With all that is happening in the ever-evolving and uncertain world, leaders are learning that they need to be adopt their leadership styles to match what is really needed in the moment in order for them to best lead themselves, their people and their organizations forward in the coming era.

In the industrial age, leadership was all about muscles and technical saviness, then with the evolution to the knowledge age it became all about brains and strategy. Leadership of the present and future is all about leading wholeheartedly with and was all about the hashtag#muscles, in the near past it was about the hashtag#brains, in the future it’s all about hashtag#emotional intelligence and hashtag#Resilience. Leading from the hashtag#heart and it takes a huge amount of hashtag#courage to lead wholeheartedly. At these times of crisis and uncertainty I’m very honored to be dealing with hashtag#leaders at hashtag#siemens who bring their whole selves to lead in this tough times addressing others fears and uncertainties and having the courage to listen and acknowledge such feelings.

A positive leader is someone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to challenge that potential to the maximum ! In essence, positive leadership is authentic influence that creates real value !

Positive leadership is not simply something we do. It comes from a deeper reality within us, from our values, principles, life experiences and essence. It is in fact a process, an intimate expression of who we are.

The four pillars of positive leadership are :

Leading by influence

A positive leader knows that their ultimate goal is not to change people but to positively influence them ! Nobody changes unless they truly want to, and our role as leaders is to create the opening and space for that change to occur. What we can do is influence people through influencing their behaviours which are driven by their thoughts and emotions, their mindsets, their belief system, their values, their nature and their needs !

Leading by connection

To be able to influence people, a positive leader knows they need to have a grounded relationship with them first. Investing time and effort in creating and maintaining positive relationships and connection with and within your team is a must

Leading by presence

Before you can focus on leading others, you need to first start by building a strong and powerful executive brand and presence. If you are not clear about your brand, your purpose, your values, your essence and how you bring that forward into the world, it will be very difficult for people to connect with you !

Leading by being

And the core of all that is to work on your self-awareness and self-responsibility as a leader. Know your strengths and weaknesses, know your values and virtues, what brings out the best in you and what brings out the worst, what triggers you and what you need !

In coming articles, I will be taking deeper dives into each of these pillars and their manifestation in how we show up as leaders of the new era……