Russell H. Ewing Quote - Become Conscious

Become Conscious

A boss creates fear, a leader, confidence. A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions. A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting.

—Russell H. Ewing, Author

If I’m an unconscious manager, can I be taught to be a true leader? Of course I can. If you are going to turn me into a true leader, you begin by making what is unconscious (my commitments and operating principles as a leader) become conscious and clear. That’s step one. That process is as simple as teaching me how to use a computer program. Perhaps you hold a leadership meeting and state very clearly why and how you intend to lead. You make everything clear. If there are other leaders in the room, even leaders whom you lead, you invite them to do the same. The more open we all are about how we intend to lead, the more motivated our people will be.

One of the exercises we like to do in our leadership seminars is to ask people to write down the name of someone in their lives whom they admired and respected as a leader. It may be their grandmother, an old platoon leader, or a former teacher or manager from companies gone by. Some people write down a leader in history that had an influence on them, like John F. Kennedy or Winston Churchill.

You might want to do this exercise right now. Think of someone in your own life you respected as a leader. Jot the name down. Now, write three qualities about that person that you admired the most. Don’t read on until you do.

Okay, now look at those three qualities. They may be anything— honesty, openness, a total belief in you, creativity, non-judgmental teaching style—whatever the three qualities were, look at them. More than likely, and more than nine times out of 10 these are qualities now in you as a leader. And these are the three things your people would say about you! Look at them. Is it not true? Are they not who you are?

This is a powerful exercise because it shows you how you have already internalized and already modeled the leaders you admired. But until now, it has been subconscious. The trick is to make it conscious, and be very awake to it every day. There is nothing so disheartening as a leader’s having a perceived hidden agenda, which comes from overly unconscious values at play. It discourages your people when they have to guess where you’re coming from every day.

Far better to have both you and your people fully conscious of what you stand for.