The Earth is not just our environment. We are the Earth and the Earth is us. We have always been one with the Earth. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
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We are the Earth
Category: Change Leadership
Create a healthy future
The best way to predict the future is to create it. ~ Abraham Lincoln
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Plant a tree for the environment
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is today.
~ Chinese Proverb
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Arctic National Wildlife
The Arctic National Wildlife refuge is a unique and biologically special place that should be preserved. ~ Dan Lipinski
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Oneness of humanity
Since climate change and the global economy now affect us all, we have to develop a sense of the oneness of humanity. ~ The Dalai Lama
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Environmental preservation
Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge; it is common sense. ~ Ronald Reagan
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How to Know If YOU Are the Next Game-Changing Leader?
The role of a great leader is not to give greatness to human beings, but to help them extract the greatness they already have within them (J. Buchan)
Despite of the constant battle between good and evil on planet Earth, our beautiful world is actually home to tens, hundreds, and thousands of game-changing leaders from all possible industries and nations, people who through their mere presence, charisma and continuous efforts in having the courage and capability of empowering others do make our world a much, much better place to be, to exist, to live, and to thrive. Great leaders come in every shape, and despite of their external attributes great leaders have all internalized a number of spiritually important characteristics, allowing for their light to shine bright, acting like lighthouses, and lifting everyone around them up.
All truly great leaders have what it takes to thrive in a constantly developing world. Despite of major obstacles in life, they do thrive – perhaps even more so during extremely challenging times, and through the wisdom they are capable of transforming and implementing in their leadership practices – in fact, in their whole lives which is all about expressing and living their mission, passion, and vision, and sharing their enthusiasm with everyone around them.
Furthermore, great and highly influential leaders throughout history, and contemporary, do share many common characteristics and personal values, marked by at least following traits:
All great leaders have passion, and their passion is contagious! We often think of passion as something that has to do with euphoria, although it is something that is more closely associated with great patience.
Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. (Mark Z. Danielewski).
Therefore, all great leadership, having its roots in passion, is in fact suffering, and the ability to transform these feelings into constant, productive actions. All great leaders do this, and instead of complaining about things they cannot change, they do focus upon creating positive results by taking actions that ultimately lead to desired results, despite of barriers, challenges and obstacles.
Passion is Oxygen of the Soul (Bill Butler)
All great leaders know how to empower themselves and how to empower others. Needless to say, all great leaders focus upon their personal strengths, but also on helping others to tap into their personal strengths. A great leader does not have to be perfect, or a perfectionist, but rather to have the ability to see the greatness and potential in other individuals as well. Great leaders are not critics of other people´s lives or work, meaning that they do not waste energy upon demonstrating or digging into the faults of other people. Rather they do create extraordinary results in people around them through their pure example.
Great leaders do not tell you what to do. They show you how it is done.
All great leaders have a mission, enabling them to focus upon the desired outcome with a capability of sharing their vision in a way that invites people around them to a journey rather than using people in order to get to where they want to be. Great leaders are in fact always generous, and have a purpose of serving a higher, common goal rather than envisioning a future that they only personally can gain from. In addition to personal generosity, great leaders also know how to increase generosity within others which ultimately leads to increased generosity and benevolence within all of us. Great leaders know how to share and realize that increased abundance and wealth is something that everyone should have access to. Great leaders most definitely do not like to see people around them suffering.
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
All great leaders have integrity. They are accountable, and have mental stability. Throughout history, and even today, we do experience and sense leaders who have not developed these qualities within themselves, needless to mention any names in this context. You may have some ideas of leaders who in fact embody every aspect of what great leadership is NOT about. The greatest leaders of all times, regardless of their official leadership position or status in society, are trustworthy and take responsibility for both their actions and for their words.
There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident that he/she is leading people the right way (Nelson Mandela)
Many people, especially the most ignorant ones, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you are right and you know it, speak your mind. Speak your mind even if you are a minority of one. The truth is still the truth. (Mahatma Gandhi).
All great leaders deserve their followers, and the support from people around them, through dedication and hard work. Great leaders do not buy followers, nor do they expect people to do things for them without the capability of giving anything in return. Our world knows many leaders who, unfortunately, want to forward themselves and their careers at the expense of others. This is not a characteristic of a truly great leader. A truly great leader is someone who is willing to put in the effort and the work demanded instead of trying to take advantage of the weaknesses he or she recognizes in other individuals.
Not everyone is a born leader. Many people are followers, and prefer to remain followers. If you are going to be a follower, follow people who are worth it and deserving. Follow people who are kind, happy, loving, successful, respected and grateful. In doing so, you are also leading others through your actions. Carmelia Ray
If you want to be a great leader, make sure to express integrity, authenticity, and accountability in your actions. Lead people through example, passion, dedication, hard work and action. Be prepared to literally get your hands dirty and to sweat, but also be prepared to delegate some of your workload to others because no great leader ever accomplished any great things completely on his or on her own.
