Posted by Jack Bovaird on December 5th, 2008

The Heart and Soul of Leadership

Leadership Crisis

Enron collapses and thousands of people lose jobs and pensions. The United Way loses its way and donors begin to question every gift they make. A church scandalizes its members and disgraces the very message it proclaims. Governments lie to their people in order to achieve policy goals.

Are these the results of global economic factors rippling through the world? Major shifts in demographics? Unforeseen cultural changes? Lack of knowledge or understanding? These problems are not the problem.

So what is the problem?

Unfortunately, these are all failures in leadership. This is leadership that has become equated with privilege, power, status and ego. This is leadership that has lost touch with the heart and soul of leadership.

If you google “leadership” you’ll find 26,800,000 references. With all that has been written, there is little new about leadership to be said. But, as the above examples show, there is much to be learned.

So what is true leadership?

Jim Collins, in Good To Great, describes a Level 5 leader as someone who “blends extreme personal humility with intense personal will.” In each of the situations above, there was certainly no lack of an “intense personal will.” Much of what was done was very willful on the part of leaders. Unfortunately, these leaders drifted far from a key part of the heart and soul of leadership: extreme personal humility.

These leaders also missed an equally important part of the heart and soul of leadership: integrity. Bill George, author of True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership, describes many leaders today as being chosen for “charisma instead of character, style instead of substance, and image instead of integrity.”

Without humility and integrity, leaders easily become trapped in ego, power, and status. We see it played out every day in the news. Many of us see it played out every day in our own lives – workplace leadership that cuts corners and makes poor decisions based on personal needs or wants or punitive parents who tell children to “do as I say, not as I do”, abdicating their responsibility and leaving children to the worst of today’s culture. Without humility and integrity, leadership limps at best and is often very destructive.

Each of us leads in our own environment – at work, at home, in our extended family, at church, in our community. We all want to be good leaders. Peter Drucker wrote that “leadership is not about money, fame and power: leadership is responsibility.” Think Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Dwight Eisenhower, Mother Theresa…

Does our leadership spring from the true heart and soul of leadership – humility and integrity? Is our leadership grounded in responsibility and not status? Are we humble and whole as leaders?

So what does the heart and soul of leadership look like?

Here are some things I’ve had to constantly ponder on my leadership journey:

• Do I have good mentors and models in my life? We need people with wisdom and experience based in humility and integrity to guide and support us.
• Do I surround myself with the right people? We need people who know us, who value us, and who are not afraid to hold us accountable to standards, including humility and integrity, as we journey through life.
• Do I have balance in my life? We need to achieve balance in the professional, personal, family, financial, physical, and spiritual dimensions of our lives to create wholeness as a person.
• Do I support and develop good leaders? We need to call others to leadership, share our leadership responsibilities, and create opportunities for others to grow as leaders.
• Do I continually challenge myself to learn and develop the skills of leadership? We need to study, read broadly, and continually learn as we mature and the world around us changes.
• Do I really know my purpose, values, and what I stand for? We need to be clear about where we want to go in life and what we will not compromise to get there.

Leadership is many things, but, at its heart and soul, leadership is:

• the responsibility to use my gifts and talents to help those I travel through life with to grow, develop and change their circumstances for the better rather than just seeking to improve my own status or power (humility), and
• the centered-ness not to compromise or lose sight of my true purpose, values, and principles, especially when no one is looking  (integrity)

Are you a heart-felt and soul-full leader in your world?