On Leaders Taking a Stand

It’s time to reexamine your heirloom beliefs – Gary Hamel

The dust covering our leadership beliefs has turned musty. Individually we each have accepted inputs that have colored and shaped our own leadership beliefs. Some are marked with timeless wisdom. Others are rooted in timeworn viewpoints. Unfortunately the result is too many of us have a generic brand of leadership that we hardly can say is our own.

In those invisible handoffs of knowledge passed down generation after generation, year after year, we can hardly make out the underpinnings of what we stand for as leaders.

Such a claim is not reserved for those in elected offices. No. These “heirloom beliefs” are within all of us, in me, and in you.

Great outcomes to the business challenges of our time will surprise when they are shaped and executed by leaders who have an evolving understanding of what they are for as a human being.

To take a stand means to draw a line with increased comfort and clarity on what you will do and what you won’t. It’s a move to neutralize the passive, wishy-washy actions that confuse and alienate followers. Taking a stand acknowledges that there will be “enemies,” but the art of work prevails over soothing platitudes.

See, to explore what you stand for as a leader and to challenge handed-down leadership beliefs with vigor, you, through your actions, declare “game on!”

It’s time to tackle 21st century business problems with the dust cleared and a stand declared. You are the catalyst. It’s time to make a move.

Graphic by Shawn Murphy