To lead people, walk behind them (Lao Tzu)
All great leaders do respect all life. Great leaders never ever make the mistake of manipulating others through unstable behavior rather they do make a difference through their capability of standing behind their words and actions. They do not push people in a manipulative manner, but rather seek to find sustainable solutions serving all parties through subtle and diplomatic negotiation. True, great leadership starts with the individual respecting himself/herself in a way that allows for him/her to respect other people, including their right to humanity and privacy, rather than trying to push people in a narcissistic manner into directions of their ego´s choice.
The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise. Maya Angelou
True, great leadership is based upon inspiration, not domination, on co-operation, not intimidation, or on focusing upon only getting one´s personal wishes fulfilled (modified quote from William Arthur Wood).
The best of leaders lead with sophisticated influence rather than with a self-centered willingness to dominate.
All true great leaders know that life can sometimes be more than harsh, if not for themselves, but for others. And, all great leaders with an open heart (chakra) do feel the pain of others, sometimes making them suffer as much as the people who, in fact, are the ones who are suffering the most. Great leaders do often undergo a great amount of stress and challenges during their lives, but like phoenixes rising from the ashes they do know how to overcome these periods of extreme personal suffering and transforming this into purposeful actions, leadership practices marked by spirituality ultimately leading to creating unique, life and society transforming results. Nevertheless, any truly great, remarkable leader ought to keep in mind the importance of not carrying all the problems of the world on their personal shoulders, but rather to learn how to observe the world and circumstances with objectivity and professionalism, allowing for them to participate in taking healing actions toward making the world a better, more sane place for all human beings and animals to live, in a healthy environment without excess pollution or other solutions that obviously do harm future generations, flora and fauna.
As already expressed, we all do know tens, hundreds, and thousands of leaders who do act in game-changing ways thanks to the fact that they have both realized the importance of their actions, and cared enough in order to actually take action and make a difference through their life work.
YOU can also be one of those leaders, by implementing the qualities of a great leader in your personal and professional life, and starting to make a difference in your everyday life rather than expecting, and waiting for, others to make those changes on your behalf.
Thank you for reading, for commenting, for reflecting, and most definitely for taking your personal leadership (or follower – you get to choose!) qualities seriously through daily actions and practices in your life, and for inspiring other individuals to equal actions. If you enjoyed this post, and found it helpful, please share it with your networks on social media.
And, if you still did not get enough, do take the time to watch this video about truly great leadership:
Andrew Solomon: How the worst moments in our lives make us who we are:
How Can You Create a Successful Leadership Mentality?
Enthusiasm Moves the World (Arthur Balfor)
If you are an individual seeking to make a positive difference in your environment, you have to admit that you have both climbed mountains and descended into deep valleys, sometimes questioning whether your attitude really does make a difference.
It does.
No matter what you may have been through in your life, in your career, you must realize that everything has served its purpose. Without these valuable experiences, you would be only half as knowledgeable, so instead of mourning and remaining paralyzed, transform your valuable lessons into powerful wisdom and use it not only to your personal advantage, but also to become a positive role model for others.
Your Enthusiasm will be Infectious, stimulating and attractive to others. They will love you for it. They will go for you, and with you. (Norman Vincent Peale)
However, make sure to keep a few important things in mind when creating a winning leadership mentality for yourself, including:
1. Successful leaders compete only against themselves, not against others. Most of all, successful leaders are gentle toward themselves, and toward others.
Life, and career, is no competition with people around you. Nor is it a competition with yourself, however ambitious and determined you are. Do not make your life a constant competition. Focus rather on practicing gentleness towards yourself and towards others, and make it a regular exercise to find a positive balance between challenging yourself, and letting yourself rest. It makes no sense to burn your candle at both ends. Real self-worth and passion comes from within, not from exhausting yourself either with too high personal expectations or trying to fulfill external expectations at all costs.
2. Successful Leaders do not give their personal power away to others.
If you are a good listener and an empathetic individual, you have to learn how to shield yourself against taking upon you the negative energies of others, or letting people manipulate you. Learn how to be assertive, but not aggressive, and how to be gentle in a sophisticated way, without taking upon you the energies of others, unless they truly are uplifting and positive. It is a positive trait in people to have two ears and one mouth, and to use them accordingly, but practice assertiveness in yourself and focus upon spreading your light instead of letting people and society around you to drain your energy. Find ways of getting rid of negativity quickly, either through surrounding yourself with positive, like-minded people, meditation, spending time in nature and so forth. If you notice that certain relationships always seem to bring up negativity, make sure to detach yourself as soon as possible and focus upon getting back on track as soon as possible.
