Self: Setting the Example

By Mike Hawkins

How to cultivate character and mental fitness to run the show. Second in the “most comprehensive treatment of leadership I’ve ever seen by one author” (Jim Kouzes, coauthor of The Leadership Challenge).

Self: Setting the Example sets the foundation for the ability to lead others by developing the competencies of great self-leadership. Effective leaders possess intrinsic passion, character, courage, and confidence that others respect and want to follow. When you lead yourself well, operate productively, and think strategically, others notice and are motivated to attain the higher standards you demonstrate.

The SCOPE of Leadership book series teaches the principles of a coaching approach to leadership and how to achieve exceptional results by working through people. You will learn a straightforward framework to guide you in developing, enabling, exhorting, inspiring, managing, and assimilating people. Benefit from the wisdom of many years of leadership, consulting, and executive coaching experience. Discover how to develop the competencies that align consistently with great leadership.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781612541204

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Let him that would move the world, first move himself.

—Socrates

Setting the Example: Demonstrating self-discipline, self-control, self-confidence, and intrapersonal skills that underpin competence, trustworthiness, and followership.

Leadership starts from within. Ultimately, leadership is advancing a team, not yourself, but becoming an effective leader starts within you. You must first effectively lead yourself, setting the example that others will follow. Almost any result you seek starts with people, and your great leadership is no exception. It starts with one person—you.

The foundation of leadership is the ability to lead yourself. You can’t do for others what you can’t do for yourself. Great leaders don’t expect to be successful without developing themselves first. Trying to lead others without an ability to lead yourself is like trying to build a house without a strong foundation. Bad foundations result in unstable houses. Small issues in the foundation become amplified as the house is built on top of it.

Leadership is manifested by what you do externally, but it starts with how you think and feel internally. A leader’s external results are the reflection of his or her internal character, thinking, and capability. The first people great leaders provide leadership for is themselves. Leadership starts with who you are inside, not what you do outside.

If you can’t lead yourself well, you can’t lead other people well. Developing your intrapersonal skills provides the underpinning for being effective at higher-level interpersonal skills such as speaking, coaching, encouraging, enabling, motivating, inspiring, and assimilating people into high-performing teams.

There are eleven competencies that great leaders possess at this foundation level of leadership. Great leaders who lead themselves and set the example for others to follow

Believe with passion.

Pursue goals within a vision.

Learn continuously.

Know self.

Demonstrate honorable character.

Maintain mental fitness.

Operate intentionally.

Think strategically.

Work productively.

Possess courage.

Exude confidence.

These are the most fundamental of the fundamentals. These are the basics. These are the core qualities on which most everything else a leader does is based.

When you talk to veteran athletic coaches about their teams’ abilities, they tell you it all starts with the basics. When you have well-developed basic skills, your higher-level skills come more easily. The higher-level competencies you will develop in the remaining books of the SCOPE of Leadership book series become easier and more sustainable because they are built on well-founded basics.

Great leaders look in the mirror. They have the courage to examine themselves and make adjustments to themselves. They hold themselves to as high a standard as they hold others. They don’t expect others to possess characteristics they don’t possess themselves. They follow the philosophy of Mohandas Gandhi, the leader of the twentieth-century Indian nationalist movement, who said, Be the change you want to see.

SELF: SETTING THE EXAMPLE

Competency 1: Believing with Passion

Cause

Incentive

Belief

Visualization

Enthusiasm

Hope

Experience

Reinforcement

Competency 2: Pursuing Goals within a Vision

Competency 3: Learning Continuously

Competency 4: Knowing Self

Competency 5: Demonstrating Honorable Character

Competency 6: Maintaining Mental Fitness

Competency 7: Operating Intentionally

Competency 8: Thinking Strategically

Competency 9: Working Productively

Competency 10: Possessing Courage

Competency 11: Exuding Confidence

COMPETENCY ONE

BELIEVING WITH PASSION

More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent.

—Billy Sunday

Believing with Passion: Having conviction for your cause and mission.

Warren Buffett, longtime chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, is considered the most successful investor in the world. One of the first questions he asks the CEO of a company he considers investing in is, Do you love the money or the business? For Buffett to consider the company worthy of his investment, he expects the CEO to love the business first.

After Buffett invests in a business, he makes certain he doesn’t do anything to extinguish the CEO’s love of the business. Why would Buffett care so much about the CEO’s and managers’ passion for their businesses? Why wouldn’t his primary concern be the businesses’ profitability or revenue growth? The reason is that the foremost characteristic of great leadership and delivering great results is that you love what you do.

