Being a leader is not a position it's a lifestyle. Just as with all lifestyles, you have to work to develop it. The leader's qualities base the foundation in the style of his leadership. A leader sees all situations in connection with his core leadership precept like, how I add value to others, how I protect the group and share values with others, how I gain from this, how my group gains from it, and of course the most profound question: how I, my team or community becomes happy.
Success generates happiness and brings about safety. Happiness and safety are strongly connected. If one does not feel safe, he cannot be happy and if someone is not happy it's hard to feel safe. Safety also means that while completing a lot of activities, one can stay happy since he knows that he is going in the right direction. One can be happy if his actions are built on values, and if he is not attached to the result. So let's redefine success. One is not successful only when he achieves a good result, but when he can perform his activities based on and in-line with his values. The more one's values are in connection with the laws of nature, the more successful one will become and the greater chance there will be to have a positive outcome.
Action is - usually - based on planning and gives a result. If it is not based on planning, then the chances for a good result is reduced. If the results are not what you wanted, then either the action or the planning was wrong. You can't expect proper results if the planning, or the activity, is not in harmony with the culture and the values that has been set by the owners, founders or leaders of the company or community.
Let's see an example. Every year I'm involved in organising a festival for around 10.000 people in my community. We have a thorough plan for each and every detail and we have around 400 people working on executing that. Every year we set up a tent where we show traditional Indian cooking. Since this is a religious community we offer the food to God and we distribute the sacred food to the people. We do not sell the food but we give it freely and people can give a donation if they like to. If our focus would be more on profits than the giving of sacred food, then we would plan everything so that the investment would be low and the profit would be high. Meaning that we would try to buy low cost, but acceptable quality ingredients that we can prepare in shorter time and so on. In this way, our devotion would be lost and that is the core value of our community.
So it is our decision that we focus more on giving sacred food to people than making a profit on each and every plate. Therefore, our values determine how we plan, what action we take, and what to consider as a result. If our own personal values are not in harmony with the motivation behind the whole process, then we will not feel satisfied or happy. Thus we lose the sense of success and safety. If we don't feel safe or protected, then it's hard to stay inspired. This could lead to offending people; wrong results could emerge and even relationships can be destroyed.
That overall value system is determined by the leader himself. He is the walking value system of the organisation. The leader drives the planning; he inspires people to take action and he will check the results and will collect and give feedback to everyone directly or indirectly.
There are four levels of activities in relation to its results:1. Immediate results
2. Long term results
3. Lifetime results
4. Spiritual results
Immediate results are obvious. There is a direct result to my present activities. I do something now and I get a result now.
Long term results are also easy to understand. I do something for a longer period of time, like I study giving a longer-term result that hopefully will last.
The lifetime results category is a result that is off the chart, you cannot measure it like the first two and certainly you cannot show it in the same graph. Activities in this category bring results for a lifetime and also need effort for a lifetime to maintain the result. An example for this is raising a child, and what legacy you leave behind when you are no longer here.
Spiritual results are those that do not end. One is doing spiritual activities and is receiving spiritual results. These results cannot always be observed in this life and these should never be measured by material means. This is the ultimate result of following your dharma.
Let's have a little exercise!
Step OneTake a paper and write a list of all the activities you have done in the last week.
Step TwoTake another paper and divide it to 4 sections. Name all sections: Immediate results, Long term results, Lifetime results, Spiritual results.
Step ThreeTake your list of activities from step one and write it to the relevant part of the paper created at step two. The place where you write your activity should be based on what does it support, immediate, long-term, life-time or spiritual results.
If there is any part of the paper that is blank, then I suggest that you think a bit more deeply about your goals and the activities that you do, and how your activities support your goals.
Guest Author
Zoltan Hosszu has extensive leadership experiences in non-profit, corporate, religious and governmental institutions. He is a mentor, trainer and speaker
