Leveraging Your Unique Ability – the strategic value of building leadership around your greatest gifts

“This above all: to thine own self be true.” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet

There is a principle of personal growth and development that is far more potent than it is popular, let alone practiced. The concept is as old as humanity, but a new term to describe it is emerging: Unique Ability. This term has been trademarked by Dan Sullivan, founder of a Toronto-based company called Strategic Coach.

Sullivan noticed that a group of handicapped individuals showed varying degrees of contentment and contribution in direct proportion to the degree to which they understood and applied their Unique Ability. I have witnessed similar results after coaching and consulting extensively with over 90 professionals over the last eight years, I not only concur with Mr. Sullivan, I would say it is the point of greatest leverage for successful leadership coaching and development, not only for the individual , but for their team and organization. In my view, it is the single-most strategic decision a leader can make.

The description of a Unique Ability, as found in the book, Unique Ability, Creating the Life You Want, by Catherine Nomura and Julia Walker, is as follows:

Each of us is born with a potential Unique Ability that has four characteristics:

• First, it is a superior ability that other people notice and value;
• Second, we love doing it and want to do it as much as possible;
• Third, it is energizing both for us and others around us; and,
• Fourth, we keep getting better, never running out of possibilities for further improvement.

So what, therefore, is the strategic value of fully deploying one’s Unique Ability, within the context of a team or organization? Much of the answer may be intuitive, but allow me to elaborate.

I have been graced with the opportunity to work with some remarkable people, seeing into their hearts and minds, sharing in the great responsibility of determining where to put their time, energy and talent. In the process, uncovering and applying one’s Unique Ability with full conviction consistently serves as a flawless guide.

At the center of any system is its leader. For better or worse, when the leader sneezes the system catches cold. Inevitably, the return on energy invested into the system is greater for the leader than any other individual within that system. Consequently, when a leader’s Unique Ability is applied consistently in its purest, undiluted form, the rest of the system functions with uncommon efficiency, drive, direction and impact.

John Wood, Founder and Executive Chair of Room to Read, an organization that builds educational infrastructure and opportunities in the developing world, learned about the power of applying one’s Unique Ability to his earlier role of CEO. Room to Read was founded in 2000, when Wood left a senior position at Microsoft to figure out how to provide libraries, books and education to the developing world. Well, he figured it out – Room to Read has now established over 10,000 libraries (at a current build-out rate of 6 per day!), 1,000 schools and 10,000 scholarships for girls.

This wasn’t always the case. In 2003, when I began working with Mr. Wood, he and Room to Read were making progress, but finding it challenging to scale – a key priority for the organization. Working with Mr. Wood, it was clearly evident to me that he suffered the fate of most founders and many leaders; he was working in and on nearly every aspect of the organization. Leaders are often talented individuals, capable of doing many things better than most. This is the trap. Not only does it lead to hyper-multi-tasking with mediocre results, it prevents them from bringing their Unique Ability to the majority of their time and attention.

During my first meeting with Mr. Wood in San Francisco, where Room to Read is based, we crafted a deceptively simple and profound assignment; for one week Mr. Wood was to avoid licking a stamp. Pretty easy, you say? Well, not if you have built a rapidly growing organization from the ground-up and feel obligated to respond personally to every letter that comes in, especially those addressed to you. However talented he may have been at it, handling the mail was clearly not Mr. wood’s Unique Ability. What was? Being in front of people—individuals or large crowds—inspiring them with big, hopeful, strategic visions that made sense and alleviated considerable suffering in the world.

Every hour Mr. Wood spent on envelopes and stamps was an hour lost from doing what he loved most—inspiring people. The unleashing of Mr. Wood’s Unique Ability into the world has now helped attract tens-of-millions of dollars and tens-of-thousands of devoted supporters.

