The heart of the leader
Michael Hyatt is the President and CEO of Nelson Publishing. He writes about productivity and leadership. I have learnt much from him by reading his blog and following him on twitter.
Recently he posted on the important of the heart of the leader. It struck a chord with me - in the early days of Northern I think I was much better at this but as I reflected on this post in my morning walk with my boxer dogs, I have come to the conclusion that there are areas that I can improve on. There are certain leadership teams within Northern that I wish had more commitment, more vision, more time, more of many things and maybe the first thing that I need to do is look at my attitude and heart when I am with them.
I had someone once say that a leader is like a thermostat control for the tempreture of the room, team or organisation. This is so true and frankly scary in its responsibility.
Michael concludes his article with the following:
The bottom line is this: it matters if your heart is open or closed. It will have a tangible impact on your organization. The good news is that you can open your heart. This is the leader’s most important work. It is foundational to building a healthy organization.
The key is two-fold: awareness and discipline. With regard to the first, you must learn to discern the condition of your own heart. Is it open? Is it closed? Is it somewhere in between? I find that I have to check-in with myself several times a day. I call this a “heart check.â€
I ask, Where is my focus—right now? Is it in the past, where I am grieving over some loss or regretting the way I handled some situation? Or is it in the future, where I am worried about something that hasn’t happened yet. Either way, I am not present to what is happening now.
If I sense that my heart is closed, I have a choice. I can either leave it that way or open it up. This is where discipline comes into play. I literally make a decision to open my heart up, and I mentally visualize doing so. I force myself to think about what is possible. I choose to see this situation—these people—from the lens of possibility. As a result, I am fully present, available to the potential that exists in any given situation or relationship.
Maintaining an open heart—pumping possibility through your organization—is the most important thing you can do as a leader. There are other tasks, of course, but this is foundational.
Read the full post here
November 21st, 2008 at 11:39 am
The question is how does one maintai an open heart?
It cannot be done by self-effort because the very essence of our normal sense of being a separate self (however that is defined), over and against everything else, IS hell-deep FEAR—-”self” IS fear.