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Here is an excerpt from Lee’s book, Leadership Matters. It contains 31 daily insights to inspire extraordinary results.
day 21: Passion
Happiness comes from following your passion. Excellence comes from work you are passionate about. Passion enables your team to perform ordinary tasks in extraordinary ways.
Knowing what to do drives performance, but knowing why you do it ignites passion. Passion enables your team to find creative ways to achieve a goal … any goal.
Consider most types of sports equipment – a golf club, a tennis racquet, a baseball bat – have a sweet spot that, if the ball hits it, will give the player the optimal result. Hitting this sweet spot yields a long drive down the fairway, a swift cross-court return or homerun swing.
Every sport has a sweet spot of some type. If you have experienced it, you know when you hit the sweet spot; you barely feel it. The ball goes where you want it to go … even farther and faster. It doesn’t get any better than that! Inspiring leaders help their team members play in their professional sweetspots, leveraging their natural talents.
To help your team find their sweet spots, ensure a good fit between a team member’s natural abilities and the requirements of the job – the “highest and best use” of their talents toward your team goals. Wouldn’t you love having each team member working in their sweet spot?
Gaining insights into your own leadership sweet spot helps you better determine how to design roles and utilize team members. For example, if your sweet spot is conceptually designing complex deals, ensure you have a strong analyst
on your team for balance. If your sweet spot is analyzing lots of details and numbers, you want some conceptual, big-picture thinkers on your team.
Look at where the answers to these two questions overlap to reveal a sweet spot:
- What types of work am I absolutely passionate about?
- Which tasks are very easy and natural for me to perform?
Recall times when you were told that you made it look easy, that you really excelled and you looked like you were having a blast. What were you doing? Ignite your passion; inspire extraordinary results.
Action Questions:
1. What is my leadership “sweet spot”?
2. What skills do I need on my team to balance my skills?