Are you ready? Pen and paper in hand? Prepared to take notes?
Operating assumption:
Some, but not all, who hold leadership titles are leaders.
This post is about those leaders, the ones who are actually leading, which means you are evolving – and so are others.
The One Thing Leaders Need to Know
When offered a choice between the path to
- A more evolved state, or
- Staying where they are
Most people choose to evolve. Not all, just most. Most is enough.
There you have it, the one thing leaders need to know. People evolve.
Leaders, first and foremost, need to evolve, always. You can’t stop, ever. And this same choice – to evolve or not – should be offered in your core message about change. Present the change as a choice between evolution versus stagnation, which is, in essence, moving backwards as the world around us moves forward.
Employees are typically not involved in the decision about organization change. So, offer them the one very important choice they do have. Will they evolve or stay the same?
Communicating the Choice Between Evolution and Stagnation
How? What’s the formula?
Follow this example.
When President Kennedy faced the Cuban missile crisis, the entire world sat perched on the abyss of nuclear destruction. Military advisors told Kennedy his only choice was a military strike. The young president couldn’t reconcile himself to this action.
In a private conversation Kennedy said the worst advice always comes “from those who feared that to be sensible made them seem soft and unheroic.”
He feared something else, starting a nuclear war. “I keep thinking about the children whose lives would be wiped out,” Kennedy told an aide.
He envisioned a more evolved solution – one that would “transform” humanity.
So, JFK acted on the one thing leaders need to know.
He offered Russia’s Chairman Khrushchev a choice between two paths:
Path #1 – Evolve as a human being and lead the world to peace
Path #2 – Stay as you are and lead the world into the abyss of destruction
Kennedy began with a strong stance. (This is where you, as a leader, declare, “The bus is leaving the station.”)
We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth, but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.
Then, appearing before a television audience, Kennedy posed the critical choice to Khrushchev, who was not physically present.
“I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations. I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination, and to join in a historic effort to end the perilous arms race and to transform the history of man. He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction.”
Either lead the world to peace and transform the history of man (to a more evolved state) or continue to be a reckless leader who brings the world to destruction.
Seductive, isn’t it!
The formula:
Frame two choices. The first invites people to rise and thrive and shows them the results of doing so. The second involves staying in place, and shows them the associated consequences. The choice is theirs. Most, but not all, will choose the first path.
This is the one thing leaders need to know, and build on.