Positive Principles Newsletter
January 2005
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"Those who dream
by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream by
night."
- Edgar Allen Poe
"Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."
- Napoleon Hill
“It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not
reaching your goal. The tragedy
lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but
it is a calamity to not dream. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a
disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is sin.”
- Helmut Schmidt
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This month's tip – Goals
are good. Dreams are better.
The old year lies behind
us. With it we can leave behind the uncompleted tasks and unaccomplished goals of
last January. The new year lies before us offering a clean slate upon which we can
write our hopes and dreams. January gives each of us a time to look forward, and to
imagine what could be. What we can become. What we can accomplish. Where we can
go.
Each of you is a leader in
some respect. You lead businesses, churches, civic organizations, government
agencies, and families. As leaders, I encourage each of you to capitalize on the
environment created by the coming of a new year to connect with this feeling of
hopefulness in the people you lead. Now is the time to paint a vision of what could be and
to inspire people to action to make the dream a reality.
Many people make
resolutions with the coming of the new year. Many businesses set goals for it. I believe
in the power of goal setting. I encourage all of my clients to continually sharpen
their goal setting skills. So, I encourage you to set goals for the coming year. But,
more importantly, I encourage you to develop a dream of what could be; to create
a powerful vision for your team.
By dream, I mean a
compelling purpose or vision for you and your team to chase. In this context, your goals
serve as mile-markers along the way. Your dream connects to the desire in people to
have something worth working towards. Just keeping a job is seldom inspiring and
motivating. For some people, survival is enough, for most it is not. Most people want to
have something of value to work towards. If you connect with their desire to chase
a dream, your team will be inspired and motivated.
In their book, The
Leadership Challenge, James Kouzes and Barry Posner report on survey results that show
what people want from their leaders and how people respond when they get what they
want. Specifically, Kouzes and Posner report that being forward-looking and
being inspiring are two of the four highest traits people
expect in leaders. Together, these
two traits point to your ability to craft a positive dream (vision) of the future and to
effectively communicate it to your people.
As Kouzes and Posner
say…”We’ve found that when leaders clearly articulate their vision for the
organization, constituents report significantly higher levels of a variety of positive reactions such
as these:
