education

CHALLENGE THE PROCESS 157 JOE BARSI HAS A SAYING taped to his computer that reads, “If you have not endured the most difficult, you cannot become the most successful.” Leaders like Joe understand that you don’t get any place different if you just keep doing the same things over and over again. Getting out of […]

Challenge is the opportunity for greatness. People do their best when there’s the chance to change the way things are. Maintaining the status quo simply breeds mediocrity. Leaders seek and accept challenging opportunities to test their abilities. They motivate others as well to exceed their self- perceived limits. They seize initiative and make something meaningful

Express Your Emotions In explaining why particular leaders have a magnetic effect, people often describe them as charismatic. But charisma has become such an overused and misused term that it’s almost useless as a descriptor of leaders. Being charismatic is neither a magical nor a metaphysical quality. It has to do with how people behave.

Practice Positive Communication To foster team spirit, breed optimism, promote resilience, and renew faith and confidence, leaders look on the bright side. They keep hope alive. They strengthen their constituents’ belief that life’s struggles will produce a more promising future. Such faith results from an intimate and supportive relationship, a relationship based on mutual participation

Create Images of the Future Visions are images in the mind—impressions and representations. They become real as leaders express those images in concrete terms to their constituents. Just as architects make drawings and engineers build models, leaders find ways of giving expression to collective hopes for the future. When talking about the future, people typically

ANIMATE THE VISION Leaders have to engage others to join in a cause and to want to move decisively forward. Part of motivating others is appealing to their ideals. Another part, as demonstrated by King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, is animating the vision, essentially breathing life into it. To enlist others, you have to

Align Your Dream In learning how to appeal to people’s ideals, move their souls, and uplift their spirits—and your own—there is no better place to look than to the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His “I Have a Dream” speech tops the list of the best American public addresses of the twentieth century.

Take Pride in Being Unique Exemplary leaders also communicate what makes their constituents, work group, organization, product, or service singular and unequaled. Compelling visions differentiate and set “us” apart from “them,” and they must do so in order to attract and retain employees, volunteers, customers, clients, donors, and investors.5 There’s no advantage in working for,

APPEAL TO COMMON IDEALS In every personal-best case, leaders talked about ideals. They expressed a desire to make dramatic changes in the business-as-usual environ- ment. They reached for something grand, something magnificent, something that had never been done before. Visions are about ideals. They’re about hopes, dreams, and aspi- rations. They’re about the strong desire