Seven Disciplines of A Leader

5Discipline 1: Initiative and InfluenceSeize the Reins and Set an Example for Others

When you have vision and purpose, you can imagine a new course of action, and pursue it. Your conscience monitors all that you imagine, envision, and engineer. Your model behavior will activate the conscience of others and allow the desired results to happen. When you exercise imagination, you rely less on memory. Memory ties you to your limits and past. Imagination points you to your potential and future.

From an early age, we're taught to break apart problems to make complex tasks and subjects easier to deal with. But this creates a bigger problem: we lose the ability to see the consequences of our actions, and we lose a sense of connection to a larger whole. Systems thinking helps us see patterns and learn to reinforce or change them effectively to gain and sustain a competitive advantage. Systems thinking is a framework for seeing patterns and interrelationships. It's especially important to see the world as a whole as it grows more and more complex. Complexity can overwhelm and undermine: it's the system. I have no control. Systems thinking makes these realities more manageable; it's the antidote for feelings of helplessness. By seeing the patterns that lie behind events and details, we can actually simplify life and take initiative to solve problems.

The discipline of personal mastery includes three important practices and principles: personal vision, creative tension, and commitment to ...