Less Talk – More Walk!
Two continents, three countries, five cities in 12 days – Phew! But is was a wonderful trip.
It was so reaffirming to experience the readiness of leaders to embrace a new model of leadership; the yearning for nourishment of the soul in the workplace was universal – from Evansville, Indiana, to Scotsdale, Arizona, to Amsterdam, Holland and Frankfurt and Bad Kissingen in Germany. Everyone shared the same message – we need to move from the “old story” model of heroic, warrior-style leadership based on fear and competition, to a “New Story” model that emanates from the spirit and seeks to inspire. If we can do as well as we have been using the old model, imagine how much better we could be doing with inspired employees, customers and vendors!
At one of the conferences I addressed, I suggested to the audience that sometimes our regular insistence that our work with corporations is “spiritual”, is unecessary and jarring – it can undermine our cause with corporate executives who are focused on corporate performance. Often, they can find this righteous message off-putting. Besides, if we are spirtual leaders or teachers, why would we need to keep telling everyone so? Did Mother Teresa keep saying, “My work is spiritual”? or “I am working on my spirituality”? Or did she simply demonstrate this by living it?
Perhaps we would achieve more by focusing on the results we can achieve for organizations. When people ask me what I do, I say, “I inspire leaders to inspire others to create inspiring organizations. The typical outcome of our work is a reduction of 50% in staff turnover and a doubling of profits.” Of course one can’t achieve these results without being inspiring – the word inspire comes from the latin spirare – the spirit! And I will talk about the importance of spirit endlessly to those who ask!
Let’s just do it more and talk about it less – the world is hungry for our message and there is a powerful yearning for a different leadership style from the prevailing paradigm – leadership that inspires.
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I know inspirational leadership is what our businesses and our communities and our families are yearning for … and many times they don’t even know it because they’ve never experienced it. I wholeheartedly agree about the do more and talk less … and how about BE more DO less? That’s when spirit really connects. It reminds me of the time I met a CEO who spent most of the conversation telling me that he was a man of integrity. I kept thinking that if he had to tell me, there must be a gap in his own belief about the level of his integrity.
Thank you for BEING inspiration, Lance. You inspire me to BE who I know myself to BE deep down. And that’s the most effective type of leader. As Marianne Williamson said so beautifully,
As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Hi Lance… I wholeheartedly agree with what you have to say. I have been working at just doing it; at getting my heart, head, mouth and feet, as you would say, working together. Not only does it inspire others on occasion, it also opens up wonderful and interesting opportunities to do more and to be more. My stock in trade is managing the implementation of information systems applications and technology. Pretty boring stuff really. But by opening myself up fully to being a Higher Ground Leader, over the last year I have found myself giving presentations on leadership, facilitating team building exercises, going to dinner parties of the old-fashioned variety where people actually talk about real issues, pursuing new business opportunities that I couldn’t have imagined a year ago. It goes to the point that inspiring others leads to them inspiring me in a continuous loop that leads to personal growth as well as creating potential for real change in others.
Namaste!
Jim