Too many leadership books give easy answers…”the one thing you need to know,” “be a hedgehog,” “the 5 dysfunction,” “the 4 Obsessions,” “the 12 irrefutable…”.blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
The truth is, lead anything, it will not be easy. Leadership is not easy. True leaders always begin a bit reluctantly…
Here’s one of my re-reads worth your investment of time. The author is Robert Quinn. The book is titled, Change The World. Here’s his “simple” leadership recipe. I like this one. This one smells like the real deal. Check it out…
“Now here is a heretical thought. Leadership is NOT about results. It IS about commitment. The entire management literature fails to understand this. Leadership authors do not understand that leadership means ‘go forth to die.’ If they did understand it, they would not be enticed to write about it – because people do not want to hear this message. Most people want to be told how to get extraordinary results with minimum risk. They want to know how to get out- of- the box results with in- the -box courage. These are the questions of the normalized world. Most management authors do their best to deliver what they perceive that most readers are looking for. They tend to adhere to the basic assumption that if we examine the leadership of someone who is currently held up as a model, we can work backwards, and find the secrets of their success. Then all we have to do is copy the behavior of the successful person and we will meet with similar success. Although profiling our heroines and heroes in this way can be helpful, it misses the key point – that the successful person got the result he or she desired because that person went forth to die.”
Is there any wonder why this book is NOT on the best sellers list? Quinn believes as we do. Leading anything and anyone is real, hard, work. And, is only worth doing when your OPUS demands your leadership. Do you see it?
Do you have a vision worth dying for?
Do you have a vision worth betting your career on?
Do you have a vision worth your teams commited best?
Tell me more…
BUILT TO LEAD 
Commitment? That’s not the language of rules/compliance/efficiency and machines… It’s the language of the HEART, the SOUL, the CONSCIENCE..
‘L ya… the language of LOVE…. which is a FOREIGN language to most corporate “systems”…. And why most men live lives of quiet desperation and die with their song … still inside them.
Thx for the reminder Toto.