Provoking Thought

“All of us have the spark of leadership in us...The challenge is to understand ourselves well enough to discover where we can use our leadership gifts to serve others. We're here for something. Life is about giving and living fully."

Do you understand the connection between your life story and your leadership?

Leadership

Ann Fudge in Bill George's book, Discover Your True North

“When you're flourishing you are acting on the world and it on you. Your world offers up to you raw material - activities, situations, outcomes - in all parts of your life, and some of this raw material invigorates you and gives you energy.

What particular type of raw material starts your process to flourish?

Flourishing

You are at your healthiest when you find this particular kind of raw material, draw it in, allow it to feed you, and use it to contribute something - and when that contribution actually seems to leave you with more energy, not less."

Marcus Buckingham, Nine Lies About Work

“Ultimately, your gift to the world is being who you are. It is both your gift and your fulfillment." - A.H. Almaas

Are you authentic? Are you being who you really are?

Leadership

Tim Ferriss, Tribe of Mentors

“If you're someone who sees nothing but problems, guess what you get in life: more problems. If you see nothing but possibilities, guess what: you receive more possibilities.”

Do you have a possibilities mindset or do you have a problem mindset?

Leadership Development and Mindset

John C. Maxwell, Developing the Leader Within You 2.0

Bill Lazier: "You can go at life as a series of transactions, or you can go at life building relationships. Transactions can give you success, but only relationships make for a great life."

Jim Collins: "How do you know if you have a great relationship?"
Bill Lazier: "If you were to ask each person in the relationship who benefits more from the relationship, both would answer, "'I do.'"

Jim Collins and Bill Lazier, BE 2.0

"Most problems are potential improvements screaming at you...The more painful the problem, the louder it is screaming."

Ray Dalio in Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, An Everyone Culture

“Leadership is not defined by the exercise of power but by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led.”

Mary Parker Follett in Gary Hamel and Michele Zaniini, Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them

“Our world is long on noise and short on meaningful connections and positive leadership.”

Seth Godin, The Practice

“It is better to follow your own path, however imperfectly, than to follow someone else’s perfectly.”

Bhagavad-Gita in Seth Godin’s The Practice

“Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions.”

Elizabeth King in Seth Godin’s The Practice

“Most successful professionals are invested in the status quo that brought them to prominence…when times change, new opportunities arise.”

Dorie Clark, Stand Out

“In a crisis, be aware of the danger, but recognize the opportunity.”

John F. Kennedy

“Invest in the lifetime value of a customer, building new things for your customers instead of racing around trying to find new customers for your things.”

Seth Godin, This is Marketing

“The professional cannot allow the actions of others to define his reality. Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page.”

Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

“Finally, most of us are consumed by the urgent. Eyes down, we scurry along the furrows of ritual and routine. There’s a world of wonder around us, but we frequently mistake the edge of our rut for the horizon.”

Gary Hamel and Michele Zaniini, Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them