Disney Brand Loyalty Keynote Speaker
Five daily blogs about life's 5 big choices on five different sites.
The most important leadership characteristics have been the jungle jeff topic on the past few blog posts.
First it was trust.
Then vision.
Now, actually, I’m going to just come out and say it.
The number one leader characteristic is passion. Hands down, passion.
Final answer.
Passion!
Agree or disagree?
Okay, so if trust is the most important great leader characteristic, where does vision fall?
Well, as crazy, and contradictory as this is going to sound, vision is actually the most important. What the? Exactly.
Vision is the reason we wake up in the morning. Vision is the reason we wake up in the middle of the night. Vision is the reason we can’t fall asleep. Vision is what makes us do ordinary things in an extra-ordinary fashion.
Vision is a view of the future that is better than the current view.
Not talking vision statement here. Heck, no one knows that it is anyway. Seriously. No one does. And if anyone does, it’s someone who wrote it – and by now they’re probably retired or dead. But no one else. (I’ll call your bluff on this one if you really want to disagree)
This is what makes leaders great. A vision for the future that is better than the current vision.
A vision that is lofty, hard to articulate and you may not say it the same way twice. A vision that is impossible.
A vision is more important than trust.
Trust is often placed on the list of top leadership skills, while people are compiling key leadership skills and attributes.
How important is trust when stacked up against all the other critical leadership values?
Ever ponder the top key leadership values great leaders possess? Are you now? Good. Here are some that always make the list:
What do you say is your number one leadership trait?
For me, it’s trust. Everything else revolves around this simple, and often overlooked leader character trait. I place trust ahead of passion, because a leader may have passion, but people mistrust motives, for example.
If you really think about it, how can anything else matter without trust?
Next Blog
The key to passion is to move from selfishness to selflessness.
When I earnestly try to comprehend this, it begins to transform my motives.
Motives drive thinking and thinking drives behavior.
Behavior drives whether or not we are selfish, or selfless.
It’s very simple. Very elusive. And yet, it’s the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We all know this to be true, eventually, if we live long enough.
Whether we act on this new found knowledge determines our outcome in life.
And this outcome will determine whether we gave or took, whether or not we harnessed the key to passion. Whether we were a follower or a leader.
Been thinking a lot lately. Now there’s a surprise, eh? Me. Thinking a lot.
Anyway, what I mean is, thinking a lot about what motivates people. Especially in these tough economic times. Everywhere you look, there is tension, anxiety, uncertainty, and maybe even an honest fear of the future.
It can be crippling. How do I know? Because I’m one of you. A husband, father, son, leader, volunteer, neighbor, worrier.
Yesterday, while visiting The American Adventure Pavilion at Disney’s Epcot Park, there was a quote that basically said, “The early founders of the United States came to this country with little more than their vision”.
Their vision, their passion, transformed government. The pursuit of happiness and all men are created equal.
Next time you look in the mirror, do you see a mountain or a molehill of a vision?
Wait. Stop. Go look in the mirror right now.
What did you see? What do you see now, in your mind?
Perhaps a decade ago, a transformational seed was planted, scattered by the wind. And then sometime last year, I started to see it really grow.
And out of nowhere, this Spring, well, all I can tell you is that a daily habit of writing five blogs took off. Got sick of not seeing a mountain of passion in the mirror. It hit me, you want to see a mountain, you better start transforming yourself.
The clock is ticking.
PS. Here’s the catalyst for this post. Wasn’t three minutes into it when the revelation came. After writing the post, I finished watching it. August Turak’s speech can be watched by clicking here.