Features of Leadership -Leadership Is Uncommon SenseBy: The Leadership Circle

Leadership skills and techniques are useful, but there is noshort cut to greatness. It takes deeper developmental work.While many workshops and leadership ‘experts’ claim thatthere are a few techniques anyone can master to become a

great leader and achieve success – after all (they claim),leadership is just a matter of common sense – the reality isthat leadership does not arise from common sense at all.

For that reason, The Leadership Circle has created a whitepaper free to download, entitled "Leadership: Uncommon

Sense."

If leadership were just common sense,it would be common.

The fact that it is not common,despite all the activity to developit, suggests that, if short-cuts werepossible, we would have allbought the package long ago andwould now be enjoying the fruitsof success. Leadership is anuncommon sense because mostdo not undertake this work as alifelong discipline.

If leadership were just common sense,it would be common.

Leadership is connected withthe deepest parts of ourselves. Ithas much more to do withcharacter, courage, and convictionthan it does with speci!c skills oreven competencies. Leadershiprequires wisdom, self-knowledge, and thedevelopment of our character atpsychological and spirituallevels.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT ISDEEPLY PERSONAL. It requires afundamental shift of mind andconsciousness. This type of change isthreatening for everyone, so it isnaturally resisted.

Leadership development is deeply personal.

The latest !ve-steps-to-leadership model is a much easiersell than the deep work truly necessary for successfulleadership. Leadership development is long-termbecause systems do not change quickly—especially oursystems of thinking. No matter how much we are addictedto the quick !x, all of the available evidence tells us thatchange is hard and long—whether we are changing ourorganization or our consciousness.

Leadership development requires a focuson core disciplines.

To become masterful at anything,from a sport to the practice of law,a regular discipline of learning andpractice is necessary. The same istrue of leadership. The payoffcomes with long-term attention.Courage, character, compassionand conviction are the stuff ofleadership.

Leadership development requires a focuson core disciplines.

These are not common attributesand there is no short cut to them.Only through a deep, long-termdiscipline will the leadershipemerge to guide us through theorganizational, national, andglobal problems that we facetoday.

Discover the long-term and innerchanges necessary for leadershipeffectiveness by reading TheLeadership Circle’s free white paperLeadership: Uncommon Sense.Additional white papers can also bedownloaded on The LeadershipCircle’s White Papers page(www.theleadershipcircle.com/resources/position-papers)

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