Great leaders have passion for their work. They believe in what they do. They derive meaning from their work. They are committed to their cause. There is nothing they would rather be doing because they enjoy what they do.

Great leaders are driven by their internal desire to accomplish something rather than by external incentives. Their purpose guides them like a compass. It’s not a job or a paycheck that drives them but rather an internal personal belief in what they do. They have an intensity approaching obsession that comes from their deeply rooted, intrinsic belief in what they are doing.

Everyone becomes excited by certain things in life. You might get excited about traveling, spending time with friends, playing games, applying a well-developed skill, or helping someone else. Excitement comes through doing what you enjoy and find meaning in. People who intrinsically believe in their work have the same level of passion and sense of excitement for their work as others do for their hobbies and personal interests.

Who do you think would be a better manager: a well-educated, eloquent speaking manager who didn’t intrinsically care about his work, or a manager of average intelligence and ability who held a deep passion for the mission of his company? Most people would say the manager with passion would be the better manager. Passionate managers would be more likely to give their fullest effort, inspire others to do the same, and find ways to achieve their desired results.

As a hiring manager—if everything else were equal—would you rather hire someone with more talent or passion? While competence and talent are extremely important, passion is more important. Without passion for what you do, you don’t push yourself. You don’t fully apply your knowledge and utilize your abilities. You might be smart, experienced, talented, and even good-looking, but without passion, your capabilities go underleveraged.

You can’t fake passion. When you are not committed to or passionate about your work, it shows. It manifests in your words, actions, ethic, and attitude. It shows up in your spirit. It is as obvious as the difference between apathy and enthusiasm. Even if you are a great actor, you can’t sustain fake passion. You will wear yourself out trying and look like a fool in the process.

Your passion is your power. It drives everything you do. It is the first competency of great leaders because it is like the fuel that makes an engine run. Passion gets you up early. It drives you to work diligently. It makes you want to be your best. It pushes you to keep going when obstacles get in your way. It makes your work meaningful and enjoyable rather than a mere duty.

Your beliefs and passions cause you to make commitments that sustain your determination and persistence. This is perhaps most evident in relationships. Studies show there is nothing more important to the longevity of a marriage than commitment. It is the glue that holds relationships together. Being driven to succeed starts with commitment founded on believing in what you are doing.

When you believe, you are no longer working. You are achieving. Rather than viewing your work as a chore, you view it as progress. You don’t find yourself feeling bored or watching the clock as you did when you worked after school as a teenager. When you have passion for what you do, it makes your work meaningful and enjoyable.

Great communicators display excitement about their topic, and great motivators inspire others with their enthusiasm through their passion. Top performers who are focused and disciplined believe in what they are doing. To communicate, sell, partner, coach, preach, teach, train, or lead effectively, you must believe with passion in what you are doing. If your heart isn’t in your work, you won’t give your best nor convince others to give their best.

Great leaders believe with passion through these core attributes:

Cause

Incentive

Belief

Visualization

Enthusiasm

Hope

Experience

Reinforcement

CAUSE

Motivation can come from external sources, but when motivation comes from within, you perform your best. When you are internally motivated, you don’t perform because you are told to or because you are being measured in a certain way. You drive yourself. You have your own purpose and cause.

Extrinsic motivators are transitory. External incentives like sales bonuses, awards, and penalties work only for as long as they are in place. Once removed, the desired behavior quickly fades. Great leaders have sustainable drive because they own the source of their motivation. They are doing what they want to be doing. They enjoy their work. You can pay people for their time, effort, and possessions, but you can’t buy their passion.

YOU CAN PAY

PEOPLE FOR THEIR

TIME, EFFORT, AND

POSSESSIONS, BUT

YOU CAN’T BUY

THEIR PASSION.

Some people take a job or pursue a career based on the money rather than the nature of the work. This paradoxically causes them to make less money. Psychologist Srully Blotnick, author of Getting Rich Your Own Way, followed over a thousand people for twenty years. He found that those who became millionaires did work they were passionate about. They made more money than those who set money as their primary objective.

Many people’s aspirations are to achieve independence, master a skill, reach a social status, or attain a financial objective. These are powerful drivers, but not the most powerful. Leaders with a cause are driven to pursue goals larger than themselves.

Studies reveal that over 60 percent of people are highly motivated by goals that positively impact others. People want to be relevant to society. They want to improve their community, industry, or world in some way. They want their family to have something they didn’t. They want to give back to society something that was once given to them. People derive joy and happiness from helping others, protecting the environment, or accomplishing something that isn’t only for their benefit. Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational, finds that people give more effort to social norms such as eliminating poverty than to market norms such as increasing stockholder value.

