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The seven essential willabilities of real leadership

Guest post by: Ian Berry

Article Overview: I have been convinced for some time that many people have the skills of real leadership and yet very few have the will. Skill without will is a ship without a rudder. Competency (ability) is useless without commitment (will). By combining them together in remarkable ways we bring our true character to everything we do and demonstrate our true capability. I call this willability. In preparation for some upcoming mentoring assignments I created the concept of willability in order to emphasise for my clients that commitment is really what makes competency worthwhile. There are seven essential willabilities of real leadership.

The seven essential willabilities of real leadership

I have been carefully choosing a book to read over the Christmas/New Year holiday period for many years. And because my family knows my passion for reading I generally get more books as gifts! Since my early 20’s I have read at least one book a week. Often these days I scan and thumb through until something really grabs me.

The three books I have read in the past two weeks all grabbed me and I have added them all to my recommended reading list (see below).

The New Leadership Paradigm by Richard Barrett was my personal choice after I watched an interview with Richard on Conscious TV.

The two gifts were Screw Business As Usual by Richard Branson (I really chose this one too, just encouraged someone else to buy it! because Richard is one of my heroes.), and Adapt by Tim Harford.

All three books have challenged me as well as confirmed many of my thoughts about real leadership.

I have been convinced for some time that many people have the skills of real leadership and yet very few have the will.

Skill without will is a ship without a rudder. Competency (ability) is useless without commitment (will).

By combining them together in remarkable ways we bring our true character to everything we do and demonstrate our true capability. I call this willability.

In preparation for some upcoming mentoring assignments I created the concept of willability in order to emphasise for my clients that commitment is really what makes competency worthwhile.

There are seven essential willabilities of real leadership.

1. No BS Relationships

Two massive problems in organisational life today: Leaders who only hear what fits their point of view and employees who only tell their leaders what they want to hear.

Tim Harford provides many graphic stories of these problems and how to solve them in his book Adapt, and Branson and Barrett highlight this problem and solutions in their own ways in their books as well.

My research tells me that 87% of the problems in organisations no longer exist when we remove BS from our relationships.

Please take the BS Detector pulse check at my website.

You just might be staggered by what it tells and shows you.

2. Purposefullness

I love Richard Branson’s thrust to not accept the unacceptable. To do so requires a strong sense of purpose.

Why do you do what you do? The great lesson of philosophy for me is that when we understand our why, the how is easy.

The bigger our purpose, the stronger our why, our reason for what we do, the greater our leadership.

Barrett, Branson, and Harford’s books have inspired me to think bigger and be stronger particularly in not accepting the unacceptable and to be prepared to fail more in the quest to fulfill my purpose.

The three great lessons of Harford’s book have helped me:

Try new things (expecting some will fail).

Make failure survivable.

Make sure you know you’ve failed.

3. Adaptability

Obviously a central them of Harford’s book and also of Barrett and Branson’s works. Barrettt even demonstrates that adaptability has been a hallmark of thriving on the challenges of change for 14 billion years!

For me Charles Darwin nailed it.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

How adaptable are you?

4. Wisdom

It is not what you know that matters rather what you do about what you know. Closing our personal knowing-doing gaps is our great quest. Much of my work is helping people to do what you know you should!

What do you know that you are not acting on?

Knowledge applied successfully is wisdom.

“To know and not to do is really not to know.”

attributed to Stephen R. Covey in some circles and simply as Zen wisdom in other places.

5. Shared-view

There are three worlds. The world in-here is my world. The world out-there is your world. The world that really matters is the world we share.

Think about this - all the troubles of our world can be traced to a pre-occupation with the world in-here or the world out-there, rather than the world we share.

Stop focusing on your view or trying to change someone else’s view and have the courage to get in the middle.

6. Collaboration

Richard Barrett addresses the immense power of collaboration in great detail in his book. I love Richard Branson’s idea that we have spent a great deal of time finding ourselves, now it’s about finding each other!

Collaboration begins with shared view and then actually co-operating.

Who will you collaborate with this year?

Nothing great has ever been achieved alone.

7. Differencemaking

What are the legacies you are leaving each day?

How much does your life actually make a difference?

Leaving a legacy while we are alive is real leadership.

I love the line - If we think we are leading and no one is following, then we are just out taking a walk.

Please do whatever it takes to arouse the 7 willabilities of real leadership in you.

Please register for my complimentary webinars on the 7 at my website.

May 2012 be your best year yet.

Ian

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Article Tags: Willability Willabilities Leadership Differencemaking Wisdom Collaboration Adapt Adaptability RichardBranson NoBSrelationships



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