A Step of Faith, with Fingers Crossed

Last week, I introduced everyone to John. John was a 17-year-old man who lived in a small valley surrounded by mountains. He worked for his father on his family’s farm. Life was safe and comfortable. But John wanted more. At least, he knew he wanted something different. He wanted to know if there was life on the other side of the mountain.

Although John was not looking to recruit anyone for this journey over the mountain (only because the thought had not come to him), his friend Liz volunteered to help him. He was now in a position of leadership. John did not think of himself as a leader. However, he had a vision and a plan. That was all Liz needed. She trusted John, and that was enough.

Taking the Risk?

Doing something different in life requires an element of risk. The question we ask ourselves is, “is it a risk worth taking?”

Sometimes, life is good. We might ask ourselves if life could be better. Other times life is not so good, and we want it to be better. In those situations, we might not know how to make the change. And even if we knew what to do, we might not have the fortitude to do it.

Are you a leader who wants to make real changes in the way you do things? Do you want to see improvements in your business’ bottom line? Do you want to learn how to improve employee efficiency? What about productivity? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you must be willing to take a risk. You must be willing to do something different. And you must be willing to do things differently.

Think with Clarity and Purpose

The spiritual nature of humanity is a wonderful thing. Scientists can tell us how the brain works, but they cannot clearly tell us how the biomechanics turn electrical impulses into actual thought. We also know that the universe is a living thing – to the point (maybe) of it being self-aware and having a consciousness. Different people use different words for the term ‘universe’. Today, I am not debating the issue. I am pointing out that there is a spiritual nature to all that is within us and around us.

The nature of spirituality is an important element to true leadership. Spirituality keeps us grounded in reality while allowing us to see what is possible.

The things that we recognize through study, observation, and repetition is that humans can create an awareness that defines who they are, what they want to achieve, and how they are going to achieve it. This is a very long sentence that tells us four things:

1.?????You can envision something

2.?????You can think about something

3.?????You can plan to achieve something

4.?????You can execute that plan

Let’s start from the beginning – the Genesis of your business idea. You have a specific skill set, and you identified a pain point of a specified group of people. So far, so good. To make this idea a reality, you write all of your thoughts down on paper. This includes your day to day operations, your products and services, and your marketing and sales initiatives. Everything looks good so you moved to action.

You executed on the plan, and your initiatives were successful. They were so successful that it’s time to grow your business. That means recruiting and hiring great people. The problem is that you do not know how to recruit and hire people. And leading them to grow ‘your’ business seems scary. You want to ensure that you hire the right people that fit into your picture of a great business while maintaining current operations, sales, and productivity metrics.

You have to take a step into the mountain. You have to take the risk, learn something new, and see into the beyond. To do that, you need to look inward, assess your willingness to learn, and determine how much risk it will take to grow your business. This is a personal journey that few people take. Are you willing to take it?

?Walk with Clarity and Purpose ???

The spiritual nature of leading others means that you are clear on your purpose. Are you able to communicate the clarity of your purpose to others? If you are, then you are on the right path to recruiting and hiring great people.

The next step in recruiting great people is to look for people who are clear of their own vision and purpose. You are not recruiting for skills. Yes, skills are inherently necessary for the positions you need to fill. However, you are recruiting for passion, drive, and energy. The same passion, drive, and energy that motivated you to envision a business idea and execute on it.

Let’s put this into practice. Tell me a story in which you experienced great customer service. I don’t want you to tell me about a time you experienced good customer service. I want to hear a story of celebration. When did you, as the customer, walk away from an interchange between you and an employee at a store that made you so excited that you talked about the event for days and weeks afterwards. Tell me that kind of story.

Don’t have one? Why not?

If not, tell me a story in which you had a bad customer experience, then flip the script. What would have made that experience mind-blowing? Explain the details. What did the store employee (this includes the idea that the employee is a boss at some level) do? What did the store employee say? What was your response? What was the outcome?????

Your team members need to be able to communicate these types of ideas to you. They need to be able to communicate passion, excitement, and celebration. This is the heart of human interaction that drives businesses, and keeps them moving forward.

Talk with Clarity and Purpose

Every company has a mission and/or vision statement. As an entrepreneur, you wrote one just for kicks. You knew what your business was all about, but you wrote it all down because you liked reading it. Now that you have a team, can your team members reiterate – as close to verbatim as possible – your company’s mission? Can they communicate your company’s vision as you see it? Is your mission and vision so clear and purposeful that anyone on your team can:

Understand it?

Communicate it?

Execute it?

If the answer is no, then we have some work to do.

The power of your team comes from your ability to lead them. This means communication. Communication at every level. You need to communicate with them about their lives, your life, the company’s life, and the afterlife! I added that last part. More to the point of the afterlife – I mean what happens after the company.

Thank You

Mitch Gray and I work cooperatively in helping people understand the spiritual and human nature of leadership. Mitch Gray is a business leadership coach. I put his wisdom and knowledge into a narrative format so that you can gain a better appreciation for the spirituality of leadership.

Thanks for reading!?

To connect with Mitch Gray, you can find him here on LI: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/mitchgraymedia/