The document provides guidance on rituals that visionary leaders practice to lead effectively. It discusses 6 rituals:
1. Linking paycheck to purpose by motivating employees with a compelling vision and cause.
2. Managing by mind and leading with heart through promise keeping, listening, compassion, and truth telling.
3. Rewarding routinely and recognizing relentlessly to motivate good behavior.
4. Surrendering to change by embracing new ideas and adapting quickly.
5. Focusing on the worthy by prioritizing high-impact activities and goals.
6. Leading oneself through self-discipline and self-reflection. Visionary leaders work on self-mastery as the foundation for inspiring others.
2. Ritual 1- Link Paycheck To Purpose
• The vision for the Organization must excite the mind &
touch the hearts.
• Purpose is the most powerful motivator in the world.
• People have a deep inner need to be a part of
something bigger than themselves.
• They should be told continuously how they are moving
to a compelling cause.
• As a visionary leader you must stay focused on the big
picture.
3. Contd . .
• To show the followers that you really have their best interest in
mind when you share future vision of Organization with them.
• Visionary leaders care about doing what’s right then appearing
intelligent.
• Visionary leaders see themselves as liberators rather then limiters
of human talent.
• Human hunger is the need for growth & self actualization.
• People who feel superb about themselves generate superb
results.
• Rather then showing employees use their creativity &
resourcefulness to get there, most leaders micromanage & dictate
the path to be followed.
4. Contd . .
• Let them try new things & learn new skills.
• Let them fail from time to time, since failure is nothing
more then learning how to win.
• The ultimate task of visionary leaders is to dignify & honor
the lives of those he leads by allowing them to manifest their
highest potential through the work they do.
• One of the hallmarks of visionary leadership lies in the
translation of positive intentions into tangible results.
• The law of diminishing intent should be avoided which says
that the longer you wait to implement a new idea or strategy,
the less enthusiasm you will have for it.
• Some leaders have their video not in synch with their audio.
Visionary leaders care less about appearing right then doing
right.
5. Contd ..
• Don’t expect others to become anything more
then you are willing to become yourself.
• The first key to greatness is to be in reality what
we appear to be.
• Go deep within your heart & reflect on your
strengths & more importantly on your weakness
as a leader. Get to know yourself. Awareness
precedes change.
6. Ritual 2- Manage by mind lead by
heart
• This is the ritual of human relations & communication
competency.
• When you enrich the relationship, you enhance the leadership.
• Promise keeping, aggressive listening, being consistently
compassionate & most importantly truth telling are secrets to
leadership for human relations.
• Promise keeping-
– Every promise you break, no matter how small, steadily chips away at
your character.
– Every time you avoid doing right, you fuel the habit of doing wrong.
– When people keep their promises, they bread loyality.
7. Contd . .
• Aggressive listening- Visionary leaders capture the hearts of their people by
deeply listening to them.
- Listening to others is a mark of respect.
- Stop listening with the intent to respond, but listen with the intent to
understand.
- Listening can improve heath by reducing blood pressure, moderating
heartbeat & making feel calmer.
- Cultivate the skill of asking open ended questions to your employees & then
really listen to responses.e.g. how to improve company, what can be one to
make job better.
- Summarize & paraphrase what you have heard.
- Develop expressions such as “ just to make sure I understand you properly,
you are saying ….
- Take notes of the important points, this simple gesture will send them the
massage that you are serious about taking them seriously.
8. Contd ..
• Being consistently compassionate-
- Its about letting your humanity shine at work.
- It about showing courtesy, consideration & respect.
- Leaders blend humanity with courage.
- They always take the time to show they care.
- Employees want a leader who values & cherishes them as people.
- Employees want a leader who has the vision to give them a glimpse of a
compelling cause they can strive toward so that their daily work become
meaningful.
- Show small gestures, sending a handwritten thank you card to an employee
who has done a great job, asking about the well being of family, a small
personal phone call when one of you employee becomes a new parent or a
quick visit with a worker who is facing a challenge.
9. Contd . .
• Truth telling-
– You must communicate as much key information as
possible to your employees.
– Having decency to quickly & accurately inform
them of the things that will affect them shows them
that they are important.
