Head or Heart? Perhaps Both.

My short riff about Seth Godin’s TRIBES book sparked an impassioned comment from The Brand Builder guy, Olivier Blanchard. I’m sure others think as Olivier does when he asks, where should we put our experience, insight, knowledge and leadership to good use when its apparent our boss doesn’t value it or want it? (Hmm.)

Let’s keep in mind … my earlier post isn’t a complete summary of TRIBES. One aspect of TRIBES is to inspire us to be leaders at work. Another aspect is to become leaders outside of our day jobs and lead someone and/or something somewhere else.

Years ago, a boss shared some smart advice with me addressing this question of where should we put our experience, insight, knowledge and leadership to good use?

Any job you work in has the opportunity to capture both your head and your heart. When a business captures your head, you are fully involved with the decisions/outcomes of every business activity. When a business captures your heart you are totally passionate about how the business positively impacts people and society.

It is rare to find a job that captures both your head and your heart. It is more common to find a job that captures either one’s head or heart. And unfortunately, too many people dwell in jobs that fail to capture either their head or heart. However, one’s head and heart must be engaged to live a worthwhile life.

The advice I was given was if your day job does not capture either your head or heart, you need to find something to fill that human need outside of your job. Perhaps, volunteer your strategic thinking talents or contribute your passionate beliefs to a cause you support. Maybe, rekindle an old hobby. Or, make that long-dormant business idea happen.

We all have choices in the lives we lead. We can, as Seth writes in TRIBES, choose to put fear and discomfort aside and carve out a leadership role within the companies we work for. Or, we can choose not to.

We can also choose to get our head and/or heart involved with activities, be it at our jobs or with some extracurricular activity. The choice is left up to us.

Comments

[Valeria Maltoni]

John,

I couldn't have said it better myself ;-) There is one piece we should also consider within this conversation - recognition. It is tempting not to do the right thing because we think/believe/know (does not matter which one) that we will not get recognition.

Something interesting happens when we learn to put that thought aside. (It's a distraction anyway and probably born a bit from insecurity.) When we put that thought aside, we begin to find our own stride - no matter where we are, we can and do affect things. My own observation anyway.

[Jeff]

I think Dan McCarthy was getting at a similar idea this morning on his blog though I think the inspiration came from a a different place.
http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/
2008/10/10-off-job-leadership-development.html

[olivier Blanchard]

What? Pro-bono work? Oh the horror!!! ;D

Thanks for the nod, John. Looking forward to reading more reader comments on this.

[Bonnie Larner]

Hi John, one of my favorite lines in Seth's new book Tribes:

"You don't have enough time to be both unhappy and mediocre."

best,
bonnieL

[Ted]

Does anyone out there know of anyone they think gets up every morning planning on doing poorly at work? I used to have a prof in grad school who was a huge fan of Maslow and she posited that in was impossible for someone who was mentally healthy to plan on doing poorly at work.

Looking forward to comments