As a Leadership Coach, my commitment is:

• To transform the way you think about your responsibility as a leader.
• To transform the actions that support you in making the impact you are meant to make on the world...

Could my commitment be the definition of leadership itself?  Leadership is choosing the right words to cause someone to re-define who they think they are, what they think they can accomplish, who they must be, and who they must impact to make a difference. 

The leadership gap that we have today, is that most of us don’t know what it takes to make such an impact, we don’t know the words, or we don’t believe we have what is takes to make such an impact.  We think we are not “the one.” 

With a world so hungry for leaders, I say you are the one, until someone tells you different.  And when someone tells you different, don’t listen!  Instead discover your convictions, and make the commitment to share them with others.  It is the clarifying of who you are, your commitment to expressing who you are, and the requests you make of others to live your commitments, that create great leaders.

According to Kevin Cashman, Leadership is “Authentic, Self-Expression that creates Value.”

Authenticity – Clarity and Trust

I define authenticity as the task of clarity and trust.  A difficult “task” for most people is to define what they are most passionate about and what they most strongly believe in.  An even more difficult task is for one to trust they will accomplish what they are most passionate about.

The challenge of authenticity is that it is so easy for us to have others tell us what we should do.  If we are not listening to others, then we choose to listen to the “chatter” that our own heads provide.  The clarity of authenticity requires that one stop listening to others, stop listening to all the reasons we might make up for not achieving our full potential, and take the time to truly define our unique passion and purpose. 

Authenticity is about getting honest about your purpose.  But it is more than that.  Authenticity requires that you trust that you have the ability to accomplish your purpose.  It is fine to be clear on your purpose, but the real work of authenticity is to develop the trust in yourself that you will make it happen.

Your ability to impact others stems from the trust you have in yourself to accomplish your purpose.  Others can see it, feel it, and taste it.  The work of a true leader is to clarify your purpose and build faith in one's ability to manufacture that purpose through others.

Self-Expression – Relationship and Trust

Whereas Authenticity is an internal game against oneself, Self-Expression causes one to be honest about their commitment to take on a specific relationship with others.  Self-Expression demands that you know in your gut that others will be inspired by your message so deeply that they will carry your message forward.  Self-Expression requires that who people are for you, are individuals who thirst for your passion, your beliefs, and your direction.

True Self-Expression requires that in delivering your message, you realize that to build relationship you must build trust in others.  To develop trust you must share your own humanity.  You must share how important your passion is, and your inability to pursue it on your own.  You must courageously share what you think is ethical and right, even though you know that most individuals will not agree.  To fully self-express, you must be consistent with your message, in the face of agreement, disagreement, or apparent lack of interest.

To show the seriousness of your conviction, you must be a model of how important your goals are.  Modeling conviction requires that you provoke others to join in.  You must stand for others getting involved in what you truly feel are the most important outcomes in life.  You must stand for others inviting themselves to partake of your direction.  To do anything less than assume that others will do anything possible to sign up with you, is to be inauthentic about how important your goals, your values, and your message are to the world.

Creating Value – Commitment and Confidence

Whereas Self-Expression is about taking on relationships with others, Creating Value requires that the leader be so invested in his or her goals, that he or she causes others to lead the charge without being there.

Creating Value is the most important work of a leader, since your task is to transform others, and through others’ transformation, you change the world.  In order to create value, leaders must partake in creating vision and plans that show how others will be involved.  Leaders must build accountability in others to create their own transformation. 

If you are to truly create extraordinary value, you must create goals that you frankly do NOT know how to complete and that YOU cannot participate in.  Creating extraordinary value requires that you come up with ideas and frameworks that appear impossible.  You play on the edge of confidence by knowing how important your task is, by knowing that the task will be completed, and by making powerful requests of others who will be able to provide the answers for which you cannot.

Being a leader is a dangerous game.  You must have conviction, and not know the answer.  You must express your vulnerability, and know that this is the greatest display of confidence.  And all along, it is by trusting yourself, that others  create the trust in themselves, that they can move beyond their own current beliefs to create truly unreasonable results.