– Being open & truthful also means that you take care
of the little issues & skirmishes that come up every
day before
10. Ritual 3- Reward routinely, recognize
relentlessly
• It is a ritual of team unity.
• Team leaders don’t dictate the members, instead
they coach, guides & encourages them.
• Great leaders are great teachers.
• A great leader energizes, challenges, develops &
equips his people.
• The starting for motivating your employee is
simple :hunt for good behavior.
11. Reward routinely, recognize
relentlessly
• A leader always get more of what he rewards.
• The sooner you reward the good behavior, the more it is likely to
be repeated.
• Most employees are micromanaged to the point where they feel
that it will be detrimental to their carrier if they become free
thinkers & innovators.
• Visionary leaders define precisely the kinds of results they hope
to see from their people, & set them free to realize them.
• In underperforming companies, people are so afraid of falling,
that they never take risks & never discover new things & spend
rest of life doing same thing with same people in same way every
day.
12. Reward routinely, recognize
relentlessly
• To add insult to injury, management then chastises them for their lack of
creativity & innovation.
• When an employee tries something & fails, he is simply learning how to
succeed .Failure are lessons in disguise.
• In one landmark study of 1500 employees, personalized instant recognition
was found to be the top way to energize staff.
• Don’t reward people according to the way you would like to be rewarded if
you were in their shoes. Instead find what motivates them.
• The way you treat your employees determines the way they will treat your
customers.
• Praise progress & reward results. Hunt for good, not perfect behavior & get
people excited about their improvemnts.
• Principles of praise:
- Praise must me specific, it must be immediate & it must be done in public &
it must be sincere.
- Personalize your praise by using the person’s first name.
13. Reward routinely, recognize
relentlessly
- Don’t over praise. While praise is important, giving it with
reckless abandon, devalues it, just like printing too much money
cheapens the currency.
“Visionary leaders understand that employees who feel they are
valued members of an exciting team will go the extra mile & give
their best. If you practice the ritual, they will invest their spirit in
their organization. They will begin to see themselves as a part of
a larger whole. That is when you Company will become
unstoppable.”
- The monk who sold his ferrari
14. Ritual 4- Surrender to change
• Change is the most dominant force in the business
world today.
• Technology is changing, society is changing, the
political landscape is changing & even the way people
work is also changing.
• The only way to manage change is to become good at
managing the unexpected.
• In this new economy, where intellectual capital is far
more valuable than material capital, a leader must
master the art of being resilient & reacting to
unforeseen challenges with grace, agility & speed.
15. Surrender to change
• Doing the same things every day will not deliver new results. To
change the results you are getting, you must change the things
you are doing.
• Einestein said “ The significant problems we face cannot be
solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created
them.
• The leader who can adopt to change & use it to his or her
advantage will have a huge competitive edge.
• Every human being is genetically programmed to resist change &
maintain a state of equilibrium. The condition known as
homeostasis, evolved naturally over time as a means by which
our ancestors could survive constantly changing condition.
16. Surrender to change
• To manage change effectively, you as a visionary
leader must provide the ideal culture in which
people can respond positively to change & grow
in the process.
• To stay competitive & to mange change, you
must let everyone know that they need to be
continually learning.
• Create a corporate culture, that inspires them to
embrace new ideas & information.
17. Surrender to change
• By constantly investing in your people, sending them to training,
seminars & exposing them to latest business books, you will
sharpen their skills, develop their talents & help them to see that
they can actually assume a leading role in effecting change within
the Organization.
• Growth of your Company is directly proportional to the growth
of your people.
• Another reason why people resist change is that they simply
don’t trust the leadership. They don’t believe their managers &
supervisors have their best trusts in their mind. People challenge
those who lead egocentrically.
• Helping your employees to become massively competent will
change all that.
18. Surrender to change
• Well intentioned leaders send their teams to seminars,
invest in latest books & business books & tapes, but
they fail to remember that knowledge that remains
unapplied is worthless.
• Success is not determined by what you know. Lasting
success comes only through acting on what you know,
putting it into practice.
• To become a truly world class Company, you & your
people must move from learning to doing & from
wishing to being.
