Greatness comes from within: Leading to Greatness
During a weekend getaway in Prince Edward County, while my husband enjoyed an afternoon nap, I settled in with a cappuccino, a book, and a highlighter on the front porch of our cute boutique hotel. While reading Leading to Greatness, by Jim Reid, I started to feel a buzz and it wasn’t from the caffeine. It emerged from a resonance I felt with the five leadership principles he wrote about.
“Having a passion to lead is essential for great leaders. “
– Jim Reid
Here’s three that “had me at hello”:
- Develop a crystal clear understanding of your values and purpose. These are signposts that won’t lead you astray.
- When you align your core strengths with your passions, anything can happen. It might take some iteration, adapt and be persistent.
- Life is about managing energy, not time. Time is beyond our reach, it keeps moving no matter what we choose to do or not to do. Energy on the other hand is a resource we can directly influence and allocate. How we invest our energy, whether it’s physical, mental, or emotional, determines the outcomes we can achieve and the quality of our experiences.
I think the reason these three bubbled to the top for me is because I believe that everyone is a leader. Strip away the title, pay, job description, and span of control to undercover that we are all human. Perhaps the toughest person to lead is oneself because more often than not we get tangled up in assumptions, emotions, and reactions that can lead us astray from our purpose and deplete our energy at rapid speed. If you’ve been reading along, no doubt you’ve picked up on the themes I gravitate to. Want to be happier at work? Achieve more? Feel fulfilled? Look no further than yourself. The answers lie within, find them and illuminate not just yourself but others as well. Greatness is a choice.
– Melissa Law