The key to leveraging a leader’s Unique Ability is to first identify the leader’s Unique Ability, then restructure every aspect of the system to support, nurture and deliver the gifts of that Unique Ability. In Mr. Wood’s case, instead of being in front of people only 10-percent of the week, while he managed the other “important” aspects of the business, the organization was restructured to allow him to spend the lion’s share of his time in-front of donors, volunteers, television cameras and influential world leaders. In other words, those were very expensive stamps!

To be sure, internal and external strategies are paramount to organizational and team success; however, the most critical strategy may very well be the leader’s decision to understand their own Unique Ability and have everyone figure out how to bring it into the organization as fully as possible.

Oh, and by the way, to all those leaders who decide to explore this further, if you discover you are being more effective than ever and having fun at the same time, please don’t feel guilty.

What Makes a Purpose-driven Leader?

Purpose is an ephemeral word that is often misheard to mean some sort of pre-ordained master-plan that a creator or force has in store for us. Although there may be some degree of truth in that, such assertions are beyond the scope of this article.

The purpose I speak of is functional, practical, intelligent and most of all, strategic. So far, so good; all terms we can comfortably toss around in any MBA program. But it’s not the whole story; purpose does have an element of a “higher calling” which must be investigated and uncovered on some-level before the more functional-based interpretations can reach their full potential.

When one dissects the anatomy of purpose-Integration a bit more thoroughly, one will discover it did not originate in structures and systems, business plans or marketing plans, performance reviews or salary contracts; it originated within the mind and/or heart of a human being. A person. A life! And, as part of the human species, I feel, and many concur, that there is some “purpose” that we hope to actualize. A vision, if you will. For some, it is clearer than others, but for virtually all of us it is not completely dormant.

For reasons I understand more each day but cannot explain fully, successful leaders have found a way for that purpose to emerge strongly enough that it guides their actions and decisions towards the emergence and integration of a vision. How does that happen? The specifics will reveal many different approaches, such as seminars, conferences, coaches, mentors, teachers, journaling, meditation, nature expeditions, and perhaps most important, time. But there are some commonalities among successful professionals and leaders:

• They are willing, even hungry, to discover who they are.
• They are courageous enough articulate the outer-edge of their own realization to others and back it up with action.
• They make one thing most important rather than everything or many things.
• They are willing to endure the discomfort of isolation, confusion, doubt and absence of immediate results.
• They recognize even small doses purpose-driven success and work hard to replicate that success.
• None of them—none—laugh or balk at the importance of personal development and self-awareness.

The beginning of purpose-integration begins at the level of self, integrating our own awareness with the mental objects we call thoughts, plans, road-maps, strategies, outcomes, etc… Without this, of course, success is still possible; however, it is often derived from chance opportunities that accumulate short-term rewards, accolades, fame, and other conditional and volatile measures of success we often look towards for indicators of how well we are doing in life or business.

The responsible caretaker of purpose-integration measures success on the level of integrity and alignment between what they are observing or experiencing and what they know to be true. When this level of awareness, or consciousness, is weak, the leader’s propensity to integrate purpose diminishes accordingly. When it is strong, the leader can return to the purpose again and again without being distracted by the discomforts of setbacks or the absence of short-term conventional “success” indicators that may appease others.

After all, leaders are leading, and purpose-driven leaders understand, even anticipate, the isolation that may accompany being ahead of the curve. They will stand out and often alone for quite some time, until others catch-up. They gain the confidence and stamina to endure criticism, confusion, and general uncertainty to allow for the time necessary for purpose to gel into something concrete enough for others to pick-up on and support.

And where did this Herculean strength come from? Passion! When one is on-purpose, passion fuels the journey.

I have seen time and again how successful leaders keep their purpose close at-hand at all times. When they are jolted off-course, purpose brings them back. When competing values are at-play or gut-wrenching decisions need to be made, purpose makes it a no-brainer. And when people around them begin to “get it” and become inspired, throwing their support and resources behind the leader, purpose can be readily found in the new DNA of everyone onboard.