19. Surrender to change
• Leaders don’t lead Companies, what they really lead & inspire is
attitude.
• They show their people the higher reality that waits fro them on
the horizon & then equip them with the enthusiasm & skill they
need to get their.
• In this era of business you are privileged to live in, ideas are the
true commodity of success. How far you go will be determined
by how well you think.
• One of the best change management disciplines you can possibly
follow is to start conditioning your mind & the minds of your
people to view all the upheaval that is going on as one huge
opportunity to learn grow & succeed.
20. Surrender to change
• People should be asked to become reverse
paranoids where you believe the world is
conspiring to do something good to you. “Belief
creates actual fact”.
• “Doing the same things every day cannot deliver
new results. To change the results you are
getting, you need to change the things you are
doing. You must transform the way you are
leading.”
21. Ritual 5- Focus on the worthy
• The Ritual of personal effectiveness.
• This ritual is about the secret of having more time to
concentrate on the necessary things is to have the
courage to neglect those that are unnecessary.
• Visionary leaders know intimately their high yield
activities, those that result in the progress they need to
make in order to get to where they want to go.
Anything else is a waste of their precious time & they
disregard it.
22. Focus on the worthy
• The real secret of personal effectiveness is
concentration of purpose.
• Emerson stated “ Concentration is the secret of
strength in war, in trade; in short in the management of
human affairs”.
• Peter Ducker said “There is noting so useless as doing
efficiently that which should not be done at all”
• 20% of your activities deliver 80% of your production.
So focus on the things that count, those pursuits that
are worthy.
23. Focus on the worthy
• Time model for visionary leadership:
- Visionary leaders have the wisdom to understand that if you
don’t lead your time, it will lead you.
- The first thing you must do is to set aside a period of time for
weekly planning practice.
• There are 5 key steps you must follow to ritualize the worthy &
ensure that every action you take during the coming week brings
you closer to your ultimate goal.
Step 1- Revisit your future vision: Envision what ultimate success
will look like both professionally & personally. Revisiting your
vividly imagined future will keep you inspired & focus on the
things that count.
24. Focus on the worthy
• Step 2: Review the annual victories you have
determined are worthy of achieving this year- By
reconnecting with your annual goals you will remind
yourself of your best practices, those pursuits that are
certain to deliver you & your Company to your
predetermined destination.
• Step 4- What minor victories or little goals must I
accomplish over the next 7 days to feel you have
advanced in the direction of professional & personal
vision. This will allow you to have the self discipline to
sacrifice the good for the best which means visionary
leaders focus on the best & delegate the rest.
25. Focus on the worthy
• Step 4- Integrate the weekly wins you have promised yourself
you will achieve over the 7 days into your daily schedule. Give
priority to your work. The golden key to time leadership s really
doing what you planned to do, when you planned to do it.
- Self discipline is the DNA of visionary leadership. It is the
common trait of the best of the best. Self discipline is what
allows a leader to go beyond knowing to doing. “ The tougher
you are on yourself, the easier life will be on you”.
- Dissatisfaction most people experience in their life could be
traced back to a lack of discipline, whether that meant not having
self control to eat well or not nurturing key relationships or not
having courage to take some risks & follow dreams.
26. Focus on the worthy
• Technique of integrating your weekly wins into your days
strategic time blocking.
• In this the first thing you need to do is designate the different
days of your week in terms of different areas of focus.
• For eg Monday could be your day to concentrate only on issues
& initiatives that involve your employees. You might label
Monday human relation day.
• You might designate Tuesday as your business development day.
• Wednesday could be reserved for marketing or finance related
issues.
• Thursday might be your open day, meaning you will be free to
deal with any crises that might come up or to catch up on general
administrative issues or just be available to anyone who needs
you.
27. Focus on the worthy
• Friday could be as your renewal day, the day that you
set aside to revitalize your leadership & recreate
yourself. You might spend it on strategic thinking &
clarifying your future vision for the Company. You
might dedicate it to preparation & future planning
priorities. You could use it to go to a leadership seminar
or work with a personal development coach. You might
devote it to catching up all those publication you
subscribe to but rarely get a chance to review or to get
deep into a hot new management book that will give
you some new ides.
