Over the last several weeks I have devoured as many television interviews, newspaper articles, and any other bits of information I could find on President-Elect Obama. I've felt a bit like detective, trying to break through the left-over campaign spin and hype in search of some underlying truth about our next leader. What I've found is that a particular word keeps popping up over and over. Interview after interview, those closest to Obama describe him as "calm." It's not the description I would have expected after such a long and heated campaign season. Yet, it kept appearing. In a 60 Minutes segment, David Axelrod (chief strategist for the campaign) and David Plouffe (campaign manager) both described him as calm.
Last week the word surfaced again. This time it was when a colleague was sharing her Vision Statement from The Leadership Challenge Workshop. "I want to inspire you through my tenacity. I want to inspire you through my sense of calm," she told us. We all nodded and as our conversation turned toward the erratic stock market.
When we think about Inspire a Shared Vision do we automatically jump to the image of those stereotypical out-spoken, driven, charismatic leadership traits. Do we quite often overlook the power of calm? In these difficult times of an economic downturn, how can leaders find their calm and bring that strength, that focus to their constituents?
Posted by Lisa Shannon