At this point, the systems, structures and other critical elements of purpose-integration can effectively strut their stuff. And if you look carefully at the anatomy of successful purpose-integration—at what has been coursing through the veins of organizational structures, systems and communication channels—you will find purpose to be ever-present. Even if it is an unconscious purpose, or a an ego-driven fear-based purpose, its propagation is being facilitated by the systems and structures in-place. Therefore, it is paramount to ensure the highest quality purpose goes into the systems and structures that permeate the entire system and all its people and decisions.

The purpose-driven leader knows this and recognizes the enormous impact it can have. For this very reason, much of the leader's attention focuses inward, integrating their own awareness with the core purpose at all times to produce a vision and strategy of highest integrity, then speak and act with maximum conviction and alignment to integrate their purpose into the world, and thereby realize a part of their purpose for being here.

Courage is Not Comfortable; but Comfort Can Be Worse

At first blush, I was tempted to leave Courage out of a leadership model I developed in 2009, because it felt too “emotional.” However, the objectivity of observation made it clear that Courage was essential to the success of Master Integrators of a key vision and absent in those cases where Vision Integration was low. At the end of the day it is merely a matter of physics; an absence of Courage leads to a dilution of the Vision, whereas its presence strengthens it. It is beyond clichés or opinion, it is as it is, an observable result of cause and effect.
Courage is not comfortable. Unfortunately, we live in a society that places comfort above all else. We work for the weekend, early retirement and summers off. Nice homes, bigger homes, plush cars and Heavenly Beds at the Westin. I have nothing against these, per se; but left in the realm of the unconscious, we are easy pray to the siren’s call for comfort. Advertising and so-called market forces perpetuate the message that suffering can, and should, be alleviated. We are bombarded by images of smiles, success and happiness in 30-second sound bites and overpromising self-help methods (including my profession, coaching) that hold out the carrot of perpetual comfort.
As a by-product, our capacity, let alone our desire, for discomfort significantly suffers (ironically, increasing suffering itself). In fact, discomfort is so loathed in our society that we often ingest our own discomfort as a sign of “failure.” Marital problems, a downturn in sales, a state of confusion: these are all precursors to embarrassment and self-deprecation. When success doesn’t simply “flow” or we are not “in the zone,” we beat ourselves up, thinking there is something wrong with us and look for a way out as quickly as possible.
Nothing could be further from truth—or practicality.
Master Integrators of their own vision accept the discomfort of integration. Without apology, they endure uncertainty, confusion and fear itself, to stay the course. A course whose destination they “know” without knowing the course itself. A knowledge they continue to cultivate through more refined levels of Awareness and Discipline. The joy of honoring this “knowing” surpasses the short-term roadblocks and inconveniences of discomfort. This is Courage. And this is perhaps the make-or-break quality of a Master Integrator.

A Responsible Leader Must Remember their Impact on the System

Everything counts.

It is challenging to be human. We can’t easily, let alone always, align our thoughts and actions with our ideals. I have great empathy for this ongoing challenge in execution at the most intimate level. Nonetheless, the ever-changing interdependent relations that may find us at the centre of a system rely on our ability to line things up—structural integrity, if you will.

Nothing I will ever say or write will be new or beyond what the audience already knows. But that does not diminish the value of expressing it again or presenting it in a way that reinforces what we already know so that we may more easily remember. Many great sages point out that to remember to remember is the hardest thing. Yet, the most important.

As leaders, we must remember to remember that we are inextricably connected to the systems we lead. At the highest level, exceptional leaders connect their thoughts, words and actions to what matters most — often expressed as values, purpose and vision — so that systems, structures and process are imbued with meaning and function. Alignment.

This, of course, is a discipline. But first things first. The leader must be aware of this relationship. When they sneeze, the system catches cold. Everything counts.

