Connect The Dots
Remember playing those connect the dots picture games when you were younger? You followed a number sequence that would turn a jumbled mess into a beautiful design. I was always amazed at the near impossibility to decipher the image before you connected the dots. It was as if the image appeared out of no where, yet all along it was arranged to do so.
Leadership is much like the connect the dot games. What appears to be a fragmented mess, or purposeless happenings, can become a beautiful tapestry of opportunity. Great leaders are phenomenal connect-the-dots-type people. They constantly find ways to bring everyone and everything into harmony together. In fact, I wrote about this in my new book Leadology…here is an exert from it…
“If you look closely, you will find that each day will present you with defining moments of opportunity to motivate your team. In the times before modern harbors, a sailor had to wait for the flood tide before they could make it to port with their ship. The Latin phrase “Ob Portu” referred to that moment in time when the tide turned. The captain and crew would wait for that one moment, knowing that if they missed it, they would have to wait for another tide to come in. The English word opportunity derives from this original meaning. Shakespeare used this idea of “Ob Portu” in one of his most famous passages from Julius Caesar:
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Great leaders are always looking for ways to link daily duties to the overarching vision. They connect every dot to its purpose. They are continuously searching for waves of opportunity to ride.”
Are you a connect-the-dots-type leader? Are you looking for ways to always link common tasks to the vision of your organization? The more you can connect the dots for your organization the more motivated your team will be to accomplish the vision. It’s when we lose sight of why we are doing what we are doing that we start to lose motivation. Great leaders connect every dot back to a powerful why. If it cannot have a powerful why…why are we doing it in the first place?
It’s when we lose sight of why we are doing what we are doing that we start to lose motivation.
Check out my new book Leadology for more leadership tips…