To believe with passion and give your best, build your inner drive. Pursue a cause that imbues your work with purpose. Find an overarching mission larger than yourself that also reinforces your own desires, dreams, values, beliefs, faith, and goals. Don’t rely on others for your motivation. Motivate yourself and you’ll give a better effort.

You might be one of the fortunate ones who is naturally passionate. If so, you have an inherent advantage by being able to believe passionately in many areas. You seek higher levels of performance because you are naturally driven to win. You detest unrealized gains or underleveraged capabilities because you have inherently high expectations. Even for you, though, a higher cause trumps innate passion. Without cause, passion can become unfocused and fleeting. It becomes redirected when something else comes along, leaving your previous goal uncompleted. Your passion becomes underleveraged if not wasted.

Think for a moment about your field of work and role. Do you endure your work or enjoy it? What is the cause that drives you? If you lack a cause, what cause do you believe in? What would you like to make happen? It may be that you are already part of a great cause but have yet to embrace it or view yourself as part of it. Realize that every job becomes drudgery if you only see yourself in it. Instead, like an impassioned school bus driver, see yourself as enabling children’s education instead of merely driving a bus.

If you are truly indifferent toward your work, consider what you could change that would enable you to put your heart into it. Consider what you could do differently if you had different resources, other responsibilities, or some change in your role. Think about what drives you and makes you truly excited. Pursue the changes you need in order for you to incorporate your passions into your work. Make a priority aligning your work and life with the values and activities that you find most meaningful.

Consider the advice of Apple computer company cofounder Steve Jobs:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

INCENTIVE

Leaders who believe with passion have an incentive. There is something at stake. They have a need to fulfill or maintain. Their cause provides the potential for a pleasure to be enjoyed or a pain to be avoided. It can be financial, social, spiritual, physical, or emotional.

Although money is important, it is not usually the primary incentive that drives people. Studies of why people quit their jobs seldom list money as the primary reason. After reaching a sufficient level of income, nonfinancial needs become more important. Income makes a difference, but only to a point.

Respect and recognition are more powerful incentives for most people. They desire a positive reputation and a notable legacy. Learning and becoming more significant (as defined in the final chapter of the prior book in this series) are also powerful drivers as they increase people’s future value in their field. Other strong incentives for people are securing enjoyable relationships, being an integral part of something important, and overcoming a significant challenge.

These intrinsic incentives drive you from within, but also benefit from reinforcement through external incentives as long as they are aligned with your internal incentives. When the two are congruent, you are operating under the best possible conditions. Everything is focusing you in the same direction. When you are doing what you love, and have external incentives to do it, you give your best effort.

Some managers believe the only valid incentive is a burning platform. They operate under the principle that if there isn’t enough potential pain, there isn’t enough incentive. While it is undeniable that pain and fear motivate people to take action, they aren’t the best sources of motivation for most people in most situations. People don’t stay focused and give their best effort when they are going from crisis to crisis because they are constantly on their emotional edge and stressed out.

When you do have a crisis, don’t waste it. Use it to move yourself and others to address the challenge or make a needed change, but don’t create or wait for a crisis in order to give your best effort. Leverage deeper and more sustainable personal interests. Pursue more meaningful reasons for action. Survival is critically important, but if it is all you seek, you’ll merely go from one reactionary episode to another.

Think about what drives you. Consider your incentives. How well aligned are your intrinsic desires with your external incentives? Know in your heart what you stand to gain or lose. Develop a true understanding of the reason you are pursuing your cause. Seek to align your external incentives with your internal ones.

BELIEF

Leaders who believe with passion have a can-do attitude. They not only have a cause and incentive—they also believe their cause is achievable. They see their cause as real and attainable. Any difficulty is more than offset by their belief that they can succeed. This belief removes any hesitation they might have otherwise had in investing their time, energy, and money into their pursuit.

Belief reinforces your passion. The more you realize that something is attainable, the more motivating it becomes. As your mental picture of the desired outcome becomes clearer, you gain confidence. The more you think about it and talk about it, the more you speak and act with authority. Your confidence builds and your passion grows.

Beliefs are like core values. They are enduring, nonnegotiable, and intrinsic ideologies that guide thinking and behavior. As you internalize your beliefs, they unconsciously guide what you say and do. They also influence others with whom you communicate. Managers and subordinates who work together for many years unknowingly share common values and beliefs because they have unconsciously influenced each other for so long that their beliefs and values have melded.

Belief has two components: intellect and instinct. Great leaders who believe in their work believe with both their logic and feelings. They believe with their heart and mind. You give your best effort when your pursuit makes sense logically and emotionally.

When you lack belief, check both your heart and your mind. Is