One requirement of leadership is the ability to choose an area of excellence. Just as
a good general chooses the terrain on which to do battle, an excellent leader chooses
the area in which he and others are going to do an outstanding job. The commitment to
excellence is one of the most powerful of all motivators. All leaders who change people
and organizations are enthusiastic about achieving excellence in a particular area.
The most motivational vision you can have for yourself and others is to “Be the
best!” Many people don’t yet realize that excellent performance in serving other people
is an absolute, basic essential for survival in the economy of the future. Many
individuals and companies still adhere to the idea that as long as they are no worse
than anyone else, they can remain in business. That is just plain silly! It is prehistoric
thinking. We are now in the age of excellence. Customers assume that they will get
excellent quality, and if they don’t, they will go to your competitors so fast, people’s
heads will spin.
As a leader, your job is to be excellent at what you do, to be the best in your
chosen field of endeavor. Your job is to have a vision of high standards in serving
people. You not only exemplify excellence in your own behavior, but you also translate
it to others so that they, too, become committed to this vision.
This is the key to servant leadership. It is the commitment to doing work of the
highest quality in the service of other people, both inside and outside the organization.
Leadership today requires an equal focus on the people who must do the job, on the
one hand, and the people who are expected to benefit from the job, on the other.
The second quality, which is perhaps the single most respected quality of leaders, is
integrity. Integrity is complete, unflinching honesty with regard to everything that you
say and do. Integrity underlies all the other qualities. Your measure of integrity is
determined by how honest you are in the critical areas of your life.
Integrity means this: When someone asks you at the end of the day, “Did you do
your very best?” you can look him in the eye and say, “Yes!” Integrity means this:
When someone asks you if you could have done it better, you can honestly say, “No, I
did everything I possibly could.”
Integrity means that you, as a leader, admit your shortcomings. It means that you
work to develop your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses. Integrity means
that you tell the truth, and that you live the truth in everything that you do and in all
your relationships. Integrity means that you deal straightforwardly with people and
situations and that you do not compromise what you believe to be true.
If the first two qualities of motivational leadership are vision and integrity, the third
quality is the one that backs them both up. It is courage. It is the chief distinguishing
characteristic of the true leader. It is almost always visible in the leader’s words and
actions. It is absolutely indispensable to success, happiness and the ability to motivate
other people to be the best they can be.
In a way, it is easy to develop a big vision for yourself and for the person you want
to be. It is easy to commit yourself to living with complete integrity. But it requires
incredible courage to follow through on your vision and on your commitments. You see,
as soon as you set a high goal or standard for yourself, you will run into all kinds of
difficulties and setbacks. You will be surrounded by temptations to compromise your
values and your vision. You will feel an almost irresistible urge to “get along by going
along.” Your desire to earn the respect and cooperation of others can easily lead to the
abandonment of your principles, and here is where courage comes in.
Courage combined with integrity is the foundation of character. The first form of
courage is your ability to stick to your principles, to stand for what you believe in and to
refuse to budge unless you feel right about the alternative. Courage is also the ability to
step out in faith, to launch out into the unknown and then to face the inevitable doubt
and uncertainty that accompany every new venture.
Most people are seduced by the lure of the comfort zone. This can be likened to
going out of a warm house on a cold, windy morning. The average person, when he
feels the storm swirling outside his comfort zone, rushes back inside where it’s nice and
warm. But not the true leader. The true leader has the courage to step away from the
familiar and comfortable and to face the unknown with no guarantees of success. It is
this ability to “boldly go where no man has gone before” that distinguishes you as a
leader from the average person. This is the example that you must set if you are to rise
above the average. It is this example that inspires and motivates other people to rise
above their previous levels of accomplishment as well.
Alexander the Great, the king of Macedonia, was one of the most superb leaders of
all time. He became king at the age of 19, when his father, Philip II, was assassinated.
In the next 11 years, he conquered much of the known world, leading his armies
against numerically superior forces.
Yet, when he was at the height of his power, the master of the known world, the
greatest ruler in history to that date, he would still draw his sword at the beginning of a
battle and lead his men forward into the conflict. He insisted on leading by example.
Alexander felt that he could not ask his men to risk their lives unless he was willing to
demonstrate by his actions that he had complete confidence in the outcome. The sight
of Alexander charging forward so excited and motivated his soldiers that no force on
earth could stand before them.
The fourth quality of motivational leadership is realism. Realism is a form of
intellectual honesty. The realist insists upon seeing the world as it really is, not as he
wishes it were. This objectivity, this refusal to engage in self-delusion, is a mark of the
true leader.
Those who exhibit the quality of realism do not trust to luck, hope for miracles, pray
for exceptions to basic business principles, expect rewards without working or hope
that problems will go away by themselves. These all are examples of self-delusion, of
living in a fantasyland.
The motivational leader insists on seeing things exactly as they are and encourages
others to look at life the same way. As a motivational leader, you get the facts,
whatever they are. You deal with people honestly and tell them exactly what you
perceive to be the truth. This doesn’t mean that you will always be right, but you will
always be expressing the truth in the best way you know how.
The fifth quality of motivational leadership is responsibility. This is perhaps the
hardest of all to develop. The acceptance of responsibility means that, as Harry Truman
said, “The buck stops here.”
