FROM SUCCESS EDUCATION COURSE
Audio
Showing Up
What are the principles of leadership?
One principle of leadership is, that you have to “show up” and be counted, just as all of you listening to this course have done. You had to take a risk, purchase this course, or attend a seminar. You had to have the desire and the passion to learn, to grow beyond your present frame of reference.
To be a leader, you also have to “show up” in your life, home and business. “Showing up” is about being present, being aware and awake. It’s about having the presence of mind, heart and soul to be doing what you came here to do in life, not just talk and theorize about it. It’s about walking your talk. It’s about thinking with your heart.
Too often people allow their fears, insecurities and scarcity consciousness to block them from opportunities presented to them everyday. Being successful involves recognizing the fields of opportunities before they manifest. This is a common trait of successful leaders.
Sharing Risk and Reward
Another principle of leadership is about sharing risks and rewards. All successful people must be willing to share both risks and rewards. It comes with the territory. If you accept the challenge of an opportunity, then you must accept both the risks and rewards. Leaders take risks with both success and failure. For what is failure except the opportunity to learn from one’s mistakes. Leaders are willing to make mistakes where others fear to fail.
Success is not the absence of mistakes or failures, but the willingness to keep going when others give up. Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times before he succeeded in getting the first light bulb to work! Imagine the consequences if he had given up.
Take Risks with Others
Leaders take risks with other people. When you’re showing up as a leader and being seen and heard in a bigger way, suddenly people start acting and treating you a little differently.
They may respect or disrespect you – based on your image and communications style, based on what you may be teaching, or how seriously you may be challenging them and their belief systems. So if you want to live in the normal comfort zone, then being a leader is probably not for you.
Great Rewards in Leadership
There are also great rewards in being a leader, especially in your own life and the life of your families, communities and close associates.
You get to be who you are without compromising. You get to go places and be seen and heard. You get to touch into people’s lives that otherwise would be barred to you. You get to live the dreams most people only dream about because they are too scared, too ignorant, or too comfortable and secure.
Leadership is about excellence and contributing greatness to the emerging consciousness of the world-at-large.
Detach From Approval and Disapproval
Another principle of leadership is to detach from approval and disapproval systems and being yourself.
People may or may not like and approve of you in your leadership role. Your friends of old may not like the insecurity of having their perceptions challenged, and may even cease being your friends.
Family may not approve of your unfamiliar and unconventional ideas. And other people will be so enamored with you that they’d follow you anywhere.
You must detach yourself from approval and disapproval and do what you know is right and true regardless of what other people think. What I like to say is, as Terry Cole Whittaker said; “What other people think about me is none of my business!”
Success is the willingness to keep going when others disapprove of you. And not to be ego-fed and distracted by those who would approve of you either. Success is the willingness to stay focused on the goals and objectives and not get derailed by approval or disapproval.
What Have We Done to Our Leaders?
In modern times, we have done horrible things to our leaders. Herein lie the paradox and the risk of leadership.
Most people have expected far more of our leaders than we ever have of ourselves. We have separated ourselves from our own natural leadership and then put our leaders on pedestals – only to knock them down when they no longer please us.
We put our leaders under the microscope of social and political judgment, examining every detail of their personal lives with fascination, worshipping them like gods or celebrities, before we crucify them.
Most people cannot tolerate the mistakes of our leaders, nor do our leaders dare to confess their mistakes under the scrutiny of such judgment. In extreme cases, we have even killed our leaders when they have too strongly challenged our lies, deceptions and untruths. Look at Ghandi, Kennedy, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, and so many more.
It’s time to take a healthy look at leadership, and to expect as much of ourselves as we do of anyone on the pedestal of leadership. True leaders don’t want followers, but want to inspire leadership in others.
In summary, some of the principles of leadership include:
- Show up and be counted
- Sharing risk and reward
- Taking risks with others
- Acknowledging the inherent risks of leadership
- Detaching from approval and disapproval of others
- Expecting as much from ourselves as we do of our leaders.
