LINK to Amazon.com's pageExecutive E.Q.: Emotional Intelligence in Leadership and Organizations by Robert K. Cooper, Ayman Sawaf
From the Section on 'Emotional Depth', pp137-139.
Copyright 1997 by Advanced Intelligence Technologies, LLC
First Grossett/Putnam hardcover edition: May 1997[/list]
IDENTIFYING YOUR UNIQUE POTENTIALAs Sun Bin knew, there is a longing in each of us to find and invest ourselves in our life and purpose, in things that matter, that are deep. This requires, first and foremost, coming to know our talents and aligning them in service of our calling in life. It's what some leaders -- and, in particular,
Joseph W. Gauld, author of
Character First(5) -- call
unique potential.
It's never too late to be what you might have been.[/i]
- George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans); 1819-1880, British novelist and intellectual.[/list]
It's something rarely acknowledged or actively explored in business. In many companies, there's an unwritten rule: Let's try to fix what's wrong and let our strengths take care of themselves. The theory is that you work on fixing weaknesses in an individual or team, then the individual or team will become stronger. This is similar to assuming that if you write an error-free paper -- no typos or grammatical errors -- it will automatically be an outstanding one. Not so. Similarly, success is
not the opposite of failure. Everyone
cannot do whatever they set their minds to. Of course, it's great to aspire. But then, as Sun Bin and other leaders have shown us, the aspiration must be
directly linked to one's unique potential and purpose. Only then can you rise to meet the challenges of success, no matter what comes.
If a person's unique potential is based on strengths rather than weaknesses, what would happen if we studied what was
right with people instead of what's
wrong with them? That question prompted more than forty years of ongoing research into the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of successful people. The firm conducting the study is SRI Gallup, a research and consulting firm which has reviewed in depth more than 250,000 successful salespeople, managers, leaders, executives, teachers, and other professionals.
This research suggests that executives and managers should ask themselves the following question: What, specifically, are my greatest strengths and talents? In truth, every one of us can do one of two things better than any other ten thousand people.
(6) How do you define such strengths, from which you begin to discover your reason for living, your unique potential and purpose? Consider these characteristics
(7):
1. It's a yearning. You'll feel it -- it pulls or attracts you toward one activity over another like an inner magnet, although it's not tied to glamour or arrogance.[/list]
2. It's something that deeply satisfies you. You "get a kick out of doing it." This kind of satisfaction is rarely present when your talents or strengths are not.[/list]
3. The learning is easy. You catch on quickly and it feels exciting to learn.[/list]
4. You sense moments of flow. You feel this is something natural for you and you catch glimpses of yourself performing well in this talent area.[/list]
It pays to be aware of personal vulnerabilities, of course, but principally because they must be acknowledged and
managed, not because we can necessarily "fix" them. Abraham Maslow reminded us that many of us "tend to evade personal growth because this... can bring a kind of fear, of awe... And so we find another kind of resistance, a denying of our best side, of our talents, of our finest impulses, of our highest potentialities, of our creativeness."
(
One of the ways to move beyond such resistance is through developing our emotional intelligence and coming to deeply
value and
apply our strengths and talents while improving our ability to
manage our vulnerabilities. Don Clifton, chairman and CEO of SRI Gallup, and Paula Nelson tell the following story
(9):
David Brown, a New York securities broker, earned more than $500,000 in commissions in 1989, making him one of the top one percent of security brokers in the nation. He reasoned that if he could devote 100 percent of his time to his primary strength, namely that of working with customers, he could boost his commissions to $175,000 annually. To accomplish that, he also... isolated his areas of weakness: specifically paperwork and reports, and activities that chewed up more than 30 percent of his time. Brown adopted new strategies for "managing the weaknesses" that freed him to exercise his strengths over the following twelve months and realize his goal. Which he did.
Before there was Boeing, there were Wilbur and Orville Wright. Before AT&T, there was Alexander Graham Bell. Before Microsoft, there were Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Before CNN, there was Ted Turner. Before FedEx, there was Fred Smith. Every new industry, product, service line, and movement has its creative founders, the visionaries who followed their gut feelings, identified their unique potential, committed to a purpose, and led the way in building something successful. Research show that people do their most creative and effective work when they love -- rather than just tolerate, or even pleasantly like -- what they do.
(10) Far too often, we follow a path not because it's what we care about most passionately but because its what other people want or expect. We may do good or efficient work on such a path, but its rarely great work and virtually never creative work.
(11) A bit later in this chapter, we'll introduce several ways to explore your talents and identify unique potential. Then, like a needle of a compass, you are drawn onto a path of purpose and calling.
Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do.- William Ellery Channing; 1780-1842, U.S. writer and clergyman[/list]
PURPOSE IS THE INNER COMPASS OF YOUR LIFE AND WORKA purpose is far more than a good idea; it's an emotionally charged
path in your work and life that provides orientation and direction. It's an internal locus of awareness and guidance which defines you by who you are and what you care most about, rather than where you find yourself at the moment. It is from this calling or purpose that you, in the words of Marv Catherine Bateson, begin truly "composing a life."
(12) Purpose is not a strategy or goal, although it is a powerful attractor for meaningful strategies and goals; it is the fundamental aim of your existence and your organization's existence.
Clarity of purpose exposes the foundation of the inner heart.- M.H. McKee, Forbes[/list]
<Etc. etc. etc.>
Footnote
(5): I am indebted to
Joseph W. Gauld, founder of Hyde School, and Kenneth and Claire Grant and Paul and Laurie Hurd, for my deepened appreciation of the expression "unique potential and purpose." To learn more, see Gauld, J.W.,
Character First (San Francisco Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1993).
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