“The best in art and life comes from a center, something urgent and powerful, an ideal or emotion that insists on being. From that insistence a shape emerges and creates its structure out of passion. If you begin with a structure, you have to make up the passion, and that’s very hard to do.” – Roger Rosenblatt
At the center of any leadership community are the members, who mobilize the mission and vision. All the other components of an organization tie the community together. For example, the vision and mission are the shared significance that gives the community a common passion and focus. The mission and vision are very important, but the people are still the heart of the community. The passion comes from the heart of the people.
When we lose focus of people as the center, then the community, and therefore the organization, can begin to break down and lose mobilization.
Here are a couple of common pit falls:
Task focus over people focus
This can often happen to leaders who are very driven by their vision. Getting the vision accomplished can take such precedence, that the people become treated like machines in a production process. However, people unlike machines will begin to rebel. Turnover, low production and lack of impact can result.
Preserving structure over people
We like our routines. Sometimes we can try to preserve the structure of the organization instead of being flexible to the dynamics of the community members. We can try to find and squeeze people into our structure instead of adapting the structure to the unique strengths of the people we already have.
Here are ways to keep people at the center:
Support personal purpose
One of our most important resources is intellectual capital. Each person in your organization has a unique purpose and set of strengths. What are you doing to help them define their purpose and strengths so that they can bring more benefits to the greater whole?
Support personal growth
People always have more potential to be reached. We are all in the process of becoming. When people are not supported in their growth they become apathetic. What are you doing to help your people define a plan for their leadership development?
Support contributions to the community
Because each person brings a unique set of talents to the whole, you need outlets for people to communicate and share ideas. Social capital is another essential resource. What communication processes do you support that allows people to share their ideas?
Keep people at the center by engaging their purpose, investing in their development and supporting their contributions. This leads to a very engaged community of staff, an overflow of intellectual capital being contributed to the organization, and mobilization to reach the vision and mission.
How are you building people to be their best in your organization to be a leadership community? Please share!