I have come to believe that leadership is really about what you do and influence others to do, rather than primarily about a particular outward charisma.. However, I do believe that how you come across to people CAN significantly add to or substract from your effectiveness.
We ask people to do hard things – work hard, meet tough deadlines, operate in the midst of uncertainty and pressure. It is certainly helpful if the way we lead makes it easier for them to follow and contribute and get it all done with a positive attitude. I have looked back at times to say, who did it seem easiest to follow, who made me feel confident in the tasks and the chance of a great outcome, what project leaders instilled in me a sense of confidence and trust and desire to push through the hard stuff?
From the book 1776 by David McCullough
“It was the look and bearing of a man accustomed to respect and being obeyed. He was not austere. There was no hint of arrogance.
“Amiable” and “modest” were words frequently used to describe him, and there was a softness in his eyes that people remembered. Yet he had a certain distance in manner that set him off from, or above, others.”
“Be easy, but not too familiar, lest you subject yourself to a want of that respect, which is necessary to support a proper command.”
“… [He] has so much martial dignity in his deportment that you would distinguish him to be a general and a soldier from among 10,000 people.”
“…[He] expressed himself to me in such terms that I thought myself bound by every tie of duty and honor to comply in his request to help him through the sea of difficulties.”
“Washington was a man of exceptional, almost excessive self-command, rarely permitting himself any show of discouragement or despair.”
“It was Washington who held the army together and gave it ‘spirit through the most desperate of times’. He was not a brilliant strategist or tactician, not a gifted orator, not an intellectual. At several crucial moments he had shown marked indecisiveness. He had made several mistakes in judgment. But experience had been his great teacher from boyhood, and in this his greatest test, he learned steadily from experience. Above all, Washington never forgot what was at stake and he never gave up…… ”
“..called for perseverence and spirit….. patience and perseverence….. unremitting courage and perseverence….”
“It may be doubted whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a space of time with greater and more lasting effects upon the history of the world.”
“But troops properly inspired and animated…by a just confidence in their leader, will often exceed expectations, or the limits of probability.”
So very very well said…
Cinda Voegtli
http://www.projectconnections.com/
Looks like I found a book to read. Washingtom was a great leader and motivator, otherwise he would not have surived Valley Forge.