Of course, some leaders are content to have “most things” count, while inadvertently lowering the bar on other things. These leaders usually end up being "OK" at Vision Integration, but end up somewhere below the 50-percentile mark.

The work of Vision Integration Mastery, however, does not cater to that crowd.

Most of us have worked for bosses who look the other way on certain issues, thereby clogging the arteries of organizational culture. Subordinates, highly dependent of the boss’s payroll signature every two weeks, smile awkwardly and return to work, carrying with them a diluted version of the values and vision that once provided motivation, inspiration and direction. The organization’s DNA becomes altered and propagated in its new, distilled, form.

The same employee may then be responsible for hiring new recruits, project management or quality control. The bar has been lowered, and over time, the values and vision are nowhere to be found other than posters and company websites.

Everything counts. And everyone is looking!

Leaders are in a fishbowl. When a leader compromises the cultural integrity of the system, everyone knows it. For example, if “Respect” is a corporate value and the leader publicly humiliates and employee, “Respect” is no longer a corporate value. It is simply a matter of cause and effect -- physics. It is just the way it is.

All of this is not to bemoan or frighten leaders. Rather this serves to remind leaders of their impact on the systems that enable the values and vision they have pledged to uphold. These systems require endless investments of time, energy, emotion, intillect and money to maintain; consequently, ignorance can be very expensive, on many levels, not just financial.

So take a minute, pause and reflect on the system you are impacting. Where can you make some first-step modifications to bring your thoughts, words and actions into greater alignment with the values and vision you espouse? Where can you begin to make structural improvements to your own awareness, discipline and courage so that your “house”—be it your company, your team or your own life—has more structural integrity to it? Don’t be overwhelmed by the task at-hand. Simply start somewhere. Anywhere. Everything counts.

Mastering Our Attention is Key to Integrating Vision

Buddhism states the nature of mind has three main qualities: it is conscious, cognizant and aware. Buddhism also states that the nature of mind is the nature of everything. So this is a pretty big deal. What are the implications of this on our leadership?

For me, the container of “conscious, cognizant and aware” is the word attention. Where is it focused? What’s the quality of it? How aligned is it with the vision we are aspiring to?

All spiritual traditions, as well as science, medicine and philosophy, tell us that our mind is tremendously powerful. Far more powerful than we can comprehend. Whether we support it with the data of using only 7% of our brain, or that “intelligence” also resides within our body, or use a term like “transcendence” to describe what language can never describe, all schools of thought seem to acknowledge the power of the mind.

As leaders, we are responsible for the application of this power. As Vision Integrators, we are responsible for applying it to the vision, in service of the vision and those who will be impacted by it.

Mastering our attention and aligning it with our core values and vision is a practice and a discipline. It’s not easy, simple or straight-forward. And it’s not necessarily “fun,” in the traditional sense of the word. However, as one cultivates the ability to “tame the mind,” one experiences more and more Fun (capital “F” fun) on a regular and more reliable basis. Imagine how much Fun it would be to know that no matter what life throws at you today, you will still be able to direct your mind and its attention wherever you want it to go. To simply bring it back, whenever it gets thrown off-centre, and place your attention on whatever is most meaningful for you: what could be more Fun than that?

When you’re a leader wanting to make a difference—either in the world, your life or the lives you are effecting—your capacity to remain “conscious, cognizant and aware” in the depths of complexity and challenge becomes paramount to your ability to responsibly integrate a vision into the system you are leading (i.e., your life, group or organization). It’s not paramount because of some lofty ideal one might hold for so-called great leadership; it’s paramount because it’s physics—the simple correlation between cause and effect. As it is.

So, how do you do it?

The top-leaders I’ve worked with around vision—the Master Vision Integrators, as I like to call them—find the discipline to direct their attention towards the vision continually through cultivating Awareness, Discipline and Courage. The mastery comes from the cultivation, not the mastery itself. They actually care enough to become better and better and better at it.

But how can you care if you don’t care?

