Have you every wondered why your Amazon.com search on “leadership” turns back tens of thousands of titles? Or why Google offers up about 340 million results, “more or less?” Books, articles, research studies, biographies and autobiographies, memoirs, lesson learned, parables, quizzes and assessments, cautionary tales–you name it, it’s out there waiting. You might ask yourself, “why haven’t we cracked the leadership code?” Shouldn’t we have the answer to the question of leadership? I’m not proposing anything here–not the beginning to an answer, not the first steps in code-breaking, no path forward…Just one observation: leadership is about the leader. Coming from me, quite honestly, nothing could be more obvious and less original. Great leadership scholars and practitioners have championed this insight for decades.
Socrates encouraged “know thyself,” and 2,400-plus years later, leadership expert Warren Bennis wrote “becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself.” The point is that being a leader is inextricably interwoven with being you. You lead from who and where you are. Aside from questions of self-understanding, awareness, and groundedness, anyone would be hard-pressed to argue otherwise. Knowing who you are is probably the best place to start considering the kind of leader that you are, and how you might grow to be your very best self as a leader. Credit belongs to the entire field of leadership research and practice for this line of thinking. And, if I am going to attend to my own observation–that leadership is about the leader–I need to take a moment to reflect on the type of leader I am and aspire to be.
With countless possible avenues of thought and points of departure, my first inclination was to ask myself “what values are important to me and how might they become leadership virtues that I can grow in to?” Actually, this was my second step in a reflective process; my true first inclination was to pause. Who are leaders I admire? What is it about these leaders that resonates with me, and how might that be instructive for how I lead? Fast forward a little, and I arrived at the questions of personal values and virtuous leadership. Borrowing from Aristotle, when I say “virtues” I am thinking of values that have been practiced into excellence. So a leadership virtue is a value which–through practice–has become more fully realized, authentic, excellent, aligned. What are those leadership virtues that are distinctive and significant for me? Which are most relevant, meaningful, inspirational?
Fast forward a little more, and suddenly I have a short list of personal values–values that I learned growing up in my family and faith tradition, in my career, with friends, from others I admire, and throughout the ups and downs of life experience. These are values that flow out of personal and communal identity, inseparable from my sense of self, who and why I am in the world.
My next question was, so what? So what about this short list? What do these values say about leadership–not according to Winnie the Pooh, Santa Clause, Steve Jobs, the Buddha, or the Bible–but from within the perspective of a life lived and an effort to deepen self-awareness and understanding. After all, these are my personal values that I am holding up for inspection. And, so, this is where the work begins, work that I will only start here briefly and likely never exhaust.
- Presence. Simone Weil wrote “attention is the purest and rarest form of generosity.” Being fully present is the “price of admission” for any sense of authentic leadership. As busy as we are, and as fast as we move from task to task across fields of demands on our attention, we cannot take this for granted. The simple act of pausing to bring yourself fully into the moment is the beginning presence. It also speaks to self-awareness (knowing who and where you are at) and groundedness (knowing the ground you stand on).
- Authenticity. In short, there is true consistency or congruity between who you are, who you say you are, and how you are in the world. I might use the word integrity to describe this as well. And, there is a sense of wholeness to authenticity. At the root though is the simple maxim: be yourself. Trouble really gets started when you try being someone else. It never works…
- Humility. Humus (earth). Humor. Human. Humble. If I could hazard a guess, they all share something in common: a closeness with the earth. Being grounded means having a sense of place and perspective on the world and oneself.
- Love. It is how we are called to be. In the case of leadership, it is about compassion, care, connection. The Beatles said it best: “All you need is love…love is all you need.”
- Courage. It is about the core, the heart, and, fundamentally, it is about “big heartedness.” Being courageous, having a big heart, means having an open heart. You know what they say about the most important exercises you can do to stay healthy? Work the core!
There is nothing here that I feel is complete in any sense. In fact, the work of integration and articulation is really a journey through experience and reflection over time, challenging and enriching how your deep sense of self is expressed in the world. Naming values is a place to start to develop a more critical awareness of who and how you are is made manifest in word and deed.
