Aspire to Inspire

Fulfillment is a leadership quality, a personal responsibility and the key to one’s sense of purpose and legacy.

To lead and inspire others, to feel a sense of identity and completion, to ease the internal restlessness that seems unsatisfied by externally derived rewards or accolades, we must nurture our personally defined ‘Fulfillment Factor’ ... or we will collide with it. 

When we defer our dreams and aspirations to tomorrow, we deprive ourselves and the world around us of the inspired within us.

Thinking our careers and aspirations are mutually exclusive, we imagine that “someday” our jobs will pay for us to have our dreams. Trusting “time is on our side”, we promise ourselves to invest in our aspirations once we have “enough” … money, time, freedom … to do so. We convince ourselves that we can handle “just one more year” as we focus on achieving and attaining the goals set before us rather than those defined within us ...

… until we can no longer sustain the internal conflict.

That’s when the identity crisis sets in … when we are satisfying externally derived rather than internally derived definitions of fulfillment … when we are being to the world around us something we are not being to the world within us.

Rewarded for self-compromise, it seems pointless to self-actualize.

Sometimes we imagine “we get paid” to compromise ourselves and believe “we are serving” others better by our willingness to do so. Martyring ourselves to our causes (our careers, companies, colleagues, companions, children and communities), we make trade-offs. We compromise aspects of our self on behalf of others ...

... until we no longer recognize our self in it and resentment rewards our compromise.

Martyrdom sucks as a leadership quality.

Sacrificing the inspired self in the name of our causes eventually translates into a loss of talent. Paving a road to resentment, illness and stifled creativity, it also gives rise to blame cultures and political positioning in a workforce … undermining collaboration. When we hold the world around us accountable for ‘the price we have paid for the sacrifices we have made for them’, we seek to redress the imbalance through titles, financial ‘compensation’ and benefits that make our continued compromise worth our while. It works at first, but no matter how much or in what form we are compensated for self-compromise ...

… our hunger for fulfillment is never satiated by suppression.

The authentic leader is actualized.

They are self-realized, wholly expressed, congruent ... and fulfilled.

What fulfills, inspires.

We cannot lead from the uninspired within us. Incongruence within ourselves is intuitively felt and heard by our peers and audiences. It undermines our efforts to rise, deliver consistent results, lead inspirationally and realize our full potential.

When we are aspirationally fulfilled, our contributions reflect the inspired within us. They sustain us ... and are sustainable. We become retainable.

The inspired, inspire.

Aspirational Leadership

High turnover is not a symptom of whole-self leadership, it is a symptom of no-self leadership.

Corporate cultures break down when a sense of self-identity, purpose or fulfillment is compromised.

A retention challenge, aspirational voids entice leaders to leave careers in search of something 'more fulfilling' that satisfies the aspects of their self that aren't wholly expressed. Left unaddressed, the cycle proves inefficient for companies and for their talent pools.

Reward and benefit schemes aimed at investment in the aspirational self capitalize on human potential ... inspiring contribution, transforming cultures and retaining talent.

Me AND We

An investment in the whole-self is not just an investment in the aspect of the self that makes sense to a company, but also in the aspects of the self that make sense to the individual ... and their personally defined sense of wholeness.

We fear that investing in leadership fulfillment will result in turnover rather than turnaround.

If we invite our leaders to examine ideas like aspiration, fulfillment and personal legacy, we fear we are inviting workforce instability rather than inspired growth and expansion.

When we do not invest in the "appreciation" of our assets, we depreciate our assets. 

It serves no one to discount our human capital by investing in part rather than the whole of our talent's skills, interests and acumen ... or by encouraging them to do so. Besides, as shareholders of the companies for which we work, it is also our responsibility to contribute rather than withhold our own inspired contributions ... and deliver inspired results.

It is a leadership responsibility to inspire. Therefore it is a leadership responsibility to be inspired.

Inspiration and fulfillment can be invested in, but cannot be instilled in a leader. They can be coached out of us, but not imposed on us. Offsites lead by mountain climbers inspiring us to reach our goals will rarely translate into sustainable action … because what inspires us is personal to us. 

Talent development requires a personal investment in what personally inspires your talent.

The Leader

The leader is the one that says, “this is who I am” and would dance naked on stage if they felt that it would give somebody a rise.  What I mean by giving somebody a rise is a step up in their life.  The one that is the leader, leads with their faults ... rises up, stands on the stage and gets naked in their dance so everybody else has a chance.  Though everybody thinks they're having fun doing it, they’re scared too.  It’s just that they are more scared of finishing this life incomplete than they are of never starting it at all.

This is in the heart and soul of the individual who decides they are going to arrive in their greatness, dance in their nakedness and ‘for you, for me, I will allow myself to be seen'. 

If I fall, in front of you all, well maybe somebody was served by that too."

Dream 11/08