Thinking Long Term as a Leader

In The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner, they give a few great examples on how leaders should look at the long term.  Significant changes happen in the long term.

Visions are future-oriented and made real over different spans of time.

• It may take three years from the time you decide to climb a mountain until you actually reach the summit.
• It may take a decade to build a company that is one of the best places to work.
• It may take a lifetime to make neighborhoods safe again for little children to walk alone to the corner store.
• It may take a century to restore a forest destroyed by a wildfire.
• It may take generations to set a people free.

Leaders should share their long term vision and commit to the short term struggles to reach that vision.

Communicating A Leader's Values; Gunning

In The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes and Posner discusses the need for Clarify Values.  They point out the need to have your communications on all levels reflect your values.  Important to this is the choice of words, phrases, and metaphors. 

Mixed messages can happen when some leaders try to motivate.  Often, motivational talks use aggressive sports and military analogies.  Sport and military fields have many very powerful stories and messages, however they can conflict with the values of many businesses and organizations. 

In constrast, several positive examples are given from a speech made by Louis Gunning of Unilever.  He focuses on the value of service and caring.

"The core insight about great leadership comes down to service.  Somehow it humanizes us."

"People want to live meaningful lives; . . . .they want to grow and they want to be part of an organization that helps them to contribute to something that is far bigger than they could ever create on their own."

"Caring for the community needs to be in the heart of all our actions.  Once we get this right, then the rest will come into place."

Sports and military fields have many great figures that business leaders and non-profit leaders connect to.  A well-rounded leader should balance these greats with other greats known for compassion, service, and integrity.

Balance Vince Lombardi with Mother Teresa
Balance George Patton with Martin Luther King
Balance Michael Jordan with Mohandas Gandhi
Balance Sun Tzu with Eleanor Roosevelt

More On Authenticity and Leadership

Continuing on the theme of authenticity in leadership . . . .

In The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner, there is a powerful passage on how leaders need to be authentic, sincere, and passionate.

You must know what you care about.  If you don't care, how can you expect others to do so?  If you don't burn with desire to be true to something you hold passionately, how can you expect commitment from others?  And until you get close enough to flame to feel the heat, how can you know the source? You can only be authentic when you lead according to the principles that matter most to you.  Otherwise you're just putting on an act.

Many leaders pour their efforts into many areas.  Beyond their normal job, they may be passionate about a non-profit organization, passionate about an artistic hobby, or passionate about athletic endeavors.  Being passionate in many areas of life is important to be an authentic leader.