This is the fundamental question. The answer, as I have observed in working with leaders of varying capacity to integrate vision, is at the heart of what makes a vision magnificent or mediocre. It distinguishes the manager from the leader. The answer is: to truly care you must trust the investment in your core values! With even the slightest discipline around aligning your actions with core values, a natural and energized form of “caring” emerges.

Specifically, “investing” means to direct your attention, your mind, to better (and better and better) identify, understand, articulate and integrate your core-values and vision through uncommon levels of self-awareness and personal accountability.

Identify: There are virtually countless ways to help uncover and identify your core-values and vision; however, you need to be looking. The first step comes from you heart—to care enough to find out. Without this, you will not be able to progress.

Understand: Once you identify your core-values and vision, you need to really understand the true meaning as it pertains to you, not some generic dictionary-defined version of that value. You need to connect on a visceral level with its importance in your life or your group.

Articulate: This is the first step in converting the wisdom, insight and strategy embedded in our values into the outer-world. Words are important (if not the only) place-holders for what we want and need to communicate to others or ourselves to get the job done, to manifest our vision. The written version of our core-values, purpose and vision provide something concrete for us to take to others and figure out how to actualize them.

Integrate: This is where the rubber hits the road, and requires increasing levels of awareness, discipline and courage to find the appropriate form, function and venue for the values and vision to take-hold. This is filled with uncertainty and challenge at almost every step. And for that very reason, it becomes ever so important to develop the “certainty” of controlling our attention to come back again and again to what matters most. To what we value most.

The mind is a powerful thing. It is worth becoming allies with it. Invest in whatever method, support or structure you are comfortable with to better understand your mind and how to control the quality and placement of its attention. Many ways will work. The Buddha, himself, taught in 84,000 different ways to address the different perceptions and needs of various audiences. But the Buddha also warned, repeatedly, even if he sat by your side and taught directly to you all day, he cannot make you enlightened. You have to do the work. You have to care enough to want to get better. That’s the first place your attention must go.

Courage: Vision Integration Depends on It

Courage! This is where a vision can become severely diluted or even stopped in its tracks. It will be required; every leader gets challenged at some point, if not many points. Their response determines whether the vision moves forward or not -- whether it becomes diluted or maintains its full integrity.

I would be remiss if I didn’t place extra emphasis on the realities and less-heroic aspects of visionary leadership. We often read about the fait-acompli, looking back at how everything just fell into place. But from my privileged seat, as a leadership coach, as well as being on my own journey, I assure you it doesn’t go like that. It often times has as much to do with a solid gut-check as a solid strategy and brilliant foresight.

In all the leadership books I’ve read and all the text books we covered in my MBA program, I cannot recall a single chapter on this crucial piece of vision integration. For those leaders who are willing, able and supported enough to get through these challenges that test the limits of courage, the vision moves forward; for those who fear it too much and look for easier ways through, the vision weakens, stalls or dies.

To this end, of course, leadership or executive coaching can be a great benefit, allowing the leader to reflect, challenge, and be supported with integrity to their values and adherence to their vision. This may sound personal, but it is purely professional—and strategic. If the leader can endure the doubts, fears, and emotions that are certain to accompany the implementation of a vision, then the business objectives embedded in that vision can play out; if the leader cannot work through these, it becomes a diluted vision, or another path altogether, that does not hold the strategic benefits of a powerful, inspired, unified vision.

Your Attention is Your Greatest Leadership Resource

Our attention is a finite resource and goes wherever we place it.

This is a huge statement! Read it again.

You see. Now it’s back on this line.

You are controlling the quality and placement of your attention. As a leader, the awareness of your attention and how you distribute it become, possibly, the most important and leveraged contribution you make on a daily basis. Is your attention on minor, short-term tasks or on substantial, far-reaching interactions? Is it on your reputation and title, or on the situation in-front of you? A problem employee, or company-wide alignment of purpose, values and vision?

