Development Solutions Consultancy

Leadership is the capacity to influence people through inspiration. This inspiration is generated by passion whose source is a value based vision. When you have passion, you can inspire people and when you inspire people, you can influence them. Just, what is passion and how is it related to leadership?

Passion is a compelling emotion or feeling that gives us energy. It so happens whenever we have passion, we seem to get this stamina that stays with us all the time and does not go away. We experience passion whenever we are enjoying what we are doing. When we become passionate about what we do, we strive to achieve what we desire. If our desire to lead people so that they can grow and become more by performing to their best, we begin to build influence with the people we work with. Being loath makes it very difficult to influence people to our desired destination.

Leadership is about understanding, connecting with and developing people so as to take them to a place they themselves may not believe they can get to. It involves not only creating awareness and understanding but also being able to connect emotionally with those you are leading in order to build trust. Effective leaders are passionate about what they do because they are driven by a compelling and high reaching vision.

A vision is a picture of a desired future. In establishing a strong value adding vision, you first have to value yourself. You have to understand that you are important and you are here on this earth to do something important. The key is that when you value yourself, you begin to value other people and this puts you in a position to exert influence.

Influence is what people give you; they submit their will to your passion. When you inspire people, they rearrange their priorities for yours. They see what you are passionate about as being important to them also. This is when leadership becomes enjoyable although not without occasional hurdles. But those hurdles cease to be problems to worry about; they become challenges and sources of excitement.

As a manger or a leader in an organization, building a culture of productivity is very important. Employee productivity in an organization is determined by the level of influence a leader has. The manager who hates his job will very likely have an unproductive team because his attitude hinders his ability to influence the team. Therefore, leadership is about impacting people with your passion. A manager with passion sets himself up for effective team performance amongst his team members

Here are a few questions to think about: As a manager, leader, or even an employee of a company, how passionate are you about what you are doing? Have you taken time to think about what you do and why you do it? Think about it beyond a salary cheque and see if you discover something more fundamental!