My upcoming book, The Heart of Leadership is built upon a simple premise. Unless your heart is right, no one cares about your skills. This may sound harsh, but it’s true. If people don’t trust our heart, they don’t trust us. If they don’t trust us – they won’t follow our leadership.
I’m really excited about the upcoming release of my new book, The Heart of Leadership. However, when I met with my publisher about 6 months ago, the future of the project was uncertain. My publisher is a truth teller. I love that – and at times, I don’t. Here’s the story…
In my upcoming book, The Heart of Leadership, one of the big ideas is that lack of skills rarely derails a leader – skills are too easy to learn. Most often, the issues that create challenges for us are those of leadership character.
The subtitle of my upcoming book really captures the reason I’m so excited about its release… Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow. If you and I as leaders cannot create followship, we’re not leading at all. John Maxwell says, “If you look around and no one is following you, you’re just taking a walk.”
As I referenced in my post last week on The Heart of Leadership, I believe there are five core leadership character traits that set leaders apart from those they lead. Unlike more common character traits like integrity, honesty and loyalty, the traits I’m referring to are what enable a leader to lead. They shape who the leader is as a person and also drive their day-to-day actions. Today, let’s go a little deeper on one of those traits – Hunger for Wisdom.
I’ve shared this story before, but it is so perfect, I want to use it again… Many years ago, Peter Drucker was asked about which of his many books was his favorite. His response, “The next one.” On the eve of the release of my new book, The Heart of Leadership, I understand his comment completely.
Several weeks ago, I posted a title survey for my upcoming book. Many of you have contacted me asking what we decided. The book will be entitled The Heart of Leadership. It will be in stores in October 2013. I’m also excited to let you know Pat Lencioni has agreed to write the foreword. I’ll share more about the content of the book in the weeks and months ahead.
Thanks again to all of you who completed the title survey!