As you can see, it matters. And whether the impact is large or small, the amount of attention expended is roughly the same. Whatever we allow to occupy our attention, gets our attention.

How do we choose?

The expression “Keep your eye on the prize” is crucial for Purpose & Vision Integration, successfully applying our attention where it belongs. Easier said than done.

First, what do we mean by “the prize?” I have found that the “prize” of successful leaders belongs in the realm of purpose, vision and values. What’s important at the end of the day, and what will it look like? What’s the vision, and what I am I doing today to make it a reality?

On one level, as a leader, this seems like an obvious mandate. But in practice, stress, financial pressures, time-constraints, peer recognition, and a host of other so-called realities pull and tug on the prize so severely that none of our attention is left for it. Again, our attention is a finite resource and goes wherever we place it (see first line of this article).

How do we, as responsible caretakers of the vision, ensure it receives the best of our attention?

A number of leaders I have worked with have mastered their attention-allocation habits. There are three things they have done extremely well:
• AWARENESS: They invested the time and effort for self-awareness. Unless one is very clear about their values and personal vision, there is nothing consistent for attention to anchor itself to, so it is dependent on the changing winds of day-to-day details, complaints, compliments, etc., which are inevitable.
• DISCIPLINE: They create structures, time, conversations and measurements that capture and hold this quality of attention, so that it serves as a type of “sentinel,” ensuring the finite resource of attention falls under their leadership, rather than randomly distributed events, opinions and occurrences.
• COURAGE: They courageously articulate, protect and communicate their values and vision to those they lead and impact so that everyone is rowing in the same direction. In other words, the collective attention is a reflection of where the leader’s attention is going. When leaders reinforce purpose, values and vision through clear and constant communication, group alignment creates results that are powerful, efficient, and fun.


If you look at these three points and back it out, you’ll notice they are all dependent on a human being and her or his mind. If there is no attention-management within the leader, there is no attention-management within the team or the structures. It is not enough to simply say "we have a vision" or assume that the proverbial "they" are looking after it.

As leaders, only we can be held accountable for what we do with our attention and how much of it aligns with the purpose and vision of the system we lead. This means we get to place it wherever we want with whatever qualities we want it to have. Fun, isn’t it?

Why don’t we all do it?

Why don’t more of us simply place our attention where it is most needed? Because it requires self-awareness, discipline and courage to develop that habit. It is challenging to control our mind and its distribution of awareness and attention so it can be placed where we want it, how we want it, when we want it. Most of us live in the world of distractions, leaving our attention scattered about, devoid of our own dreams and desired outcomes.

High-level strategic leadership requires the time to develop discipline through activities that engage and strengthen self-awareness. Activities that either enable or disable our ability to be who we really are. To defend the vision we have agreed to integrate in the systems we lead.

Freedom and power is useless if we cannot first develop the freedom to control our mind and our attention. For example, we may have the freedom to be happy, yet when anger or fear come into view, do we really have the discipline—the freedom—to turn our attention away from it? When a “difficult conversation” comes between your team and its mission, do you have the courage that yields the freedom to move through it swiftly, with complete integrity and alignment of purpose, values and vision?

This type of freedom is not found in text-books, business schools or most best-selling novels on leadership; this capacity can only be produced by activities that promote it, that access and engage the mind and spirit in such a way that one develops the mental muscles and habits to truly place attention where we want it to go.

This can be accessed through many activities, which differ from person to person, depending upon their disposition and interests: meditation, bike-riding, hiking, painting, writing, journaling, discussion groups, coaching, mentoring, or calligraphy are just a few ideas. They take you outside your thinking-mind and provide access to spirit, self-awareness and mental discipline.

I have noticed that leaders who ensure these activities are guarded in their day-planners demonstrate a keen and ongoing ability to control their attention, seeing situations more clearly and placing it where it is needed most. Moreover, the quality of that attention is clear, strong and, almost always, caring.

