Living the Leadership Choice

Each one of us possesses talents, skills and abilities that combined with our passion for change makes us unique. The thrill of discovering what you uniquely have to offer the world allows you to open up greater happiness and a meaningful contribution to your communities. As you gain clarity around your talents and skills and articulate them to others, you attract support from people because they can see your vision and choose to be a part of it. Now, they have the opportunity to contribute their talents and skills, as change becomes a reality when complimentary skills sets come together united in achieving a goal.

We begin this process by opening our eyes to the leaders we already are—he or she is in there, sometimes more obscure than we would like, but nonetheless there. As you begin this book be prepared to answer questions that will reveal the power you already have, rather than looking for some external solution to changing your life or the world around us. It is strongly recommended that you keep a written record of the exercises you do throughout the book; you may want to keep a journal or you may prefer Post-it notes—whatever feels best to you is fine, although keeping a written record of your progress is helpful throughout the process. There is no right answer to these questions and they may change over time; what you should notice are the trends and threads that you will begin to weave into form throughout the journey to become the leader you have always been.

Leadership: Where it All Begins

Where does leadership come from and how do we use it in our everyday life. Everyone has ideas about who and what leaders are and whether they’re born or they’re made. Henry Kissinger has said, “The task of a great leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been . . . Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision. Those leaders who do not are ultimately judged failures, even though they may be popular at the moment,” and ultimately that’s what leadership is about.—first owning and understanding your own inner energy and then putting your leadership skills out into the world. It’s about change. It’s about working with people to create the changes that we want to create in our communities, in our organizations, in our governments and in the world. Just importantly, as Kissinger alludes to, leadership is not about popularity in the moment, rather it is sustained contribution to real change that makes a positive difference in people’s lives.

Leaders articulate a vision, they see where the possibility and promise exist and they know how to effectively get people to move there. This requires a variety of skill sets in working with people—and it is not difficult. Most changes we want to create are those in our immediate life and the key to success is in becoming aware of our power and the recipe for walking people through a process.

Each of us has natural talents and abilities that we bring to the table and being able to identify them is important in to the effectiveness of every leader. There are skills that we can learn and talents that can be developed as we progress as leaders throughout our lives; and the seeds of all we need are already within us. The key to is become aware of the journey that we are already engaged with—we are either dismissing our gifts and not using them in our daily lives or we are actively engaged in not only understanding what makes us tick, but also how we can best use our energies in service to others. By fully owning who we are and endeavoring every day to be the best we can be is how we begin living The Leadership Choice.