The game of life is very competitive. Sometimes, great success and great failure are
separated by a very small distance. In watching the play-offs in basketball, baseball
and football, we see that the winner can be decided by a single point, and that single
point can rest on a single action, or inaction, on the part of a single team member at a
critical part of the game.
Life is very much like competitive sports. Very small things that you do, or don’t do,
can either give you the edge that leads to victory or take away your edge at the critical
moment. This principle is especially true with regard to accepting responsibility for
yourself and for everything that happens to you.
The opposite of accepting responsibility is making excuses, blaming others and
becoming upset, angry and resentful toward people for what they have done to you or
not done for you.
Any one of these three behaviors can trip you up and be enough to cost you the
game:
If you run into an obstacle or setback and you make excuses rather than accept
responsibility, it’s a five-yard penalty. It can cost you a first down. It can cost you a
touchdown. It can make the difference between success and failure.
If, when you face a problem or setback, and you both make excuses and blame
someone else, you get a 10-yard penalty. In a tightly contested game, where the
teams are just about even, a 10-yard penalty can cost you the game.
If, instead of accepting responsibility when things go wrong, you make excuses,
blame someone else and simultaneously become angry and resentful and blow up, you
get a 15-yard penalty. This may cost you the championship and your career as well if it
continues.
Personal leadership and motivational leadership are very much the same. To lead
others, you must first lead yourself. To be an example or a role model for others, you
must first become an excellent person yourself.
You motivate yourself with a big vision, and as you move progressively toward its
realization, you motivate and enthuse others to work with you to fulfill that vision.
You exhibit absolute honesty and integrity with everyone in everything you do. You
are the kind of person others admire and respect and want to be like. You set a
standard that others aspire to. You live in truth with yourself and others so that they
feel confident giving you their support and their commitment.
You demonstrate courage in everything you do by facing doubts and uncertainties
and moving forward regardless. You put up a good front even when you feel anxious
about the outcome. You don’t burden others with your fears and misgivings. You keep
them to yourself. You constantly push yourself out of your comfort zone and in the
direction of your goals. And no matter how bleak the situation might appear, you keep
on keeping on with a smile.
You are intensely realistic. You refuse to engage in mental games or self-delusion.
You encourage others to be realistic and objective about their situations as well. You
encourage them to realize and appreciate that there is a price to pay for everything
they want. They have weaknesses that they will have to overcome, and they have
standards that they will have to meet, if they want to survive and thrive in a
competitive market.
You accept complete responsibility for results. You refuse to make excuses or blame
others or hold grudges against people who you feel may have wronged you. You say,
“If it’s to be, it’s up to me.” You repeat over and over the words, “I am responsible. I
am responsible. I am responsible.”
Finally, you take action. You know that all mental preparation and character
building is merely a prelude to action. It’s not what you say but what you do that
counts.
The mark of the true leader is that he or she leads the action. He or she is willing to
go first. He or she sets the example and acts as the role model. He or she does what he
or she expects others to do.
You become a motivational leader by motivating yourself. And you motivate
yourself by striving toward excellence, by committing yourself to becoming everything
you are capable of becoming. You motivate yourself by throwing your whole heart into
doing your job in an excellent fashion. You motivate yourself and others by continually
looking for ways to help others to improve their lives and achieve their goals. You
become a motivational leader by becoming the kind of person others want to get
behind and support in every way.
Your main job is to take complete control of your personal evolution and become a
leader in every area of your life. You could ask for nothing more, and you should settle
for nothing less.
Make Every Minute Count
Save Hundreds Of Hours And Save Thousands Of Dollars In Personal
Advancement
Your mind is your most precious asset. You must be continually working to increase
the quality of your thinking. One of the best ways is to turn driving time into learning
time. Listen to educational audio cassettes in your car. The average driver according
to the American Automobile Association, drives 12,000 to 25,000 miles each year,
spending 500 to 1000 hours that you spend each year in your car. That is the
equivalent of 12 1/2 to 25 forty-hour weeks. This is the same as two full university
semesters spent behind the wheel of your car each year.
Use Traveling Time As Learning Time
If you did nothing but use that traveling time as learning time, this decision alone
could make you one of the best educated people of your generation. Many people
have gone from rags to riches simply by listening to audio programs as they drive to
and from work.
Attend Every Seminar
In addition, for personal and professional development, you should attend every
seminar you can. You can often save yourself 100’s of hours of reading and
researching by attending a seminar given by an authority in his or her field. You can
learn ideas, techniques and methods that can save you hours, days, even months of
hard work and research on your own.
Increase Your Income
Remember, to earn more, you must learn more. Your outer world of results will
always correspond to your inner world of preparation. I've always loved the poem
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow where he describes those who achieve great things
with their lives:
"Those heights by great men reached and kept
were not obtained by sudden flight,
but they, while their companions slept
were toiling upward in the night"
Remember, continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.
Now, here are two things you can do to put these ideas to work in your life
immediately.
First, purchase an audio program that can help you to be happier and more effective
today. Begin listening to it immediately. Resolve never to listen to music in your car
when you can turn driving time into learning time.
Second, seek out seminars and training programs given by experts in your field. Sit
close to the front, take careful notes, and apply the best ideas that you learn
immediately.
Making the Most of Change
By: Brian Tracy
To deal with change, perhaps the most valuable quality you can develop is flexibility.