It is important to recognize our attention goes wherever we place it. It is one of the few things we actually are allowed to control in this world. As leaders, we are deeply obligated to recognize this power and master its application, to ensure it is us who are doing the leading, and not the fickleness of external change.

Purpose Integration Depends on the Leader

Every human system—individual or collective—is guided on some level, either consciously or not, by a purpose. Purpose-integration, therefore, refers to the quality of integrating that purpose throughout the system it refers to.

I assert that purpose-integration has more to do with the leader, the very top leader, of the system than any other component of that system. This is a bold statement, for it does not distribute responsibility to other leaders or non-human structures within the system. These are also crucial for successful purpose-integration, but they are ultimately at the mercy of the person with the greatest influence and power, the top-leader—the designated caretaker of the system's purpose. Its integrity resides first and foremost within that person. Therefore, the capacity of that person to be a responsible caretaker of the purpose is paramount and (quite literally) at the heart of the system.

In very general terms, there are external considerations such as resources, internal considerations such as structures, and inner-most considerations such as the propensity of a human being (the purpose-driven leader) to think, speak and act in way that brings the purpose into existence.

All three areas—external, internal and inner-most—are required for full purpose-integration. There are experts and professional consultants for each of these three areas and their respective sub-divisions. Although I do not claim to know everything about purpose-integration from the dimension of inner-most alignment, I have developed considerable insight into this area having worked intimately with dozens of visionary leaders over the last eight years.

Like the story of five blind-men describing an elephant based on which isolated part of the elephant they are in contact with, describing purpose-integration from the point of view of the leader will surely be incomplete. Systems, structures, performance management, communication, resources, branding are just a few from a very long list. But I shall address it in any case, hoping to bring a bit more clarity to this one area of the proverbial elephant, so that we may better understand the entire elephant, and ultimately learn how to ride it.

During Hard Times, Lean Into Your Values

The glass really is half-full.

Hard economic times force us to look elsewhere for happiness, and help shake-us out of our sleep, thinking that external circumstances are reliable sources of security and fulfillment. Dot-com and real-estate booms lull us into a false sense of security. Fortunately, they don’t last.

So where can we look? Our values.

Values accompany us through boom and bust, promotion or layoff, IPO or bankruptcy. But having our values along for the ride has no potency unless they are enacted upon and utilized—in good times and bad. One thing I have seen time and again, with clients and in my own journey, is that when we put commitment and action into our guiding values, they do just that; they guide us out of misery, fear, depression and confusion.

How does that happen?

Values are not merely a list that you put on a flipchart or the blank spaces on a personality assessment. Values are not words; they are the DNA of a healthy human being. In order to live, they must live. Not on a list, but in ones everyday actions, conversations and thoughts. If “freedom” is a value of yours, you must make the effort for “freedom” to be present in your life. Yes, effort! Energy. Action. Not just wishing. Action around freedom might look like claiming a few extra hours to yourself, having a difficult conversation with a colleague where you speak your truth, or a meditative practice that helps you disengage from the drama of your surroundings. The common thread is action and effort. It is simple physics; you must put energy into something to effect change. How much effort? Anything over zero will do just fine.

Again and again, I am amazed at how little effort is required to move forward when ones actions are aligned with their values. Conversely, when these values are forgotten, or even worse, when one goes directly against them, the individual deflates and collapses back into confusion, frustration, depression and a host of other undesirable and unproductive states. For leaders, this has significant implications. Strong leaders that I have worked with realize this correlation and make serious efforts to clearly understand who they are, what are their values and how they can integrate them into their work, lives and organizations.

Another thing I have observed is that regardless of the degree of difficulty one faces, a little values-based effort gives them direction, hope and clarity. Creating a regular practice of sorts where daily habits and events support their values moves them into a higher state of joyful achievement. There is a deep sense of satisfaction, regardless of external circumstances or outcomes, knowing they have been true to themselves, backed by effort. Indeed, being true to ones values brings about tremendous energy, enthusiasm and resources—a keen ability to fight the fight with grace, efficiency and integrity.

