I have been around a lot of talk this week on ‘Leadership’ and ‘Management’. I suppose it is to be expected, given that I have been running various training sessions and forums over the week, ranging from a ‘Strategy in Action’ workshop that I ran for one client through to a ‘Welding purpose to priorities’ forum I facilitated and, finally on Friday, into discussions on ‘Sales Strategy’ with George Petri and others after the unmissable IoD 859 Club. But today I was blown away…

Sunday mornings tend to be a time of reflection and renewal for me and I was reflecting on Leading and Serving over my slow Sunday morning cappuccino at home with Aled Jones on Radio2 quietly in the background.

Then, as part of his sign-off, Aled read out this quote by John Quincy Adams, the 6th President of the USA,

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

What got me was the word ‘ACTIONS’. Talk is cheap. Rhetoric, no matter how brilliantly constructed to engage emotionally or logically, is nothing without the sweat of struggle to see a dream through into reality.

Much to reflect upon, and then the pragmatist inside me focused into one of my favourite definitions of ‘Values’ from one of my favourite Business World Leaders, Jack Welch:

‘Values are just behaviours – specific, nitty-gritty and so descriptive they leave nothing to the imagination..’

The same could be said of Leadership! Here’s to a great week next week!

To discover how we can help you, your team and your business turn your vision, strategies and goals into real results within the constraints of the conflicting priorities of the day-job just contact Richard Maybury now