Try To See Leadership As Follows (I)

Try to find the path to excellence in leadership, without allowing your beliefs to align with a false reality.

The creation of the sculptures decorating the Theater des Champs Elysees is largely due to Bourdelle’s creation of sculpture with the art of dance. After years of Beethoven’s urging him to meditate on music, from 1909 Isadora Duncan’s dance came to provide him with an inexhaustible source of rhythm and composition suggestions. Completely absorbed in the decoration of the theater, Bourdelle realized at first glance that he had met the ideal model: “It seemed to me that thanks to her I see how an admirable frieze or a divine fresco is animated, becoming an imperceptible human reality.” *

What conclusion do we draw from this? The path to true performance is closely correlated with the leader’s ability to penetrate the essence of things, including the essence of human personality, perceiving what is wrong, which does not match the objective analysis of the causes and effects of the interactions in which he is involved.

For this reason it is necessary to remember that the best time to start measuring your own performance is considered to be when you reap the results of your work, when the positive effects of decisions and actions begin to be felt. The truth that Bourdelle wanted to express through his words is that in order to reach that degree of perfection that can no longer be surpassed, you must give life to a higher art, to promote your own, pure ideology that does not promote an incorrect message.

Leadership: Can you push your performance to the limit by developing a viable system for “finishing” your own traits to support your development?

As I said in my seminars, the progress of your leadership is assessed by the degree and nature of your influence – which is based on your character and mindset, which in turn maintain and are maintained by your ideology.

The famous Indian writer Salman Rushdie said that the real risks of an artist are to push the work to the limit of the impossible, in an attempt to increase the number of things one can think of. The same is true when it comes to the science of leadership, on the basis of which there is a rigorous selection of the efforts made by the leader to obtain the deepest and most comprehensive expression of his art.

The real risk to which a leader is exposed is to push his performance to the limit of the impossible, in an attempt to achieve perfection. The relationship between the elements that give balance to his leadership, defining its content and determining its limits, becomes more and more blurred, inexpressive. Remember that people find it difficult to improve their performance if the leader does not continue to increase their performance.

How can you make up for your lack of identification with those aspects that can significantly influence your leadership, so that you come to consider yourself as being in a position to say that what is happening to you is in your control?

In leadership, “created value” must materialize and increase the performance of those you lead. As long as the value created is purely theoretical, it simply remains a museum piece that can persist “in memoriam”, but does not improve anyone’s material condition and life.

The way you define your performance reveals the quality of your leadership. And the results you get are directly proportional to the “dose” of efficiency you have assigned to each element of your leadership infrastructure. That is why it does not seem at all fair to me to tend to reduce those elements of value, essential, capable of increasing your potential. These elements bring together only the actions and resources that aim to strengthen your skills, but also their orientation towards identifying and exploiting opportunities to improve your efficiency and management science.

Just as the Bible contains a set of truths that the test of time and the development of science have not been able to unravel – so too can the lack of identification of those aspects that can significantly influence the science of leadership can nullify any chance of achieving excellence.

Only the results you obtain decide your value. The sad news is that you won’t get tangible results overnight, so don’t expect to get the world ready all of a sudden. However, if you really want to improve your leadership, you will need to periodically test your skills and competencies, and depending on the results of the assessments, you will be able to determine the level you are at.

Leadership: Can you shape your vision so that it gives a broader meaning to your existence, without having the necessary experience to carry out an “extra” activity in subjective conditions of knowledge representation?

A delight for the eyes, such a strong call to excellence. A viewer in front of some paintings is caught by a visual sensation so strong that, without realizing it, it becomes complicated, turns into ideas, radiates, associates with other ideas and ends up filling his soul with unparalleled joy.

The same sublime feeling of closeness to the nature of leadership (generally speaking) is also experienced by a leader when he manages to shape his vision and give a broader meaning to his existence and individual professional performance. However, unlike a viewer or admirer of fine arts, the leader’s beliefs about himself, his role, his skills, the way he acts cannot be separated from himself as they are the expression of ideas deeply implemented in his mental system. Those beliefs are the result of his theories on leadership.

Just as a viewer subconsciously evaluates the value of a painting according to the impression that the painting has on his senses, so too a leader can evaluate his performance according to the results obtained and recognized by others. These results are proportional to his skills, knowledge and ability to implement them, moving from just being an idea to initiative and then to their practical realization.

From any point of view, evaluating your own performance by measuring your own efficiency is a win-win for you. If you have the right mental attitude, if you manage to capitalize on your qualities, to exploit your full potential through a detailed assessment and by optimizing your leadership skills, you can turn your personal knowledge into a starting point for your career advancement.

Leadership refers to how you act in those situations where the ego affects you, it tells you that you have NOT assimilated enough from life to form your own will, but you do not allow this freedom of action, always repeating to yourself: “I will be much more than I was before.”

Try To See Leadership As Follows: all the science in the world relates to three major indicators of results: experiment, creation, and discovery. And never step on the gas too hard, otherwise you risk reaching a place without meaning in too short a timespan.

* Note: Adina Nanu - Bourdelle , Editura Meridiane, 1971.