Joy: The Leadership Results-Driver

Decades ago, my career spun one-eighty because of one man and, now that I look back on it, one thing he said.?

And that turning is a great leadership lesson for you that I hope will inform your job performance and career.?

The man was a marketing expert for a General Electric division. I met him when I was hired by GE as a leadership communication consultant.

?Speech and leadership

The company called it “speech writing.”? But I found out quickly it was much more. I found out that speaking and leading were intertwined and that an executive who did not speak well usually did not lead well.

I’m sure you have stumbled on a similar realization throughout your career, finding that your experience in one area could be transferred to another with positive results.

I found I had a knack for helping the executives with their leadership challenges, much like when a friend’s broken leg from a skiing accident improved his golf swing. ??

Before this discovery, I had written and published all kinds of books on numerous subjects outside of business. I had no desire to get into the business world, which I viewed as bland, boring, spiritually defunct.

The lesson that changed things.

But working with the marketing leader, I found business to be exciting. And that’s why the lesson about who he was and the one thing he said that changed my career path and might change you too.

I worked with him and his lieutenants for some four years and saw them all under a great deal of stress; for Jack Welch was their boss, and Welch was a boss in the I don’t-get-ulcers-I-give-them mode. Yet despite the stress, the marketing leader brought enormous joy to his job.

During a staff meeting, his secretary informed him Welch was on the phone. The faces of his staff went ashen. They feared for their jobs due to missed targets. The marketing leader didn’t look apprehensive. He looked happy. He said: “Aren’t we having fun? If you’re not having fun, you’re not doing marketing.”

The power of joy.

In that moment, understanding his words, I realized the power of joy in leadership.

Having since then worked with many leaders in many other companies worldwide, I have come to realize that a leader who exudes joy in daily work can connect with people in profoundly motivational ways; and since the ability to motivate people is a key element of effective leadership, joy should be a necessary ingredient in your leadership activities.?

?Joyful leaders tend to lead happier people who because of their happiness are more creative, committed, and productive in results-generating ways.

Sorrow and fear.

To understand this connection, and its manifestations in leadership, let’s first look at joy’s opposite expression: sorrow. I submit that sorrow as it relates to organizational dynamics is based on fear. Sorrow is fear in disguise.

Fear poisons organizational culture. Of course, on one level, fear can be a great motivator, getting people to do things they may not be able to do if they did not fear. I have seen that with the many leaders I have worked with.

But fear is the crack-cocaine of leadership: powerful in its immediate effects but in the end addictive and destructive.

Joy, on the other hand, can be an endless source of productive energy — if you express it appropriately. Recognize the purpose of joy: It’s not only to feel good yourself but also to inspire them to be committed to your cause. I’ve seen many joyous people who lived hard lives. And I’ve seen many sorrowful people who live easy lives.

Getting joy.

But before we can feel it to communicate it, we must understand how to get it.

First, to get joy, we must understand its importance to your leadership.

The Chinese invasion of Tibet inadvertently gave a great gift to the world in the person of the Dalai Lama and the many Tibetan spiritual masters who fled the occupation. They have brought to the world not only new dimensions of the human spirit but when we put their concepts and practices into action, new dimensions in leadership.

Joy and the Dalai Lama.

Take the Dalai Lama. Since fleeing Tibet in the late 1950s and living in and teaching out of northern India, the Dalai Lama has brought the power of joy in his leadership of the Tibetan people to a global audience.

Videos of his interactions with others in his joyous, loving ways are common. That joy and love and wonderful laugh have inspired people around the world of all religions and those of no religion.

With the Dalai Lama in mind, know that joy can be expressed in whatever challenges you face in your leadership activities.

Experiencing and expressing constant joy doesn’t come from what happens to you. It comes from what you do about what happens to you.

Bringing joy to your leadership.

To bring joy into your leadership activities, you must make a conscious choice to do so. Understand that joy is available as a natural part of your mind but that bringing it out must take practice.

Joy has a door opening upon it. That door is kindness. (See my article: “Making the Elephant Jump: Leading with a Kind Heart.”)

Another door is delighting the people you lead.

But don’t take my word for it. There is another door to joy. That’s a practice that is available to all of us. It’s a practice that has come down from more than two thousand years first from India then through East Asian and Tibet. That practice not only promotes spiritual advancement, but it also holds exceptional leadership lessons. The practice is meditation.

Buddha said, “Just as the arrow maker shapes an arrow, so the wise develops the mind, so excitable and difficult to control.”

Meditation and joy.

He was pointing out that meditation develops the mind. Today, meditation is a leadership tool. One inevitable result of meditation is joy.

Bishop Desmond Tutu, who played a crucial role in bringing down South African Apartheid, was known for the constant joy he expressed even in challenging moments. He said that joy did not come naturally but had to be cultivated. “It’s like building muscles. Just as you work out to make your muscles stronger so they can reach their full potential, so you must constantly work at developing joy so it can help you reach your full potential as a human being.”

He said he used prayer and meditation to cultivate joy.

If you haven’t picked up meditation yet, think of it as a tool to promote exceptional leadership with joy being one inevitable outcome. There are many teachers and books to help you.

Prison and torture.

One might say, “I don’t have time to meditate,” or “I don’t see its effectiveness.” An answer can be the Tibetan who was the Dama Lama’s pre-1959 personal physician. He was also a meditation master. After the Dalai Lama fled to India, the man was imprisoned for l7 years and tortured daily. He came out of prison joyful and loving. Meditation helped him get through it all and come out the other end as a remarkable inspiration. He told the Dalai Lama, “Sometimes I was in great danger in prison, danger for losing compassion for my captors.”

This lesson in human endurance and resiliency is also your leadership lesson, minus, of course, the long-term imprisonment and torture. The lesson can be manifested throughout the highs and lows of your career as you bring joy to help achieve exceptional results through your leadership activities.

Copyright ? The Filson Leadership Group, Inc.

The author of some 40 published books, Brent Filson’s latest two leadership books are: “The Leadership Talk: 7 Days to Motivating People to Achieve Exceptional Results” and “107 Ways to Achieve Great Leadership Talks.” A former Marine infantry platoon and company commander, he is the founder of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc., which for 40 years has helped thousands of leaders of all ranks and functions in top companies worldwide achieve sustained increases in hard, measured results. He has published some 150 articles on leadership and been a guest on scores of radio/tv shows. His mission is to have leaders replace their traditional presentations with his specially developed, motivating process, The Leadership Talk. www.brentfilson.com and theleadershiptalk.com.

Besides having lectured about the Leadership Talk at MIT Sloan School of Management, Columbia University, Wake Forest, Villanova, Williams, Middlebury, Filson brought the Leadership Talk to leaders in these organizations: Abbott, Ameritech, Anheuser-Busch, Armstrong World Industries, AT&T, BASF, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, Bose, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Campbell Sales, Canadian Government, CNA, DuPont, Eaton Corporation, Exelon, First Energy, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, GTE, Hartford Steam Boiler, Hershey Foods, Honeywell, Houghton Mifflin, IBM, Meals-on-Wheels, Merck, Miller Brewing Company, NASA, PaineWebber, Polaroid, Price Waterhouse, Roadway Express, Sears Roebuck, Spalding International, Southern Company, The United Nations, Unilever, UPS, Union Carbide, United Dominion Industries, U.S. Steel, Vermont State Police, Warner Lambert — and more

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