Successful leaders live with the 3 E ́s: Empathy, Energy and Enthusiasm
3. Successful leaders stay in tune with their personal values.
Simple. Know your values and stick to them. Be assertive, confident, and focused. If you have forgotten about your real core values, make sure to find yourself back to them, and remind yourself about them each and every day. Find ways of reminding yourself, be it through a daily repetition of a mantra or simply waking up in the morning with a smiling soul, full of optimism, making sure that you will make the best of each and every day living according to your values, without harming yourself or others.
4. Successful leaders have a principle of staying true to themselves, but are also willing to help, and to support others.
Great leadership starts with knowing yourself. Even greater leadership allows for you to forget about serving your ego. All great leaders live with a meaning and purpose of serving a higher good, helping others, and serving others. A true, winning leadership mentality can shine only when it serves a higher purpose. Respect yourself and others by focusing upon being a role model of positive actions and optimism instead of finding fault either in yourself or in others. Remember also that your greatness requires the ability of being at peace with yourself. We all deserve leaders with healthy personal qualities so make sure to stay healthy and take care of yourself first.
5. Successful leaders develop their communication skills. Every day.
Every change-making leader is marked by outstanding communication skills. Excellent communication is demanding, especially if and when you work long hours and have great responsibilities. Therefore, make sure to learn how to save your energy through developing your communication, and negotiation skills. Powerful, respectful communication requires assertiveness, consciousness, an ability to tap into your personal source, and most of all, having the capability of truly listening to yourself, and to those you communicate with. Practice also on listen to what is left unsaid, and what you possibly can read between the lines. Online communication especially does include a number of challenges, which requires for you the capability of tuning extra carefully into what is being communicated. Successful negotiation, on the other hand, should always create a win-win situation.
Communication must be HOT. That is Honest, Open, and Two-Way (Dan Oswald)
6. Successful leaders are physically, mentally and spiritually in balance.
Physical, mental and spiritual balance requires continuous efforts, but to be truly successful in your career, and in your life, you have to be in shape. The more demanding your life is, the more you will have to work on maintaining this balance. What this includes, and signifies, is individual to each one of us. Listen to the signals your body is giving you, but also to your dreams, daydreams, thoughts and senses. You are the master of your own temple, so make sure to nurture it accordingly.
7. Successful leaders have trust, and are trustworthy.
When leaders tap into their higher consciousness, and operate on a level from the super-ego, rather than based upon fears stemming from the subconscious level, they open up to whole new levels of possibilities. Tapping into one’s intuition and therefore, having access to the abundance on the upper levels of consciousness creates completely different experiences, and offers increasingly prosperous outcomes in every action. To learn more about stepping into your intuition, I recommend reading The Intuitive Way: A Guide to Living from Inner Wisdom written by Penney Pierce.
From Powerless to “Leader” – Recognizing Victimizers & Victim mentality by Esperanza Montalvo:
Thank you for reading, listening, watching, liking and commenting. Thank you also for emancipating yourself in a positive way and becoming a positive role model, and a catalyst for improved communication and leadership.
Communicate, Educate, Inspire, Involve, Lead Change
This post is part the LinkedIn Take Action series in which Influencers and members discuss how to drive change that matters. Read all the posts here and write your own; include the hashtags #action2015 and #2030NOW in the body of your post.
We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children
To ensure that sustainability is created and achieved across our Globe, actions have to be taken NOW, involving not only state heads and governments as responsible actors, but leading change throughout societies in a way that makes this a necessary target for all human beings and individuals, and a responsibility for all citizens of the world.
Steps for involving all citizens of the world:
COMMUNICATE
Communication is a powerful tool for leading sustainable change. Create a communication strategy. Execute it in a way that increases awareness and understanding. Repeat. Involve advertising, communications and marketing experts who know how to spread the message in targeted ways.
EDUCATE
As Nelson Mandela said:
Education is the most powerful tool to change the world
Educate people at all levels to increase awareness and understanding. Ensure that every individual comprehends what sustainability signifies, and how each individual can lead change and make a difference in society. Coach, educate, learn, teach, and repeat until everyone, regardless of social status or level of experience is involved and cares about sustainability.
Watch WISE Channel´s video, Bhutan´s “Feeding Programme”: Free & Organic food for better learning (Learning World: S5E33, 1/3):
INSPIRE
Inspire individuals, groups of people, and whole societies to take action. Inspire to make people see the benefits and positive changes that sustainability brings with it, and focus upon communicating the new possibilities that sustainability creates, and the improvements sustainability has upon everyone´s life, including health and well-being.
