Introduction: 

How do you respond when I say all power comes from within? Let me compare this to your power comes from external sources? Or do you believe the car, the home, the job, the clothes they define who you are in this world? One of the decisions that your being must make frequently is where to focus attention. There are so many things to be aware of in any given moment that an attempt to be aware of all of them at once would soon reduce one to total ineffectiveness. Total awareness requires inaction because action requires exclusion. To do any one thing means not to do a lot of other things. To increase awareness of one thing means to decrease awareness of a lot of other things. So, part of your being is to make decisions that result in selective awareness in order to increase the individual’s skill or effectiveness. In other words, being decides what is important and what is not, and attention follows the decision. Most  decisions are based on memory pattern of identity,  attaining pleasure and  avoiding pain, but being may have a multitude of other reasons for attributing importance based on other kinds of brain thinking.  When attention is focused on something important by your being standards, the focus might be narrow or broad depending on how much of the potential awareness is considered important.

Intention: Intent is a kind of decision making that directs awareness as well as activity. It is a powerful way to manage your activity (doing) with tremendous effects on health, happiness, and success when used properly. Management theory recognizes five main styles of operation: authoritarian, democratic, laissez-faire, transactional, and transformational. These also happen to describe the five main ways that people deal with their own intention. To make our discussion clearer we’ll call them controlling, cooperative, and uncontrolled styles. When you intend to act, your intention is followed by awareness.

Sources of additional knowledge

Leadership form the inside out, Cashman “When we define our identity and purpose only in terms of external results, the circumstances of our lives define us. In this externally driven state of identity, life is fragile, vulnerable, and at risk. Everything that happens to us defines who we are. We are success. We are failure. We become our circumstances. Life defines us. Our core identity and passionate purpose are overshadowed by the events of our lives. Success may even be present, but mastery has escaped us. Unintentionally, we have chosen to “major” in the “minor” things of life. Can we lead when we don’t see beyond the external circumstances surrounding us? What is fundamental to the most effective, results-producing leaders that supports their various competencies or styles?” Three patterns became clear:1. Authenticity: Well-developed self-awareness that openly faces strengths, vulnerabilities, and development challenges. 2. Influence: Meaningful communication that connects with people by reminding self and others what is genuinely important. 3. Value Creation: Passion and aspiration to serve multiple constituencies—self, team, organization, world, family, community—to sustain performance and contribution over the long term. The implications of this definition are potentially far-reaching. From this new perspective, leadership is not viewed as hierarchical; it exists everywhere in organizations. The roles of leadership change, but the core process is the same. Anyone who is authentically influencing to create value is leading. Some may influence and create value through ideas, others through systems, yet others through people, but the essence is the same. Deep from their core, leaders bring forward their talents, connect with others, and serve multiple constituencies. Reacting to this definition of leadership, John Hetterick, former President of Tonka and CEO of Rollerblade, told me, “This definition of leadership speaks to me. The single biggest performance issue organizations face is inspiring leadership at all levels.” Using this definition, we acknowledge that there are an infinite number of ways to manifest leadership. There are as many styles of leadership as there are leaders. Viewing leadership from this vantage point, we will be exploring three essential questions to enhance our leadership effectiveness: How can we enhance our authenticity as a leader? • How can we extend the influence we have? • How can we create more value? Leadership from the Inside Out is about our ongoing journey to discover and develop our purposeful inner capabilities to make a more positive contribution to the world around us. Bill George, former Chairman and CEO of Medtronic, shares this view: “As leaders, the more we can unleash our whole capabilities—mind, body, spirit—the more value we can create within and outside of our organizations.”

Summary:

Leadership from the Inside Out involves clarifying our internal, purpose, and vision (leadership point of view), values, what we believe about people, so that our lives thereafter are dedicated to a more conscious, intentional manner of living and leading. To know ourselves; what makes us tick, our inner mastery directs our attention. Energy flows where attention goes. This inner mastery directs our intentions and aspirations into a purposeful focus where increased effectiveness is a natural result. As we move to a more fulfilled manner of living and leading, a focus on purpose replaces our single-minded focus on external success. All power comes from within. As Steven Covey said first things are completed first within our inner mastery than they are manifest external to ourselves. Therefore, I have concluded that in leadership development is what you think the world is. The world is what you think it is.

Management can be a position. Leadership is not a role, but a set of learned skills applied which influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute to the effectiveness and success of the organizations.  Leadership shows up in any person in a position within the organization. Participation by the workforce crates opportunities where leadership can be demonstrated.