In my last post (Personal Mastery and the Journey Within), I had introduced the concept of personal mastery. In this blog, I would like to highlight the relevance of this concept to business leadership.

To me, personal mastery is the journey of self-discovery leading to consistently living the purpose of one’s life. It requires a high emphasis on self-knowledge, clarity of one’s personal vision and its interconnectedness with the people and the world around.

It captures the essence of a leader being highly self-aware and also having a deep sense of his own purpose in life and its relevance to the rest of the society. Leadership practice has come a long way from the days of emphasizing on IQ (how I think) to the notion of EQ (how I feel and relate to others). To me, the journey of personal mastery is the final leap of bringing out the relevance of the spiritual quotient, SQ (understanding what and who I am). Another perspective to look at this concept is to say, junior managers manage tasks, middle/ senior managers manage processes, leaders manage people and to me, the most outstanding leaders are the ones who know how to manage themselves. The thought behind this is to suggest that if the leader is high on personal mastery and self-management, he would not need to make a real effort in managing others – in fact, he will be such a role model for others that they would automatically be inspired to follow him.

Lets look at some of the biggest challenges a business leader faces today. I reckon they are – building a compelling and shared vision with the team, motivating the team members towards the vision, and delivering quality results in an ever changing and highly competitive market place. The issues with building and communicating a vision shared by the employees can be quite startling. In one of the researches by Harris Interactive of over 20,000 employees, it was concluded that only 37% of the employees had a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why, and only 1 in 5 was enthusiastic about their team’s and organization’s goals. Simultaneously, the pressure today to succeed on a quarterly basis is very high – despite higher competition, fewer resources, and a more unpredictable environment. A research conducted in the UK found that 42% of all workers surveyed felt “used up” by the end of the day. The employees feel used and the salaries they aspired for suddenly don’t seem enough. One of the key reasons for this entire scenario, to my mind, is the lack of true purpose or a social context for which the organization exists.

A leader with high levels of personal mastery, as defined above, will likely be highly effective in creating a sustainable, long-term organization successfully. This will arise from her drive to firstly build greater clarity and alignment of personal and organizational purpose. Through this, she would be better equipped to inculcate a stronger sense of direction for the employees and her teams. Further, such a leader would operate from a deep sense of personal security as well as a strong empathy for the team and customers – resulting in a very trusting environment for all to excel in. Additionally, her strength of purpose and direction would better prepare the leader to withstand external challenges and thrive through crisis situations with ease. Finally, such a leader would have an inner connect to the world around – hence, focusing on creating a sustainable organization that is in tune with the community and the environment.

I have been conducting research with a number of Chairmen and CEOs of organizations in India, Singapore and the US to ascertain their response to my hypothesis. While they all tend to describe the personality traits in their own language and descriptions, an overwhelming majority of them believe that personal progress on this journey truly differentiates the outstanding leaders from the good ones.

Suffice to end with a quote from Woodrow Wilson – “We are not here to merely earn a living and to create value for our shareholders. We are here to enrich the world and make it a finer place to live. We will impoverish ourselves if we fail to do so”.