One of my favorite homework assignments to give a client that has been with me awhile is to have them write out the following:
Write “why” you LOVE your work. AND…
Write “why” you LOVE your team.
When a leader has clarity, conviction, and can connect you and I to these two simple truths, we follow him or her with our whole heart, with our committed best. It’s that simple and that HARD.
I’m always studying transformational leaders and looking for this melody line and looking for an alternative. I have yet to find a better exercise that clarifies the essential elements of becoming BUILT TO LEAD. LOVE is the essential ingredient to internal alignment, to unifying a team, and to a legacy worth leaving. AND, as always is the case, it doesn’t make any sense.
Here’s another great example of the power of this clarity. This is taken from Roy Williams book, Hard Work. His story is freakin’ amazing and inspiring. He’s one of the great basketball coaches of all time and here’s what he had to say to his team after they won the NCAA tournament for the second time in 2009. He’s got clarity about a couple “whys.” Yea, baby.
“When the room fell quiet, I told them, fifty years from now, when you have another reunion in 2059, that night when you go out on the court, at 72 years old, you go out there and remember one thing, that no coach has ever felt more privileged, no coach has ever felt more proud of a team that handled things like you did. The adversity, the injuries, other people’s expectations. I honestly feel like I’m the luckiest coach that has ever lived…I LOVE you.”
Simple and HARD.
A couple “whys” toward clarity…
BUILT TO LEAD 
Very cool, Chet. Thanks for sharing his story this AM. I’m still shaking my head over the KU interview story – so unorthodox yet so real and truthful. Loved it. Thank you for constantly bringing us all back to true center.