4 Pillars of Leadership Success -- Do your work 'in here' to lead better 'out there.'

4 Pillars of Leadership Success addresses four foundational dimensions of WHO you are and what your leadership vectors & velocity are.

To lead well begins with living well.  

You may lead for a season as an unbalanced person but you will not lead for long in a modern organization without having your 'stuff' together.  


1. Spiritual
Leadership is mostly a spiritual endeavor as you are dealing with humans who have souls and so much of what you do to impact, empower, encourage, and engage others is at the unseen level.  You can operate from any spiritual base that you choose, and I choose to operate from a base built on the Primacy of Jesus Christ the pre-eminent leader to be emulated and the source of true Spiritual strength.  So, my bias is strong and not meant to be offensive, but I don't want you to be misled.  

2.  Mental
Your brain has got to be in top condition and fueled with the proper knowledge to make the best decisions in a rapid fire environment.  Old knowledge may be deadly to you and your team like using a 1989 map in downtown Los Angeles to navigate.  It's important that you feed your brain with the proper nutrition and that you fire it up with the best information you can get.  Don't accept mental flabbiness or laziness from yourself as your brain will rise to the ocassion if you expect a higher level of performance.  Indeed, you must lead your own brain!!

3.  Emotional. 
Thanks to Daniel Goleman and his work on emotional intelligence in leadership we're making the connection that for a person to be strong in the 4 pillars of leadership success that she/he has to have a command of his emotions.  That the leader must 'sense' what is going on inside of her/his heart & head at all times and then choose wisely how to vent what is going on.  A true leader is the 'thermostat' of the team and will set the performance temperature for others to rise or fall to.  The emotional side of leadership has it's roots in all three of the other areas.  I believe that the emotional side of leadership is what most people experience in a leader when they think of the leader's style.  Great leadership styles flow from solid leadership theory thinking backed by emotional intelligence founded on bedrock spiritual, mental, and physical training.  If you want to maximize your leadership styles (I do think you need to grow into having a set of styles that fit you to use at different moments with your team as they need a different style in a time of crisis than in a time of calm.   Check out The Leadership Engine by Noel Tichy to learn more about this important idea.)

4.  Physical fitness has a huge impact on how you lead and on how you are perceived as a leader. 
Unfortunately in America these days the physicality of a leader impacts how readily followers and would-be followers accept the leader.  You can lower the bar of resistance to your leadership by becoming more physically fit.  In building on your 4 pillars of leadership success I'd encourage you to make an investment in yourself.  Your mental and emotional pillars will be strengthened by improving your physical fitness.  And, in a strange way, I've found that even my spiritual well-being is impacted by my physical pillar.  As humans there is simply no way to separate the 4 pillars from one another.  Strengthening one usually builds the others -- as long as there is not a total imbalance in that regard.

Build Muscle in these 4 Pillars and your ability to lead well with grow as well.

Lead Stong,
Jeff Fuson