“Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you’re alive, it isn’t.”

I see lessons about leadership everywhere – not just people in action, but books and movies leave huge impressions on me. I come from a family of avid readers and I know that so much reading has helped form my outlook about successful leaders – maybe more than official leadership development training I’ve had. In a class you can pick up the techniques, but in real life, the movies or in books you see it all in action – what works and what doesn’t. I’m constantly filing that information – it’s part of my continual personal and leadership development.

My sister and I have been talking about going back to some of the classics that we’ve either read along the way or NEVER read and I discover that #98 on the Modern Classics Best Novels (http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/) is an old favorite: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach.

This was given to me by an old friend years ago – I copied much of it into my personal manager’s “reference guide” so I’d have easy access to the book’s reminders that made such an impression – and I still have that guide!

I pulled out some of the book’s lessons that I found especially meaningful:

There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands.

You seek problems because you need their gifts.

Learning is finding out what you already know.

Doing is demonstrating that you know it.

Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you.

You are all learners, doers, teachers.

Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.

Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah. 

Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.

You teach best what you most need to learn.

You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true.
You may have to work for it, however.

There’s so much more in this “little” book – it’s not the size of War and Peace, but it’s very powerful and it will make you think! Tell me what YOU think or if you’ve read the book.

Want more? Watch Richard Bach Quotes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywxHS43ZxEM

Dismiss the Insults to Your Soul

This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life: re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul.

 Walt Whitman

The Age-Old Question: What is Great Leadership?

I’m reading an engrossing book on leadership: Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders by Rajeev Peshawaria – in the intro he poses the question: “Of all the bosses you’ve had in your career, how many would you call truly great leaders? For the purpose of this question, a great leader is someone who inspired you to show up every morning and do your best possible work, someone who made you believe in yourself, someone who genuinely cared about your success, and someone whom you wanted to follow willingly.”

 

Peshawaria’s comments following  this question are sadly revealing about the lack of great leadership, but his book goes on to outline some outstanding leadership practices.

 

I also like his statement: “Effective leaders take it upon themselves to dig deep and find solutions to the most pressing problems of their times. They feel deeply about the inadequacies of current reality and decide to do something about it. They do not wait to be appointed to important positions before doing so. It is their deep desire to change the status quo than makes them leaders.”

 

Well said! Anyone with some work history knows that leadership isn’t about titles and positions, but about influencing others.  His core principles of leadership are explored at length in the book and I suppose I like it because it meshes with my beliefs about leadership. He begins with how important it is to clearly define your purpose and values.

 
Coincidently, I’ve been following an interesting discussion on LinkedIn where someone posed this question: “If there were one 'master problem' that, if solved, would enable leaders to really breakthrough to new levels of sustainable business and prosperity - what do you think it is?” It's interesting how many responses are tied to crating a culture where values are continue to grapple with a very old question: “What is great leadership?”

Give the book a try.