Key distinctions that make a leader

I want you to have a list of the key distinctions that I "know" make a leader and also a leader in happiness. They are not set in stone; they are simply my experience of brilliant leaders I know and my own experience of leadership in happiness as it occurs in me. The important thing is to use it to open yourself for Saturday and not wait to see what will happen on Saturday.

1. Leaders are self-starting. They take action from their vision, clarity and Truth. If where they are is unclear, they take action to get clear about their vision and Truth.

2. Leaders make offers. If no one accepts their offer, they reformulate the offer in accordance with their Truth about what wants to happen, so the people they are communicating with can hear it a different way and if still no one will play, they often keep going till they can find people who can hear them and will play.

3. Leaders make offers; followers wait to see what leaders offer and reserve the right to veto, complain, rebel, or disapprove.

4. Leaders do not "feel" a certain way, as in, "I don't feel like a leader." At any given time, a leader may feel great, centered or stupid or thick as a brick or clear as a bell or scared to death. Leadership does not come from how you "feel" at all.

Leadership is what people call a "come from," i.e. leaders come from vision, clarity and Truth about what they want to accomplish and keep going till they get it. (In our case, we are also coming from our greatest possible happiness and the happiness of all as a vision we hold.)

5. Leaders lead by demonstrating whatever they are leading, not by commanding people to do stuff.

6. Leadership is a state of being that you OPEN in yourself. It is not an office or role. It is also not something you open and then say, "Well, that's that." Leadership is an evolutionary process - or it rigidifies into hierarchy. (In fulfillment-based living, we have been playing the game for years that the real leader of this living is the one who is opening her/himself to more fulfillment out in front of where everyone else is currently and inspiring others to take action as well. In other words, you can be the leader any time you want, just by opening and letting out your turn on so others can experience it.)

7. When things don't seem to be opening, leaders stay with the question, "Where does this want to open," and keep going until whatever needs opening opens. (I have watched Joan Holmes, the President of the Global Hunger Project do this for 24 years. Sometimes she has to stay with the question of where it will open for many months or more because there is no road mapy available about how to end hunger.)

8. Leadership is an elevated state that requires real stick-to-itiveness. Leaders are often required to sit with questions and conditions and take actions that lesser people would give up on. They make their happiness in the process of how amazing it is to stay with it all, not just the result they get. Leaders don't walk off the field. THEY SIMPLY CREATE NEW FIELD TO PLAY ON.

9. Leaders give everything they have, but especially themselves. They "throw themselves into it" and make the vision they hold the center of their reality. They are generous by giving themselves fully to whatever they are leading (a hallmark of fulfilled people).

10. Leaders are lovers. They play the game of leadership for the love of it and the vision they hold and the love of people they play with and can impact. Like a lover, they are intimate about where they are.
Sara Hughes who did an historic performance to win the Gold in Olympic figure skating said she didn't skate to win the gold medal. She skated to have the time of her life and to see how much she could get from herself. That's what won the gold. She was the most natural in her intimacy of any athlete I saw in the Games. She also laughed, cried, screamed and jumped up and down when she won. She was breathtaking. Everyone fell in love with her.

11. While leaders often tolerate listening to what people "think," they themselves are usually operating from an inner sense of what needs to happen and where they need to open or take action. (Joan Holmes described it once to me as, "I act when I can feel it in every cell of my body.")

12. When a leader is leading in something brand new (as we are) s/he doesn't rely on a recipe or formula. By nature, something new has no formula. Leaders, in this way, are
INVENTORS. They make up new things as needed and they have no real commitment to what our friend, Austin, would call the "was" conversation.

13. Leaders are not necessarily managers or instructors - although they sometimes have these skills, too.
You can get the most from leaders hanging around them, by working with them, by watching what they do, listening to how they think, and "feeling" where they are in their process at any given time.

Managers make the breakthroughs leaders have into manageable formulas or recipes that actually ossify over time. (Look at government bureaucracy.)
This year's journey is about breakthrough in new leadership, not formulas.

14. Leaders have a Voice for the vision they are holding and are continually communicating it to whomever will listen. Voice here is not just what they say. It is also what they do, where they think from and communicate from, the offers they make, what they do or refuse to do, the turn on they demonstrate, what they acknowledge, whom they thank... All of that is Voice.

15. Leaders use everything to forward their vision. In fact, they are asking the question continually, "How can I use this for more of the vision." (That is the ongoing mastery of leadership.)

Here's an "inside track." #1 and #14 are the most important principles of the fifteen I've listed.

Please rate yourself 1 to 10, 10 being best on your perception of these principles as you live them. (Please do not have the discourtesy to use this to beat yourself up. Simply have it as where you are now. )

Bill Lamond is a one-of-a-kind, and a genious in his field. Clkick here to downlaod a copy of his new book, "Turned On - The art of pleasure-based living".

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