Some of you know that each morning I have an established routine. Morning tea, breakfast for all (myself, our yellow lab Ruger, and his fancy cat sister Miss Lucy), meditation, and reading a passage from Derek Lin’s The Tao of Joy Every Day.
Today’s was a must share:
Day 174 The Best Leader
How do you describe the best leader? In the conventional mindset, the best leader is someone people love and praise, but in the Tao mindset, such a leader is second rate. According to Lao Tzu, the leader who works at the highest level is someone the people may not even know.
This is not easy to understand because we lack such examples in the modern world. What Lao Tzu describes is someone who always acts in seamless ways. His actions are so in tune with the Tao that people accept them as perfectly natural, without wondering who is responsible.
Leadership approaching this ideal will not be completely unknown, but because it empowers everyone to contribute, people feel they are in charge. They take ownership of the work, take on responsibilities and become highly motivated. This is how a leader of the Tao creates extraordinary results.Lead a Tao-centric life at the highest possible level. Use a light touch in taking actions that are not disruptive or intrusive. Empower people around you to bring out their best. Let them help you achieve your objectives quickly and quietly. Work with them in seamless ways and you, too, will create extraordinary results.
Ready to implement this into your day? Because knowledge without action doesn’t do much. Think of one way you will heed this advice today. A few ideas:
- Assign someone the “what” and then stop talking…let them figure out the “how”
- Ask someone for help
- Have a conversation with a valued employee and find out 3 things: What they love about their job, what they are challenged by or frustrated by, what suggestions they have for making things better
Getting your team involved is what creates the responsibility, the ownership, the engagement many businesses are wishing for. You can do this, you can implement one of these steps to cultivate that engagement today, because employee engagement is what takes you from good to great.
The best way to make it happen? Have someone hold you to it, an accountability buddy if you will (the most successful people in the world including Jeff Bezos and Marshall Goldsmith talk to their accountability buddies eveyday).
I’ll help you: I believeso strongly in the power of an accountability partner, that I invite you to email me at [email protected], so I can be yours. Let me know what you tried, how it worked, and most importantly, how you felt when you did it. Not only will this exercise give you the self-recognition and reflection you deserve, it will build momentum.
Cheers to implementation,
Karyn