The 4 Inner Leadership Pillars (part 2)

Most of the leadership specialists focus on how to develop skills to influence and encourage other people and get them to work motivated by a goal.

The question is: How to lead others if you don't lead yourself?

Inner leadership influences others with the force of integrity and credibility.

At this moment you may be wondering…and how to lead myself?

In the first part of this article we said that one of the ways is developing the 4 pillars of the IMVT model. Specifically, we saw the first two: Identity and Mission or Purpose.

Today we’ll continue with the following two pillars, but first we’ll need to continue building from a stable base where we can build our inner leadership. That base is about:

Make a pause

Find a place nearby that is as quiet as possible. Close your eyes to connect with yourself. Breathe in slowly, serenely…now…exhale calmly…repeat for two minutes. Feel every part of your body. Listen to what it is saying to you...

Then give yourself one of the most valuable gifts of your life. Reserve in your agenda a meeting with yourself for one hour a week to increase calm, reduce stress and the rush of everyday life that prevent you from focusing on your inner leadership. It’s with this gift that you’ll be able to build with quality and effectiveness.

From this feeling we’re going to advance with the 2 following pillars:

Third Pillar. III: VALUES

The principles and values govern our scale of priorities, giving coherence to our actions. The reflection on the subject comes from the classics Aristotle and Plato. The philosopher I. Kant grouped them into three great ones: Goodness, Beauty and Truth.

A current author, Simon Dolland, divides them thus in his three axis model:

• Ethical-social: generosity, altruism, honesty, trust, humility, commitment...
• Pragmatic: efficiency, results, quality, order, productivity, punctuality...
• Emotional: passion, hope, motivation, enthusiasm, optimism, creativity...

Please answer this question honestly:

What are the three values that have helped you the most in your life?
 

Now think of one of the people you love the most. What are the three values you most admire about him/her? How are they different from yours?

One of the keys is to work on different specific values on yourself each week, so that you can acquire more choice options and breadth of internal criteria.

Fourth Pillar: TALENTS or SKILLS

Erich Fromm clearly explains the difference between being, doing and having. It’s very common to confuse ourselves, and believe that what I do, if I do it well, makes me good...and if I do it badly, I’m bad. Or believe that if I have more things, I am better. Hence the importance of entering this fourth pillar having created the first three. 
 

As a contrast to the perspective focused on what I do wrong, we start from the positive psychology approach, promoted by authors as Seligmann, Peterson and Csikszentmihályi. Being aware of my strengths, I feel safe and capable to explore and develop the skills I want to improve, creating a virtuous circle of human excellence.

To continue building this fourth pillar in your inner leadership, we propose:

1. Write on a piece of paper the 5 virtues that you like most about yourself and why.
2. Also write 5 qualities or skills that you’d like to improve during the time that you mark yourself as a reference.

Here we finish the second part of the article by adding that the IMVT model is also one of the central axes in Biopolis Methodology International Facilitators Training. The key is to be able to catalyze the talent and potential of the teams through our own experience

References:

• Simon Dollan, Dirección por Valores. 1997, McGraw-Hill, www.simondolan.com
• Fromm, Erich. Del tener al ser. Barcelona: Paidós Ibérica, 1991.
• Blanchard, Kenneth. El autoliderazgo y el ejecutivo al minuto. Barcelona: Granica, 2004.
• P. Seligman, Martin E. Aprenda optimismo. Barcelona: De bolsillo, 2004.