Heart of Leadership
… From
The phone isn’t just ringing, it seems to be screaming. You’ve got
yet another meeting to attend, there’s someone at your office door who wants a
piece of you and now another call. Your blood pressure is rising almost as
quickly as the demands made of you.
When you answer the phone, your tone of voice gives you away. The
caller recognizes that it probably isn’t a good time to talk. When you turn
your attention to the person at the door, your impatience and abruptness sends
them away feeling diminished. Your energy level is on empty when you finally
get to the meeting late and your attention wanders as important issues are
being discussed.
Later that night after dinner, you have little time and even less
enthusiasm, to spend time with your kids. You think that maybe if you get a
couple of hours work done you can get caught up before tomorrow…
…and you wonder why the success you’ve worked so hard to achieve
doesn’t make you feel, well, successful. It wasn’t that many years ago that you
didn’t get invited to high powered meetings, the phone rang less frequently and
you weren’t the first person people went to when they needed advice. And now,
it seems, you aren’t enjoying your success, you—and the people around you—are
suffering from it.
One of the common dilemmas of the workplace today is that people
are working harder to get more done with less resources. And for many, it just
isn’t fun. People are busy making money, but often by giving up any sense of
meaning.
I know. Several years ago I was close to premature flame-out.
Thankfully, I had good problems: my business was so brisk that it
was hard to keep up. My involvement as a board member of a national association
increased my load of responsibilities and I was traveling nearly non-stop. Not
only wasn’t I having much fun, I found it increasingly difficult to give people
the attention and consideration that they deserved. When the phone rang, I
didn’t want to answer it. I wanted to smash it.
I knew that soon I would be experiencing the repercussions. When
we aren’t having much fun, neither are our clients, colleagues or families.
I wondered how can anyone could live happily and lead effectively
with so many oppressive obligations? Thankfully I made the time to find an
answer.
I stepped back to review everything I’ve learned by studying and
working with effective leaders. I thought about all I’d read about the lives of
great people. And as I pondered it all, I was struck with an insight.
The people who change the world—their companies, communities and
families—rarely acted out of a sense of oppressive obligation. The people we
call leaders almost always act out of a sense of incredible opportunity.
They don’t change the world because they have to; they change the
world because they want to.
I don’t think Mother Theresa wakes up in the morning and mourns,
“Oh Lord, not more lepers!” She is a woman doing some of the hardest work on
the planet, and she seems to be having more fun doing it than we who sit in our
air conditioned offices. How can that be?
It is a matter of perspective. When we feel harried and pressure,
we tend to look at our circumstances as obligation. Yet other view the same
circumstances as opportunity. It comes down to how you frame you life.
I learned to reframe my business and life from obligation to
opportunity, and it has made all the difference. When the phone rings now, I
have a different response. I now view an incoming call as an opportunity to
serve, earn, influence, network, learn, encourage or teach. The difference
isn’t in the nature of the call; the difference is in my response.
There isn’t much I really have to do in life. Sure, like you, I
have a commitment of providing for my wife and son. But I could accomplish that
by diminishing greatly my current workload, or even by changing careers. My
colleague Ian Percy said he found from experience that his family didn’t really
want all the money and trappings of affluence. They would have gladly live in a
trailer as long as they had him.
As you read this, you might be facing dire circumstances.
Foreclosure may threaten, relationships may be on the brink of disaster and you
may be wondering about your ability to put food on the table. I would never
make light of those kinds of situations but—and please think about this
carefully—even in the worst circumstance lies an opportunity. It is the
opportunity to overcome, to save, to improve. I know many highly successful
individuals who faced similar situations and worse. What has enriched their
lives most was the challenge to overcome and learn from them. In the darkest
hour, someone they saw opportunity.
I appreciate simplicity. I keep a post-it note over my desk. On it
are three handwritten words: obligation
or opportunity. That becomes one of the most important choice I
made on a daily basis, moment by moment.
I would like to impact the world around me in some way. I would
like to add to the lives of others, rather than pass by them like an invisible
phantom. I would like to think that my efforts did more than earn a living,
that they helped create a better life for myself, my family and the clients I
served. And now I realize that that the chance to accomplish those things is
not an obligation, but the greatest opportunity of all.
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