I can remember the day a good mentor of mine called me and my leadership to the mat. “Leadership is not privilege, it is responsibility,” he said. “If something isn’t working, you’re responsible to figure out how to fix it. The team you have is the team you need. The circumstances are what they are. As a leader, you must craft what you have been given into a work of art.” I can still feel the emotion of that conversation. Needless to say, it wasn’t my favorite day.
But the lesson he taught me that day, without question, changed my life and started my quest to understand high-impact leadership. Webster’s defines impact as: “to collide with; strike forcefully; to have an effect on; influence; to alter.” “High-impact Leadership” focuses on the very positive nature of that impact. It’s about being a catalyst, making a difference, bringing positive change… showing the obvious benefit and effect of your presence and efforts.
In his forward for the book Axiom, Dr. Henry Cloud wrote, “Great leaders cultivate an environment where instead of people getting discouraged and burned out, they are equipped to become what they never thought they could be and achieve things they never thought they could achieve.” That’s it! High-Impact leadership mobilizes others to want to get extraordinary things done. It transforms values into actions, visions into realities, and creates a climate in which people will tackle obstacles with creation and innovation.
Faced with today’s challenges, we can’t wait for things to get better. Now is the time for moving forward, for changing more lives, for deepening the scope and impact of our work. Our organizations need the presence and perseverance of those kinds of leaders – people unconcerned with title or power, who use the full capacity of their position to effectively empower and successfully focus an organization on its mission objectives.
Your mission is calling. Ready to answer?
by: Shannon Barnes
