The First Threshold Of Leadership
Strengthens people's confidence in your leading potential, by restoring the bedrock of their beliefs and feelings.
Bob Spangler was the owner of one Pacific island, he knew it better than anyone. He firmly believed that his hotel built on a firm rock, could save all tourists from the terrible volcano which began to erupt. He has addressed to the scared people:
- Listen to me ! Here is what we need, right here. Believe me, this hotel was built to last. It is built on firm rock. And I advise you to stay. It's your only chance. Do not panic because of distrustful and fearful people.
Hank Anderson, a drilling foreman, convinced that volcanic eruptions and lava will destroy the whole hotel, and all the people there will die, he got out in front of the people and, with a lot of courage and confidence urged to leave the island, that is to follow him in quick.
- Mark my words. Lava continues to come on this side. You will all die if you stay here. Who wants to go with me to equip immediately, and to get into cars.
Leadership: What is the consequence of the psychological impact of the event that provokes you to exceed your limits when it comes to vulnerable people/places that you cannot integrate into your individual path?
If you have not seen the movie "When Time Ran Out (1980)" hereis how things went. After that Hank has addressed to the people, the majority has revolted against him. Very few followed him because "he was not an expert" and, especially, for he failed above all to save his own work team.
The terrible event was that all who remained in the hotel were swallowed by the volcano. The only ones who escaped were those who answered the Hank's appeal.
To gain authority to the people, you must restore the bedrock of their beliefs, you should inspire them a strong feeling of solidarity that would cover any imperfections, and to increase the measure of your skills, providing convincing arguments in supporting your opinions and decisions.
Just as a musical experience can be missed if the musician is focused on himself and not on music, so the wave that can propel you ahead of people may be missed if they do not continue to focus on you all their inner resources that produce their gratitude and attachment.
Leadership is a factor of psychological impact producing consequences according to people's beliefs and emotions. To make people to answer your appeal, to awaken in them that sense of inner contentment, which gives place for setting esteem and mutual respect, to motivate them to put all their trust in you - then you must remove from their consciousness that intense feeling of insecurity and uncertainty and to replace it with one of unity and trust.
Leadership: Does the presence of your points of view in any place and in any deed represent the certainty of achieving goals even when reality does not provide you with any kind of control valve in the art of compromise?
In the demanding space of solidarity, which leans towards a successive force fusion, all emotions, knowledge and contradictions accurately concentrate in a mix of pragmatism, idealism and justice. Their only value is to facilitate the unconditional acceptance of a greater centralization and to better weld this union, whose purpose is leadership.
But if most of individual traits, if the collective mind remains altered despite all supportive measures that predominantly act on the basis of common interests, then the presence of leadership can no longer represent a certainty of achieving an objective.
The change of people’s general perception of reality, generated in an amazing way by leadership, can be assigned a value of unity only if there is an agreement of all forces participating in a cooperative action. But if people’s beliefs based on rumors or a narrow research have as sole result the leader’s inability to formulate courses of action in a problematic context in which a decision must be made quickly, then they put above all the high percentage of doubt, being driven by the sense of rivalry.
Leadership: Do you want to put others ahead of your personal interests, but retaining your own needs is a denial of your own person in a hypostasis that you cannot escape?
Pale reflections of declined evidence. For as pain shows how fast the wound is healing, so preconceptions about the leader’s "brand" show how much an invested value produces expected results or how much certain choices deliver the desired results. A single miscalculation on the leader’s value, the fundamental inner need of people to align to general belief prevents them to unlock from their dilemmas.
"What do others say?" , "What does the majority think?" (and very rarely "What do I think?" ) remain the same main reasons by which man seeks to subordinate to the "right", i.e. a higher logic, predetermined in the terms of a shaky vision, focused on security, but objectionable.
Therefore, I tend to believe that solidarity flourishes rather in the vicinity of certain situations, of a secure future, which does not baffle the leader’s role. If the personal feeling would be greater, if man would focus more on his own thinking and less on the herd instinct, the spread of solidarity probably wouldn’t face big problems.
A denial of one’s own person in a situation you cannot escape from occurs when the risk to which you expose yourself is maximum and you feel that you are no longer yourself, but a beginning of the impending outcome caused by the course of events.
The first threshold of leadership sets your defining position in people's lives. It is the most important threshold of your progress, and the hardest to reach, by which you should provide a great connection between people's beliefs and your expectations. If you fail to establish a full concordance between the actual level of confidence that people give to you and your ability to influence their beliefs, then you could never lead them to follow you (especially in difficult situations). To get ahead of the others you must create a sense of security in their soul.
Conclusion: To win the trust of most people you must restore the bedrock of their beliefs and feelings. Your skills and experience demonstrated in relation with them are convincing arguments as your history on how to solve difficult situations, when you overcame the skepticism of some and the ill will of others.
However, look-out, always to lean on the evidence, to have accurate information from experts in the field where you do not have control and especially to have a capacity to foresee the imminent danger that can result in loss of lives. To venture, using arguments that do not have a sound basis, risking lives for the sake of your pride and your personal interests, is a misstep that will cost you much.
