My most productive executive coaching clients mobilize their willpower to focus on achieving results. They have tremendous energy and a passion to succeed.
Are you committed to producing results or are you caught up in excessive business? Leadership effectiveness is more about getting things done through others than focusing on hours spent at work.
What is your mindset about being a purposeful leader who executes and is results driven?
Purposeful Leaders Produce Results
Willpower is the force behind energy and focus, enabling managers to execute disciplined action. Even when uninspired by the work and tempted by other opportunities, purposeful managers maintain energy and focus through willpower. They are committed to achieving results and, no matter what, will not give up.
Purposeful managers exhibit an insatiable need to produce results—a key finding among successful executives interviewed by former Stanford University Business School Lecturer Jim Collins, MBA, for his book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t (HarperBusiness, 2001). Managers with willpower overcome barriers, deal with setbacks and persevere to the end.
For willpower to flourish, managers must commit to three action steps:
1. Develop a clear mental picture of their intention.
2. Make a conscious choice to commit to—and pursue—this intention.
3. Develop strategies for protecting this intention against distractions, boredom or frustration.
Without willpower, top leaders simply cannot direct or encourage others, nor provide meaning to their employees’ work. Unfortunately, most leaders actually wind up destroying their managers’ willpower by encouraging superficial acquiescence to tasks, but not real commitment to specific goals.
Leaders who activate their own willpower can effectively engage others’ willpower. They may need to commit to more difficult routes of persuasion, rather than getting quick buy-ins. They must encourage their employees to consider conflicts, doubts and ambivalence, while openly discussing difficulties and costs—not just painting a rosy picture of necessary tasks.
Willful leadership is neither easy nor intuitive. Ultimately, it is less risky than merely motivating managers and assuming their compliance.
Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a more purposeful and productive leader. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.
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