Five Fundamental Laws of Leadership

[Via John Hope Bryant's book - Love Leadership]

Love Leadership distills what I have learnt about leading, particularly in these turbulent times, into five fundamental laws.

1. Loss Creates Leaders: There can be no rainbow without a storm. That is, there can be no strength or inner growth without the pain of legitimate suffering. Most great leaders came to the wisdom to lead through the endurance of life's trials.

2. Fear Fails. Fear based leadership rules today's business landscape. But leading through fear is increasingly antiquated and self-defeating. It's a crippling indulgence that we can no longer afford.

3. Love Makes Money. Love is central to success in business. In fact, the expression of love in business - that is creating long term relationships with your customers, employees, and community based on caring for others and doing good - makes you wealthy.

4. Vulnerability Is Power. When you open up, people open up to you. Vulnerability is the door to your heart. It grants great power to those who are strong enough to leave that door open. Real leaders understand that vulnerability is not a weakness; in fact, it can be your greatest strength.

5. Giving Is Getting. Leaders give - followers take, The more you offer to others, the more they will want to stay with you, share with you, protect you, and support you. Giving inspires loyalty, attracts good people, confers peace of mind, and lies at the core of true wealth.

This is a book I am waiting to read. Wonder when and if they would publish it in India.

One Part Humility and One Part Ambition

[Via Leader to Leader Journal, "Are you Humbitios enough to lead? ]

“Humbition is one part humility and one part ambition,” they wrote. “We notice that by far the lion’s share of world-changing luminaries are humble people. They focus on the work, not themselves. They seek success—they are ambitious—but they are humbled when it arrives. They know that much of that success was luck, timing, and a thousand factors out of their personal control. They feel lucky, not all-powerful. Oddly, the ones operating under a delusion that they are all-powerful are the ones who have yet to reach their potential. . . . [So] be ambitious. Be a leader. But do not belittle others in your pursuit of your ambitions. Raise them up instead. The biggest leader is the one washing the feet of the others.”