28. Focus on the worthy
• Step 5- It is about regular reflection- Reflection is the
mother of wisdom. Take a few moments to deeply
consider the week that you have just lived. Did you do
what you planned to do, when you planned to do it. If
not, why not? What would you have done differently if
you had the chance to spend the week again? Did you
truly focus on the worthy? Awareness precedes change
& if you are not aware of the activities you are spending
time on you will never discover that there are ones
more deserving of your energy. By reflecting you will
not only be more effective in next week, you will also
get to know yourself.
29. Focus on the worthy
• “Never forget the importance of each & every
one of your days. As you live your days, so you
live your life. Don not waste even one of them.
The past is history & the future is but a figment.
This day, the present, is really all you have”.
- The monk who sold his ferrari
30. Ritual 6- Leader lead thyself
• The ritual of self leadership
• This ritual visionary leader practice on a daily basis. If they fail to
do so, even for a few days, their vision is diminished & much of
their effectiveness is lost.
• Self leadership is the discipline most neglected by the leaders in
this part of the world. And yet it is the foundation from which all
other success in business & life springs.
• It is about conquering & mastering yourself.
• You cant be the inspirational leader you hope to be if you wake
up every morning feeling miserable & depressed.
• Success on the outside begins within.
31. Leader lead thyself
• We see the world not as it is, but as we are.
• When you settle for mediocrity in the small things, you will also
begin to settle for mediocrity in big things. Anything less than a
conscious commitment to peak personal performance is an
unconscious commitment to weak personal performance.
• Visionary leaders know if there is problem in the morale of the
Company , there is a problem in their leadership.
• They have the power of character to realize that they ultimately
control their futures & that their outer lives are shaped by their
inner ones.
32. Leader lead thyself
• 5 ancient disciplines for self leadership.
• Discipline of personal renewal-
- In this information crazed times that we live in, leaders &
managers are driven to do more with less, to work smarter, faster
& harder.
- What really does the damage is failure of most leaders &
managers to gain some relief from the inevitable stresses they
face.
- Overwork needs to be balanced with downtime.
- The best way to do this is to get regular relief through self
renewal activities through weekly sabbatical.
- In Sabbath we use relax in one day of the week by connecting
with family, enjoying personal hobbies or pursuing personal
activities.
33. Leader lead thyself
- Time spent recharging your batteries is never a waste
but a necessary aspect of any peak performance routine.
- Abe Lincoln said “If I had 8 hours to chop down a
tree, I would spend 6 hours sharpening my axe”.
- In weekly sabbatical you can go for a walk in natural
surroundings & discover the power of solitude. We
must fill our mind , body & spirit with sunlight & fresh
air.
- Reflection & introspection allows you to analyze why
you do, what you do & how to make continual
improvements.
34. Leader lead thyself
• Other ideas of weekly sabbatical are spending an hour in a book
store, watching the sun rise early, taking your kids out on a long
hike.
• Discipline of abundant knowledge-
- Applied knowledge is perhaps the greatest source of power &
every leader has to reserve at least 30 min a day to read.
- Books will keep you connected to the fundamental leadership
principles that all to often get forgotten in the crush of daily
activity.
- 30 min of concentrated reading every single day of the week
will make a profound difference in your life.
- Books allow you to look deeply into the minds of the greatest
men & women who have ever lived.
35. Leader lead thyself
- Stop wishing for fewer problems & start
searching for greater wisdom.
- Type of leader & the kind of person you will
be 5 years from now will result from 2 primary
influences: the books you read & the people you
associate with.
- Learning no longer ends the minute you pass
your last exam. It must continue until you take
your last breath.
36. Leader lead thyself
• Discipline of physicality-
- As you care for your body, so you care for your mind.
- Visionary leaders are high performance leaders & they need
vigor, energy & drive the kind that comes through being in
prime physical condition.
- The person who doesn't make time for exercise must eventually
make time for illness.
- When you exercise, it adds 3 hours to your life.
- The quality of food you ingest affects the quality of your
thoughts.
- Eat more vegetables & fruits. Drink more water. Reduce the
quantities of food that you ingest since most of us eat far more
than we need to.