Values-based action is recession proof, and positions one very strongly when external circumstances improve again. In fact, living ones values with strength, courage and integrity, seems to accelerate the transformation of external events for many of my clients and myself, too.

This is not just magic; there is a clear logic to it. By leaning into our values, we are spending more of our waking day focused on what matters most to us, therefore less on what brings us down. If we look closely, we will realize that our choices around where we put our time and energy all have an external circumstance associated with it. Therefore, we experience more and more positive, values-based, external circumstance in our day. Life literally looks good again. And in that, we come back to the realization of what life is and how important it is to be present and appreciate each precious moment.

OK, it feels good, but what about the road map?

Values have strategy built-into them. Our values are like a long-range guidance system, containing the coordinates of the appropriate target and direction while having the built-in intelligence to course-correct along the way. Values factor-in all the conditions, external and internal, not the least of which is a realistic, customized set of parameters that fits who we are, rather than some generic approach to challenging times.

We have many heroes who have shown us the way, during much more trying times than you or I will ever likely face. Churchill, Gandhi, King, Lincoln: they leaned deeply into their values and experienced all the benefits mentioned above, not the least of which was strategy. A way to move forward efficiently, strategically and powerfully with enough integrity to last for several generations or more. This stuff works. However, we have to work to make it work. It must move from hoping to doing, from complacency to exertion. All the sages of the past have always told us, we must do the work. No one, even a fully enlightened, omniscient being, can do it for us.

So during these difficult economic times, do what you can to uncover your guiding values and do even more to ensure you are living them as much as possible. In fact, when times are hard, it is even more important, so consider making it a top-priority and double your efforts. One simple approach is to list your values and track them each day on a chart, giving yourself a check-mark when you have honored them. An even simpler approach is to identify your top value and double-up your efforts to bring more of it into your life. This alone can change the tide considerably. Remember, any action creates a very different world than no action at all. Small steps on a daily basis is the key. This will create new habits and mindsets that lead to bigger steps quite naturally. And before you know it, there will be a skip in your step again!

Vision Integration: Build Everything Around Purpose

Why do you or your teams do what you do? What is the impact you are aiming for? What is the purpose of it all?

Purpose serves as the divining rod for our application of energy and resources. The more willing we are to "hear" our purpose—our calling—and embrace the power of its simplicity, the sooner we will increase our efficiency, effectiveness and impact. This applies to the individual as well as the organization.

Learning to articulate purpose requires openness, discipline and focus. It also requires support from outsiders such as mentors, consultants, coaches and associates, who help reflect and reveal what is most valued within ourselves. Effective leaders know this, and have mastered the art and discipline of vision integration through humility, self-awareness, perseverance and accountability.

Purpose is extremely pragmatic and strategic. For example, it becomes much easier to detect when actions, projects and investments go "off track," reducing response-time and providing a clearer path of retreat that realigns with purpose. This path also leads back to our core competencies and values, as these are never separate from purpose.

The alternative is a crap-shoot based on swirling and unpredictable shifts in external events and opinion. Remaining ignorant about purpose quickly reveals inefficiencies of scale and application. Ignorance is highly impractical, not to mention wasteful and often painful.

With even a slight amount of faith in the strategic benefits of purpose-driven approaches, one can quickly benefit from its power and efficiency. Where does this faith first appear? In our motivation. An intentional decision to aim—and adjust our aim along the way—at what matters most to us. This requires courage initially, but we quickly gain confidence through experience, noticing that aligning effort and resources around purpose consistently produces rewarding, effective and understandable outcomes, which in-turn further facilitate decisions and distribution of resources. The result is a healthy feedback loop of meaningful integration and positive long-term benefit and impact.