Here’s my weekly email to leaders in Reno County…
Having taken a few weeks to encourage you to manage yourself better, I thought today we’d get after a facet of leadership that (to quote the late Cajun Chef Justin Wilson) “I guarantee” will help you intervene more skillfully: speak from the heart.
If speaking from the heart makes you think of Valentine’s Day, then you might well be missing the point. Speaking from the heart gets us close to purpose. It helps expose why we care so deeply about the specific challenges in which we’re engaging.
As the recent KS Leadership Center journal (which I’m still waiting to link to online) points out (on pp.104-105), there are some key questions involved in speaking from the heart:
1) Why are you/I working on this?
2) What do I care about most related to this challenge?
3) How often do you/I share your/my beliefs and personal stories with stakeholders?
4) Are there some stakeholders with whom you/I haven’t shared these thoughts?
You can see through these questions what speaking from the heart does both in you and your stakeholders.
You can see through these questions what speaking from the heart does both in you and your stakeholders.
Today, then, no matter the leadership issue you’re engaged with. Speak from the heart and see if it doesn’t help you make progress on the issues you care about so deeply.