37. Leader lead thyself
• Discipline of early awakening-
- Enjoy the exceptional tranquility that the days
earliest hours brings & bask in the splendor of
the morning, before the crush of daily vents
clamors for your minds attention.
- AS you start your day, so you live your life.
First 30 min after awakening set the tone for the
entire day.
38. Leader lead thyself
• The discipline of the deathbed mentality-
- Most of us live everyday as if we had all the time in
the world.
- We tell ourselves that there are so many things on our
plates that demand our immediate attention that we
couldn’t possibly time for anything else.
- Stop putting off your dreams & hopes to another day.
- Stop putting off becoming the kind of leader you
know in your heart you can be.
- Now is the time to take some risks in your leadership.
39. Leader lead thyself
- Now is the time to test those new strategies you have
been thinking of testing.
- Now is the time to show your people how you value
them.
- Now is the time to love your family & commit to your
community.
- Live as if every day is your last day. Otherwise you will
die with the best you had to give still within you.
40. Ritual 7- See what all see, think what
none think
• The ritual of creativity & innovation.
• “ Read everyday something none is reading. Think everyday
something no one else is thinking. It is bad for the mind to be
always part of unanimity”.
• One of the most important tasks of visionary leader is to unlock
the natural state of creativity that sleeps within the minds of
everyone.
• Every human being is endowed with creative tendencies.
• Let your people know that they will be allowed to take some
risks.
• Teach them that failure is nothing more than learning how to
win & that though some of the risks that they may lead to
setbacks, may will also lead to innovation.
41. See what all see, think what none
think
• Encourage creativity & make it clear that you are now
open to listening, to understanding & implementing the
best ideas of your people.
• Creativity is nothing more then developing the skill of
discovering new solutions to old problems & finding
smarter ways of doing what you do.
• You must recognize that one of your highest priorities
is to create a workplace that rewards curiosity &
recognizes that new ideas are the seed of success.
Remember, even one good idea can totally transform
your Organization.
42. See what all see, think what none
think
• Employees fear that they will be punished should they
fail. Their rigidity stems from the feeling that they will
be ridiculed if they perform in less than acceptable
fashion.
• If your people are unwilling to embrace new ideas,
concepts & system with enthusiasm & energy. Its
because you haven't taken the time to create a
workplace that is risk free.
• Creativity is always shifted when people feel that they
have something to loose.
43. See what all see, think what none
think
• Give your people the freedom to fail. Rise the level of trust.
Celebrate spontaneity & reward original thinking. And let people
be themselves. Give them permission to let the gifts of their
imaginations shine.
• Encourage your people to set a weekly idea quota for themselves.
• Develop a formalized system to reward the best ideas so that
people learn their originality matters.
• Never forget that when you ensure that your employees laugh
while they work, they will ensure that your clients laugh while
they buy.
• The Company that plays together, stays together.
44. See what all see, think what none
think
• Most of the time people accomplish something
great while fuelled by a compelling & worthy
cause .
• What surprises is that most people wait until
they face some kind of a crises, whether
professional or personal, before they reach deep
within themselves & discover their human gifts.
45. See what all see, think what none
think
• “ Nourish your imagination & flex your mind.
Let your natural creativity out of the box. Dare
to dream bigger dream & envision a higher
future. Though you might see what other leader
in the business world sees, start to think what no
one else thinks. Never forget that deep within
the body of every visionary leader lives the spirit
of a little child, full of excitement & wonder”.
- The monk who sold his Ferrari
46. Ritual 8- Link Leadership to legacy
• The ritual of contribution & significance.
• Your legacy to the generations that follow will be how
much value you have added to your Organization &
how much lives you have improved.
• What makes greatness is beginning something that does
not end with you.
• When you were born, the world rejoiced while you
cried. Your mission must be to live your life in such a
way that when you die, the world cries while you
rejoice.
47. Link Leadership to legacy
• Your legacy will ultimately be a manifestation of
the deepest & the best that you had to give in
life.
• It will be a reflection of the person you now are
& the person you aim to be.
• Leaving a legacy is not about impressing your
friends or reaching the top. Its not about
looking good but doing good. Its more about
fulfilling your duty & actualizing your humanity.