The real reason for leadership |

The purpose of leadership isn’t to increase shareholder value or the productivity of work teams, though effective leadership does these things. Rather, the purpose of leadership is to change the world around you in the name of your values, so you can live those values more fully and use them to make life better for others.To change this dynamic, you must reset the standard of what’s possible in the relationship between you and your people. In my experience, the best method for accomplishing this objective is to reveal “moments of truth”: the stories of how you know your values are real to you, where they came from and how you learned them, and the intimate and profound personal experiences—glorious or traumatic—that shaped your self-awareness.

To pull this feat off, you’ll have to step out from behind whatever protection your job title affords and make yourself willingly vulnerable. In doing so, you are saying: “From my experiences, this is what is most important about living.” By disclosing how your unshakable view of life priorities was formed, you are offering proof of your commitment to these values. One well-known senior executive took this advice to heart and told her staff about a savage yet triumphant experience that she had never previously revealed to most of her friends—and certainly never to her employees—in a way that underlined just how strongly she felt about her connection to them.

Source: Revealing your moment of truth, McKinsley Quarterly