Worldview

Behavior and Skills are developed on the ground of values and attitudes that are the result of a worldview.

Your worldview guides and informs you to operate form a set of principles and values that drive and shape your behavior.

How leaders think determines how they lead. To lead well, think well.

To think well, you must challenge your existing assumptions.

Great leaders are driven by a well-defined worldview and a well-articulated set of core values.

What is worldview?

• Figuring out what life is about and how we fit into it.
• It’s how we look at the world and how we interpret what goes on it.

Your leadership reflects your worldview.

Your worldview defines your philosophy of leadership.

The philosophy of leadership

Your philosophy of leadership is the answer of these 3 questions.

1. What is your source authority as a leader?
2. What is your view of human nature?
3. What is your sense of purpose and destiny?

The source of your authority

Leadership is an issue of authority, and we all frame the source of our authority in one of 2 ways.

• Internally or externally

Internally:
I set a personal standard of right and wrong and expect everyone to do the same.

Externally:
I acknowledge absolute standards of some kind of right and wrong.

Many great leaders believed in some absolute they not only were willing to die for, but also were willing to recruit other to die for.

At some point, every great leader says: “that’s enough!” As leaders, we need our personal creed of conduct and that personal creed of conduct needs to be solidly founded on absolute we believe in. The bottom line for you as a leader is how do you define right and wrong? And what do you base it on?

View of human nature

How you view human nature has many implication how you lead.

It will shape how you select people, how you motivate and develop them, and how you handle their mistakes.

• If you believe that people can do almost anything they put their minds to – you don’t buy into the uniqueness of human nature.

• • Result: you view differences of performance as simply differences of unfulfilled potential, and focus will be on providing training to meet the deficiency.

• If you believe that people are absolutely unique, with unique gifts and talents, you will focus much more on matching their talents with the environment that allows those talents to blossom.

• • Result: training and development will concentrate on improving their strength in the environment best fit.

What is your view of human nature?

Sense of Purpose and Destiny

Great leaders look at the world through the lens of well-defined purpose. They believe they have a contribution to make. The purpose doesn’t have to be on the grandiose level of preserving freedom and fighting tyranny, but it is nonetheless present at whatever level they exercise leadership.

Writing helps leaders think, and thinking helps leaders lead.

Your values and behaviors are shaped by your purpose!

Here are some questions.

• What is your passion in life?
• What are your strengths, gifts, and greatest attributes?
• What do you want to leave as your legacy?
• How do you want to be viewed by others?
• What is your reason for being?

Finding an answer to these questions can bring clarity to your worldview.

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This post is connected with Values and Self-Awareness