The New Leadership Is A Sacred Calling
The global marketplace is demanding new leadership. A key feature of this leadership may be viewed as a sacred activity.
By Brent Filson - 2006
You can greatly improve your job and career performance when you embrace leadership as a sacred calling.
The global marketplace is creating historic changes in human
circumstances as broad and deep as those originated by the Industrial
Revolution. But one significant change that observers are overlooking
involves leadership.
From the outset of the Industrial Revolution, order-giving has been the
standard of leadership. The word "order" comes from the Latin root
meaning to arrange threads in a woof. In the Industrial Revolution's
early years, workers were "ordered" or ranked like threads in a woof of
textile production lines.
But globalization is creating a need for new leadership. Instead of
ordering people to go from A to B, the new leadership has people want
to go from A to B.
This simple, even simplistic, difference illuminates an enormous
leadership opportunity. Clearly, people who "want to" are more
competitive than people who are simply responding to orders, given
their skills are commensurate. Your arousing want-to in others can be
accomplished most effectively when you see your leadership as a sacred
activity.
Sacred is commonly defined as being devoted or dedicated to a deity or
some religious purpose. But the emergence of the global marketplace has
necessitated a new meaning for the sacred. The sacred I speak of is not
connected to any principle exclusive to a particular denominational
religion. If it were, it could not be applied universally throughout
the global market's interplay of many languages, cultures, and
religions. Instead, the sacred aspect of leadership is based on the
undeniable fact that all humans everywhere are interconnected through
their relationships in profound, practical ways. The sacred flows from
the well springs of those deep, human relationships.
Paradoxically, this "new" leadership has been manifested since time in
memorial. After all, when people needed to accomplish great things, a
leader had to first gather them together and speak from the heart. In
that gathering, in that speaking, in that sharing something truly
sacred was established.
To examine the sacred, we must understand the stuff that leaders'
activities must be made of: results. If you're not getting results, you
won't be a leader for long. Results come in countless forms and
functions. But one thing all results share is they are the outcomes of
the relationships people engender to take action.
The word "relationship" comes from a Latin root meaning to "carry
back." To be involved in a human relationships is to both give and get.
Such relationships are best realized in leadership when you engage in
what I call the Leadership Imperative. The Imperative states: "I will
lead others in such a way that we together not only accomplish our
needed results but we grow professionally and personally."
The Leadership Imperative is the rough, organizational equivalent of
the Golden Rule that most religions, in one form or another, urge; but
don't confuse it with a guide for conduct exclusively; it's also a way
of getting great organizational results. When people understand that
your leadership will improve their lives, their jobs and their careers,
you'll establish a sacred bond with them, and they'll be more likely to
be motivated to accomplish extraordinary things for you.
(An important tool for actualizing the Leadership Imperative is a
methodology I've been teaching to leaders worldwide for nearly a
quarter of a century. See my website for my information on the
Leadership Talk.)
In our time, order leadership has held sway in all sectors of business
and government. However, order leadership has nothing sacred to offer.
Orders are sent, orders carried out or not. Deep, human, "sacred"
connections are superfluous, even antithetical, to giving orders. And
because order leadership can't get the consistently great results that
the new leadership triggers, the order way of leadership is destined
for history's scrap heap.
Don't be put off or discouraged if you can't immediately see the sacred
in your leadership today. First, align your words and actions to
conform to the Leadership Imperative. When you do, you'll see the
sacred in the very practical necessities of your daily life. It's been
there all along, waiting for you to find it and realize it. You may be
in a bureaucracy that at first blush seems to have nothing to do with
the sacred. But I submit that no matter what organization you're in,
what job you hold, you'll get the best results when you work to
manifest the sacred in your leadership. In fact, the sacred is the true
reality of what you do, where you do it.
When you're realizing the sacred calling of the Leadership Imperative,
everyone you encounter, every challenge you face, is invested with
special meaning that can boost results.
The exigencies of the global economy are demanding a change in the
standard of leadership. Your understanding and realizing the new
leadership but also its sacred dimensions will notably advance your job
and career performance.
2006© The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
The author of 23 books, Brent Filson's recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. – Celebrating 25 years of helping leaders of top companies worldwide achieve outstanding results every day. Sign up for his free leadership e-zine and get his FREE report "7 Steps To Leadership Mastery"