The undiagnosed virus
Most leaders are managing more than leading.
As leadership heats today's leader burns up in details.
Today's leader focuses on the what, rarely on the why (the what is important) and never on the why the why (why the why is important).
If you find yourself or your leaders showing symptoms of the above maybe you are suffering from the 'Intention Deficit Virus'. A seemingly contagious dis-ease that thrives throughout many organisation's culture.
We believe that this virus is a by-product of yesteryear's management efficiency outlook, that most leaders have failed to move through. You may be wondering why leaders struggle with this. Well, let’s take a look...
Have you ever thought or said to someone... ‘You know I think I might have a cold, I’m not sure as I don’t have any obvious symptoms, but I just don’t feel right’. You may also have noticed that your performance at work or maybe in the gym just wasn’t there. Yes? That is exactly how the ‘Intention Deficit Virus’ affects organisations and its leaders. It just goes on undiagnosed.
Diagnosis
The ‘Intention Deficit Virus’ is as it says, a deficit of intention. Suffered by the leader through failing to distinguish between what the leader is attending to and the intention behind the attending.
Yet, here is where it the virus gets smart, as viruses do once we diagnose them, and try to rid ourselves of them. The Intention (at first view) may seem fitting even admirable - The organisation 'needs me to do this' or 'we don’t have the resources to have others doing this, so I will add value by supporting this need'. Though this simply creates a fertile environment for the virus to replicate and grow.
The first step in becoming aware of our intentions is part of the way to ridding ourselves of the deficit virus. However, just knowing our intention is not the cure...
We need to ask:
• What - am I attending too?
• How - is this displaying leading or leadership?
• Why - am I doing this?
This is where we have to jump logical levels, to go meta, above the current line of inquiry, because of course there is intention in all attention.
What we need to ask to be 'healthy' (intentional) leaders is:
• What is the quality of my intention?’
• What do I intend with what I attend to or give my attention to?
• What is the intention of my intention?
The Cure (not the band...)
As you start to ask yourself these questions, you start to become a healthy leader again. You begin to once again see the bigger picture. You have a great big why with which to lead with.
With a big enough why, the what will start to be done by the people tasked with the 'what' namely 'Managers'. In fact as we look at the formula of management and leadership in these terms, we can broadly say:
• Management = Attention
• Leadership = Intention
As managers ask 'what and how?' the leader’s role is to ask or know 'why?' . This is the exploration of intention.
So I ask you as a leader:
• What are you going to apply 'your why' too?
• What are you doing right now that is suffering from the 'Intention Deficit Virus'?
• How much value to the bottom line of your business do you think you could add if you textured your leadership with intentional intentions? Given that - from this perspective - what would you be attending to?
• How much more of an effective leader can you sense yourself as being as you realise you can now rid yourself and eventually your organisation of the 'Intention Deficit Virus'?
Living and Leading with intentionality and on purpose forms a significant part of our leadership coaching and leadership training programs… maybe its time you got a check up with us!
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