This summer I wrote a piece entitled, The Four Most Important Questions. In that post, I asserted that leadership success depends upon our ability to understand and answer four questions:
In August, I posted an article on self-awareness, Question 1: Who Am I? Once we have contemplated that question, and we have come to understand the values, beliefs, and traits that define who we are, we can turn to the next question, “What do I want?”
When we know what matters to us we can begin to effect meaningful and lasting change. Our self-awareness leads to greater awareness of the problems and opportunities around us. By knowing what we want, we can create a plan to get there. This article introduces The If 16 Leadership Attributes most closely related to recognizing, understanding, articulating, and acting on what we want – Ambition, Vision, Boldness, and Resilience.
By knowing who we are, we can better see how we fit into the world around us. We can see more clearly the problems and challenges that matter most to us. We can more effectively identify solutions, and we can more quickly act to address them. Simply put, when we know and embrace our values and beliefs, we can better see when they are being violated; and we can choose how we want to respond. This is the key to knowing what we really want.