What People Want From Leaders*

Trustworthy.

Respectable.

Admirable.

*  *  *

Leadership, more than anything, is a personal relationship between leader and led.

It’s not a hierarchical relationship, where one person has power and the other none.

Sure, a leader must be technically savvy and proficient, s/he must know “the business,” but at its core, its most fundamental, leadership is about the trust people have for their leader, the respect that the leader’s actions create and the admirable qualities that create an example, a model for how to behave and treat others in the workplace.

And the basis of those three critical things is a strong personal foundation.

Do some leaders succeed based on charisma, pure technical brilliance or coercive and manipulative tactics?

Of course.

But those leaders always fail.

They always get found out.

Leadership that lasts is based on individuals with a strong personal foundation who bring their whole selves to their work. Who have vast stores of energy and compassion and skill, and give that freely to their work, and the people they work with.

If you want to improve every area of your life, and begin the process of developing truly valuable and lasting leadership skills, you must develop a strong personal foundation.

What does a strong personal foundation consist of? Well, at the risk of talking in jargon, it consists of continually developing awareness and mastery of energy management, emotional and intelligence and character – the very things I help my clients to improve and expand.

The great thing about this work is that the benefits extend beyond increased influence and compensation at work, when you develop a strong personal foundation you improve every area of your life – for good.

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* And by “leaders,” I mean their bosses, supervisors and managers.