INVOLVE
Involve citizens throughout societies and make it a necessity for everyone, not only for designated leaders or individuals with a certain status to take action. Everyone has a voice, and every individual´s choices and actions do make a difference. If emphasis, focus, and responsibility is put only upon a handful of people, results will take forever to be seen, if ever. Instead, involve everyone, and give everyone a possibility to actually live in a sustainable way and exercise influence regardless of social status, position, or ranking.
LEAD CHANGE
Lead change through strategic communication, involve the right people to begin with, educate, inspire, and repeat.
Lead change or change will lead you (Steve Jobs)
Read my previous post What Successful Change Leadership Really is About to learn more about how to lead change successfully, in any context or setting.
✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ If you care about sustainability, and sustainable development, please comment, like, and share this post with your (online media) networks. Engaging in discussion and taking actions, both on individual, organizational, and societal levels demonstrates awareness and responsibility, both essential in leading sustainable development. Comments upon how sustainable development can be achieved in societies are very helpful, and welcome. Thank you for caring, and for taking action. Peace and blessings. ✍
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What is Successful Change Leadership Really About?
The Greatest Leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things, but the leader who gets people to do the greatest things.
During our lives and in our careers, we get to know leaders with a wide range of characteristics, either from close or far distance. Although practical experience is a great teacher, leaders who inspire us from wide distance do often become more influential, and more significant, in our growth towards leadership excellence. This is especially true if you, as a continuously developing leader learn through observation, a developing and learning technique that can include anything possible for higher development, evolving, and learning.
In some contexts, change management is referred to as something related to IT project management, process creation and development, but change leadership is a much wider context, and change leadership always puts either individuals, groups of people, teams, or complete organizations at the core, thus making it a people-centered approach. In its farthest reaching context and meaning, change leadership signifies the capability of thinking out of the box, seeing the problems, potentials, and solutions, stretching far beyond to what may be common day practice, and focusing upon creating completely new solutions.
Ultimately, change always begins within an individual. Although we are all products of our environments, and our societies, we do always have the possibility to see what is necessary, to create what is necessary, and to lead change that is necessary. To lead change, you must always be willing to change yourself first. To lead change that is significant to your values, you must first see, and visualize what is important to you, and what changes you want to see, and to lead, in your personal life, and possibly, in the lives of others.
Organizational change is a separate theme. The best, and most valuable organizations, do include and let everyone in the organization be part of the organizational development, and the change process. They do even include (wisely!), their clients and other shareholders in the process through a number of methods. In today’s world, in fact no organization can afford not including their employees, stakeholders, and shareholders to become a part of the change process, or change communication process. Organizations, in fact, should listen very carefully to how employees and other significant stakeholders respond to, and what changes they would like to see in the organization.
Effective change leadership, depending upon your mission and vision, includes:
- How you, as a change leader, perceive society, people, and organizations around you
What is your role, as an individual, a team member, a leader, and as “a part” of society? Are you ultimately happy with how things are, with your career, and with your life? Many people probably respond with a “no” to these two questions, while others are unsure, and others respond with a “yes”. If you responded with a no, or unsure, you know that something is not right, either in your career, or in your life in general.
- Becoming aware, as a change leader, of the changes you need to make, or the changes you want to pursue, in one of the areas of your life (or, in the lives of others)
Awareness is at the core of your personal awakening process towards the fact that something has to change. You will not only recognize that something has to change, but also WHAT has to change. Before leading others in the change process, you MUST become and create that change in yourself, and in your personal life.
Leaders do not only talk the talk, but also walk the walk
True leaders never ask others to do something they are not capable of themselves. Let’s say, you want the whole world to become vegan, but you keep on eating meat yourself. Is there not a huge dilemma, and a problem? Before expecting anything from other people, make sure to fulfill the requirements you demand in your personal life, career, and leadership practices. The most annoying thing is seeing leaders (managers?) who criticize and demand others to deliver, without having the capability or requirements themselves.
- Be authentic, and live according to your true values
Create and live the life you were meant to live. If you feel like you are in a rut in your current job, take the necessary steps to create the changes that you wish to see in your work environment. After all, we spend a significant part of our lives working, and everyone wants to do rewarding work. And, rewarding work includes much more than going to work and sitting around waiting for the monthly paycheck. There are other ways. Do not wait to fulfill your true dreams and desires until retirement. Instead, take the necessary steps in order to create the life you truly want, as soon as possible. True change leadership is about living according to your dreams and desires, and fulfilling the changes you wish to see in this world, and about making things happen, instead of waiting around, and building negative feelings inside you, and bad habits in your life due to the lack of satisfaction, and the lack of fulfillment, in one or several areas of your life.
Implement Change Powerfully and Successfully With Kotter’s Eight-Step Change Model:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QA7Mvu2QDE
Thank you for reading, commenting, liking, and especially for sharing. Remember, sharing is caring, and if you found this post useful, please increase the chances of effective change leadership through sharing this post.
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Anne-Maria Yritys 
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