Photo courtesy of SparkCBC and Flickr
“Don’t confuse correlation and causation.
Almost all great records eventually dwindle…”
– Charlie Munger
On 7th December, the UK’s Independent newspaper published an article called “How to behave like a natural born leader”. They proceeded to interpret a recent study to suggest that “anyone can behave like a leader if they want to.”
This is a classic case of confusing correlation with causation, and I talked about it during a recent module of the Clarity Coach Training. We’ve released a two-minute video of that session which a lot of people found very funny and are sharing with their friends.
>>> You can watch the two-minute video here: https://www.facebook.com/JamieSmartCom/videos/10156118610056528/
Here’s an excerpt from The Little Book of Clarity (©2015 Jamie Smart) where I dig a little deeper into this:
“Here’s the problem: Our business is growing steadily at 25%. We’re taking on new staff every year, but we haven’t found a way to develop new leaders at anything like the same rate…”
I was speaking with the practice manager for a consulting group that works with Global 1000 companies. His comments echo a sentiment I’ve heard repeatedly from company directors over the years, “We need more leaders; they’re hard to find and even harder to make!”
A recent search for the term “leadership” on Amazon returned 93,606 books. All over the world, people attend programmes, read books and listen to audios, trying to master the skills and qualities of leadership.
But if the 93,606 books were looking in the right direction, don’t you think we would have found the solution to “the leadership problem” by now?
I was working with a group recently, and we were exploring the subject of leadership. I invited the group to make a list of what they considered the causes of leadership to be. The list they came up with included:
– Vision
– Passion
– Goals
– Action
– Contribution
– Flexibility
– Listening
– Being decisive
– Stillness
– Teambuilding
While the items they’d identified are certainly valuable, they’re actually symptoms or “effects” of the leadership bug, rather than the causes.
DISTINCTION: Symptoms vs. Causes
Symptoms: Most leadership books and programmes make a valiant effort to help people master the “symptoms” of leadership; behaviours, skills and attitudes, modelled from success- ful leaders. Unfortunately, acting like you have the symptoms of leadership is similar to acting like you have a cold; difficult and unconvincing.
Causes: The source of leadership is the cause that gives rise to the symptoms. As you start to catch the “leadership bug”, you’ll find the symptoms of authentic leadership start emerging effortlessly and authentically.
So what causes leadership? What’s the “bug” that gives rise to these symptoms? And how does a person catch it?
– Good news: you’ve already got it; everyone has the “cause” of leadership within them.
– Bad news: for most people it’s covered over, shrouded in layers of contaminated thinking.
– Great news: as you increase your clarity of understanding, you awaken your innate capacity for leadership
If you want to increase your clarity of understanding of the inside-out nature of life, there are some options below for doing exactly that.
To your increasing clarity!
Big love
Jamie
Jamie Smart
Sunday Times Bestselling Author, Speaker and Executive Coach
PLUS: Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you get the clarity and results that matter to you:
1. Hire me to speak at your event
If you want an entertaining and impactful keynote speech or breakout session for your conference, offsite or town hall meeting, click here https://www.jamiesmart.com/book-jamie-to-speak-about/
2. Join the Profitable Coaches Group
Join the Profitable Coaches Professional Group and connect with the growing community of like-minded transformation professionals who are passionate about exponentially increasing their grounding, impact and their livelihood. You can join for free at https://www.jamiesmart.com/profitable/
3. Join Chip Chipman, Jan Chipman and me in Tenerife
Each year, my team and I head off to the Canary Islands for a week with my dear friends, colleagues and mentors Jan and Chip Chipman for the Clarity Life Transformation Retreat. We spend 5 days diving deep into the principles behind clarity, and lives transform in the process. If you’d like to find out more about it, If that’s you, email Nikki on info@jamiesmart.com and type “Tenerife” in the subject line.
4. The Thriving Coaches Blueprint
We’re putting together a new practice-building case study group at The Thriving Coaches Blueprint in March. Stay tuned for details… If you’d like to work with me and my team on growing your practice… email Nikki at info@jamiesmart.com and type “Thriving Coaches Blueprint” in the subject line.
PLUS: check these out :
Get your free Profitable Coaches Scorecard book www.JamieSmart.com/scorecard
Listen to the Results Mindset Podcast www.JamieSmart.com/resultspodcast
Listen to The Profitable Coaches Podcast www.JamieSmart.com/pcp
Read the first 2 chapters of my Sunday Times Bestseller RESULTS: Think Less, Achieve More www.JamieSmart.com/instantresults