILL LEAD PEOPLE IN SUCH A WAY THAT THEY NOT ONLY ACHIEVE THE RESULTS WE NEED BUT THEY ALSO BECOME BETTER AS PEOPLE AND AS LEADERS.

This vision has two parts: one is result-accomplishments and other is betterment of people.

You are never more powerful as a leader as when, in getting results, you are helping others be better than they are -- even better than thought they could be. Guided by Leadership Imperative, you'll find that jobs you take on, career(s) you have, will, in terms of your doing well by them, take care of themselves.

However, vision alone is not enough. You must be dedicated to realizing it. Realizing this vision means living not an easy life for ourselves but a hard life for others.

There are many ways to make such realization happen, and it should be our life's journey to find them and put them into action. The point is that when you turn focus of your ambitions away from yourself and toward other people, when you become truly ambitious for their success, your success will take care of itself.

How do we really let our leadership sink deeply into our life and change it and shape it throughout our lives? By dedicating ourselves to passionately realizing Leadership Imperative.

2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Get your values and your character right and rest of leadership is a matter of details. After all, freedom isn't just in what you make happen, it's also in what you let happen.

Furthermore, have character trait you are acting on be a solution to your audience's needs.

Put character/solution into soup of a results-challenge and then simply observe what cooks up. In other words, in a situation calling for results, act on character trait you want to emphasize — in this case, being always ready to forgive — and observe results.

Of course, with this trait, your effort won't work unless there are hard feelings in air, but finding someone exhibiting such feelings shouldn't be difficult — if you're leading well. If your leadership challenges don't lead to some people feeling overburdened, you're not challenging them enough.

Take action with a group of people or an individual. You might say something like, "I know we've had hard feelings, and if there's blame to be handed out for causing them, you can look to me. But, as first step in going after new results, let's start with a fresh slate."

When focusing on this particular character trait, it's important to avoid setting up conditions. Saying, for example, "If I do this, I expect you to do that" depreciates trait. Character should exist without conditions, in you and for you, regardless of outside influences such as other people's opinions. Otherwise, they wouldn't be lasting character traits, but changeable sensibilities.

When we're dealing with character and results, we can't expect to force results. Let them grow naturally out of interaction. It's like putting a seed crystal into a supersaturated solution. Given proper solution and right tension, you get an organic eruption of crystals. That's why I emphasize that you should understand and acquire power of being be an observer.

Focus on putting trait into action as a solution for needs of your cause leaders in order to increase results.

Remember, trait of always being ready to forgive is just one of many you can work on. No matter which trait you're developing, use process I've just described to manifest it for results.

In long run, important thing about leadership is not what we achieve but who we become in our achievements. A focus on our character, not only for sake of character itself but also for kinds of results character engenders, will make that becoming a treasure of our lives.

2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.