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Leading With
Leading with Passion The story behind Leading With Passion: 10 Essentials for Inspiring Others by John J. Murphy. Some people believe there are no coincidences. I am one of them. That is why it came as no surprise when Mac Anderson called me to inquire about my interest in writing a book on leadership and inspiration for Simple Truths.
At that very time, I was writing a 265-page book titled, Sage Leadership: Awakening the Spirit in Work. As it turns out, this is exactly what Mac was looking for - something that went deep into the soul of leadership. Over the years, I have learned that to inspire others we must be "in-spirit" ourselves - a state of fearless, effortless flow. We must lead with purpose, heart and grace - to name a few. These "essentials" were exactly what Mac was looking for in a new leadership title. In a matter of minutes, we agreed on the title, Leading With Passion: 10 Essentials for Inspiring Others. The 10 Essentials covered in Leading With Passion are not the only essentials. They do tap into the heart and soul of others - a missing link in many businesses and governments today. If there is one thing I have learned in teaching thousands of people from over 50 countries, it is that, "The heart has reasons that reason cannot know," to quote Pascal. In other words, people need more than facts, data and analysis to emotionally relate to what needs to be done and why. We need context, not just content. Wise leaders get this! When I submitted the manuscript, Mac could feel the energy and passion in this book. In addition to the wording, I also offered the idea of using the metaphor of "lighting a candle" as an image of leadership. Buddha once said, "Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle cannot be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." During my many years of research, observation and teaching, I felt a strong symbolic connection to the idea of sharing the "light." The imagery in this book carries this theme and is spectacular. I am thrilled with the reception Leading With Passion is getting. It is a book from my heart as well as my mind, a sharing of great insight and wisdom I have witnessed over the years. Like the candle, I hope this book reaches and lights up of the lives of millions. The 10 Essentials in Leading with Passion certainly light up my life. Today, I'd like to share the introduction of Leading With Passion with you:
An excerpt from Leading With Passion by John J. Murphy Light a match in a dark room and watch as the light instantly overcomes the darkness. Observe the power and grace of that single, solitary flame dancing with life. Now light several candles or kindle a fire and experience the added warmth and comfort extending from that first, vulnerable flame through others. This is the heart and soul of leadership - the essence of inspiring others. It is about courageously casting off fear, doubt and limiting beliefs and giving people a sense of hope, optimism and accomplishment. It is about bringing light into a world of uncertainty and inspiring others to do the same. This is what we call passion, the fire within. Passion is a heartfelt energy that flows through us, not from us. It fills our hearts when we allow it to and it inspires others when we share it. It is like sunlight flowing through a doorway that we have just opened. It was always there. It just needed to be accepted and embraced. Under the right conditions, this "flow" appears effortless, easy and graceful. It is doing what it is meant to do. It is reminding us that we are meant to be purposeful. We are meant to be positive. We are meant to be passionate. We feel this when we listen to and accept our calling in life. We feel it as inspiration when we open the door of resistance and let it in. Inspiration springs forth when we allow ourselves to be "in-spirit," aligned with our true essence. Stop and think about it: When you feel truly passionate and inspired about someone or something, what frame of mind are you in? What are you willing to do? What kind of effort are you willing to put forth? How fearful are you? Chances are, you feel motivated to do whatever it takes, without fear or doubt, to turn your vision into reality. You grow in confidence. You believe you can do it. You are committed from the heart and soul. The purpose of Leading With Passion is to clarify and offer ten key factors for leading with passion and inspiring peak performance. These "essentials" serve to guide and remind leaders how they can "open the door" and facilitate flow. By practicing these essentials, you will tap the extraordinary potential in yourself and others and realize results you may never have dreamed possible. Look to any inspiring leader and you will see these key factors in action. Observe the best of the best and you will witness the power of passionate leadership. Make no mistake - leading with passion inspires world change. It is the only thing that ever really has.
•Every manager, CEO, school administrator and principal should read this Leading With Passion.
John J. Murphy, author of our best-selling book on teamwork, Pulling Together, follows up this best-seller with a leadership book like no other. Leading With Passion, 10 Rules For Inspiring Others will help you will find that not only are you performing better has a leader, but your team is sharing your vision and following your lead to ultimate success. People have debated for many years about the single most important characteristic or "ingredient" for leadership. The same endless debate might take place if we were to ask what the single, most important factor for chocolate cake is. Clearly, there is an argument for chocolate. There is also a good argument for eggs, flour, sugar, water and an assortment of other factors, including oven temperature and time in the oven. In fact, if any essential ingredient is missing or out of balance, the cake is vulnerable. It isn't everything it could be. Effective, passionate leadership requires many things. In this book, we cover ten essentials. Combine these key factors and you have a means to inspire and lead with passion.
Quotations about Passion
Love is often gentle, desire always a rage. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins. ~Benjamin Franklin
It is with our passions as it is with fire and water; they are good servants, but bad masters. ~Roger L'Estrange, Aesop's Fables, 1692
Passion and prejudice govern the world, only under the name of reason. ~John Wesley
Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Passion makes the world go round. Love just makes it a safer place. ~Ice T, The Ice Opinion, quoted in Reader's Digest, "Quotable Quotes," February 2002
Chase down your passion like it's the last bus of the night. ~Terri Guillemets
Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart! Else it may be their miserable fortune, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
Follow your passion, and success will follow you. ~Terri Guillemets
Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. ~Attributed to Howard Thurman
When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees. ~Abraham Lincoln
The most beautiful make-up of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy. ~Yves Saint Laurent
The same passions in man and woman nonetheless differ in tempo; hence man and woman do not cease misunderstanding one another. ~Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark. ~Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Journal, 17 December 1856
You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world. ~Sheila Graham
But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess. ~Christian Nestell Bovee
Oh how the passions, insolent and strong, Bear our weak minds their rapid course along; Make us the madness of their will obey; Then die and leave us to our griefs as prey! ~George Crabbe
Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless. ~Honoré de Balzac
In music the passions enjoy themselves. ~Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886
Our passions are the true phoenixes; when the old one is burnt out, a new one rises from its ashes. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is a revenge the devil sometimes takes upon the virtuous, that he entraps them by the force of the very passion they have suppressed and think themselves superior to. ~George Santayana
You taught me to be nice, so nice that now I am so full of niceness, I have no sense of right and wrong, no outrage, no passion. ~Garrison Keillor
Every civilization is, among other things, an arrangement for domesticating the passions and setting them to do useful work. ~Aldous Huxley
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