Attention vs. Support

In building a following and leading, leaders some times confuse attention and support. There is a difference. Attention means that people are aware of you. They’re aware of what you are doing or what you about.

Don’t confuse your presence being acknowledged with being supported. When people see you they say so, they’re merely saying they see you. Support, on the other hand, says we see what you are doing and this is how we are going to contribute.

Support is an enabling force. It is giving into your vision. It is people putting their hands on the same plow as you. Attention is people watching you push the plow. Attention and support are related.

You need to capture attention to draw support. Skeptic can give you their attention but not give you support. If you’re going to get people behind your vision, you need to find a way for them to know that you exist.

Some will immediately see what you’re doing and want to be a part of it. Some will need to know why you’re doing it. Others want to get involved but you need to make it easy for them to do so. Make the information easily available. Talk about what you’re doing. Be convincing and intentional about how you share what you’re about.

Heretic leaders understand the importance of getting people’s attention to their cause. What you do can make a greater impact when there are more people with you. Momentum is an underrated force. Not only do you need people’s attention you need to move people from being an audience to being participants.

The audience must be become converts of your cause into vision enablers. Don’t waste an opportunity to get build your audience. Furthermore, don’t be content with an audience; make them converts of your cause. Be bold. Be /ˈherətik/.

Future Vault

The future is often viewed as something distant. Involving a journey of some sort. It is perceived as ‘that place’ we will get to and get to where certain things happen. Some of the “certain things” said to be for the future are seen a lofty.

We dismiss them as unattainable in the now because of their uhm, ‘futuristic nature’. In fact dreams and goals that seem rather lofty, perhaps unimaginable and subsequently unattainable, are excused from being achieved now and pushed into ‘the future’.

It so happens that many people, and, specifically, leaders rob themselves of opportunity to give to their enterprise and humanity significantly because they always lock away (seemingly) lofty dreams in the ‘future vault’.

Leadership is about causing change that advances teams and ultimately humanity. Locking up ideas, you know the ones that everyone, including yourself, sometimes considers ‘insane’, in the ‘future vault’ is tantamount to sabotage of your vision and those it (ought to) serves.

future vault
the future is often never realised but locked away in leaders ‘future vaults’, excuses for not acting and ceasing it, bringing it into ‘the now’ || image by psicologiaclinica | cc

Leadership is about peering at the edge of the bounds of our present light to see what others are not seeing. It is about creating. If a leader sees only as much as those he leads, he is not really leading. Leadership is about seeing the future, pointing it out to others and securing it. Ideas are the foundation of shattering the status quo. The status quo must be shattered for the new to come in. That new becomes the future.

Ideas can never have significant impact for the greater if made inaccessible, even by the dreamers themselves. Locked up in the ‘future vault’.

The future vault is often the result of leaders giving in to fear. Cowardice never accomplished much but paralyze leaders and rob enterprises of achieving their vision. The ‘future vault’ is where leaders put the future on hold and give it no chance to challenge their leadership.

When leaders’ leadership is not challenged, no growth happens, the status quo is maintained and nothing new comes along. ‘New’ is ‘the future’ that we’re always hoping for.

Heretic leaders guard vision and the means of realizing it. On the other hand, the future vault, where excuses for not being bold in creating the future live, must be shattered. It is the responsibility of heretic leaders to guard against deteriorating to managers. Managers are great experts at filing.

They love record of the past and want to follow the same path, repeating what is predictable. Leaders love, start and lead change. This is how they define the future. If you are going to do anything significant, for your enterprise, for humanity, you cannot have a future vault. Be bold. Be /ˈherətik/.

What Does It Mean?

We’re consuming more information than we ever did. Largely due to the fact that it is getting easier and easier to create and share. Information is increasingly more accessible. Successful leaders know information is important. The challenge, however, is identifying which information is relevant. Perhaps more than that, which information is important now? Which information will be relevant tomorrow? How can leaders be effective in identifying what information is relevant?

what does it mean
an inquiring mind is prerequisite for great and successful leadership || image by JD Hancock | cc

Knowing what information is pertinent is one of the things that will give organizations the edge over rivals. However, knowing is only the first step. Knowing the pertinent information must be followed by its appreciation. That is, for leaders to be successful, they must allow the information to speak for itself. Manipulating information or facts does not change their truth. Ignoring it does not empower, it impairs, and ultimately destroys an enterprise.

Fight the temptation to manipulate information to say what you want it to say.

Beyond identifying relevant information and what it says, you must inquire on what it means. The implications of information can be determined if the right information is being queried and it is not tainted or manipulated to preference. Dialogue in teams is important. Exploring the different possibilities of the implication of information is best done with many minds and outlooks. Reflection is key for every successful leader. They must constantly look at information to them and ask, “What does it mean?”

The value of information is in the appreciation and understanding of the implications thereof.

Inquiring minds will unlock secrets borne by information. Some of the implications of information will glare at you and others must be prodded out.

Information is only as good as your understanding of it and its implication. It’s not what you know it’s how it matters… It does not matter how much you know. What matters most is how you use what you know. It does not matter that you know until you know what what you know demands. The demands of what you know do not matter much until you act on what it all means. Only then can it make a difference.

Now that you have this information, what are you going to do with it? What does it mean for you and your enterprise?

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Geoffrey Moore

Innovators and Early Adopters — are visionaries. They want revolutionary change, something that sets them apart qualitatively from their competitors. They are willing to take enormous risks. The early majority by contrast, have to worry about any change fitting into their complex arrangement of suppliers and distributors. “If the goal of visionaries is to make quantum leap forward, the goal of pragmatists is to make a percentage improvement – incremental, measurable predictable progress”.