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Leading from Within

"For me, leadership is a shared responsibility for creating a better world in which to live and work.  It manifests in our passion to engage others in bringing about purposeful change." Leading From Within - Nancy Huber

Harvard Business Review on the Mind of the Leader

Emotion is not always given its due importance in leadership literature.

This is what the Harvard Business Review  has to say about ‘The mind of the Leader’:

“If you are looking for leaders, how can you identify people who are motivated by the drive to achieve rather than by external rewards? The first sign is a passion for the work itself — such people seek out creative challenges, love to learn and take great pride in a job well done. They also display an unflagging energy to do things better and are forever raising the performance bar.”

Since we can’t all lead, all the time, it is emotion - passion for a particular work - more than intelligence - that can help us find who has the potential for leadership.

Characteristics of the Heart

There are four characteristics which Nancy Huber – responsible for the top quote -  considers to be the foundation of good leadership.    They are not traits which you are either born with or not. Nor are they attributes that you might acquire by learning more about them!

Nancy believes these essential leader characteristics are choices that we make.

She believes exemplary leaders choose to be passionate, authentic, credible, and ethical.
  • Purpose and passion go hand in hand. To be an effective leader, you must first care. When you care deeply, you have the fire inside that will sustain you through difficult times.
  • To be authentic is to be genuine.  We speak from our own to the hearts of others and we are consistent.  This means in our relationships we are genuine and trustworthy.
  • Credibility means you do what you say you will do. It begins with being authentic and is manifested in the actions that you promise and deliver. You are accountable for what you say you will do.
  • Ethical leaders have human worth and dignity at the centre of their value system. They make decisions and take action in accord with these deeply held values and beliefs.

Know who you are!

Being a leader means knowing who you are at the deepest level, choosing to have the right values and acting on those values in your working, as well as your private, life.



Wendy Mason works as a Coach, Consultant and Writer. 

She works with all kinds of people going through many different kinds of personal and career change, particularly those;
  • looking for work
  • looking for promotion or newly promoted
  • moving between Public and Private Sectors
  • facing redundancy
  • moving into retirement
  • wanting to do a mid-life review
You can contact Wendy at wendymason@wisewolfconsulting.com  or ring ++44 (0)2084610114

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