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... the physical survival of the human race depends on a radical change of the human heart. This is a call to service that will take great courage - to leave what we have and move out, not without fear, but without succumbing to that fear. It is a call to redefine what is possible, to see a vision of a new world and to be willing to undertake, step-by-step, what is necessary in concrete terms to achieve that vision.

Fromm

Leaders are people who, by their example, inspire others to make visions a reality. The question is how do they do this and how could you learn to do the same? As far as I can remember I have heard the debate as to whether true leaders are born or made. In my work with leaders in all walks of life I have come to the conclusion that there are some qualities that are inherent but there are very definitely those that are latent in people who aspire to lead others. These latent qualities include such talents as commitment, connection and courage. These qualities and other similar ones need only to be released in a way in which they can be used with consistency. It is likely that many in positions of leadership will have already have held these skills and emotions. The challenge is to hold on to them over time and to access them at will. It is as if these qualities - the ones that truly make the difference are sometimes laying dormant ready to blossom given the right climate. Even those who have had these qualities with consistency sometimes mislay them or fail to recognise that they have them in some contexts in their life without the means to access them in others.

A delegate on one of our leadership courses described his experience of standing in church with the sun beaming down on him through the windows, shafts of light illuminating the faces of the choir, singing his heart out as if it would burst. He realised that this was the state of leadership that he truly wanted for his business.

You can pick up any management textbook and be sure to find at least one chapter on the characteristics of business missions and visions. But do these carefully crafted words truly make a difference? I spend many hours each week coaching business leaders - those who do inspire others as well as those who wish to rediscover this faded talent within themselves. In these coaching sessions I believe I have learnt what truly is the difference that makes the difference. The results are not always what I would have expected to discover.

An inspiring leader is someone who pays attention not first to their goals but first to their physical, mental and emotional state. To inspire others they need first of all to be an inspiration to themselves. To have relationships with others that inspire and invite others to step out with courage requires that they have this effect on themselves. By learning what it takes to be at one with themselves they create a state in which visions unfold. No amount of extra hours or reports produced will provide the answer. 'Just one more challenge', 'just one more milestone' is just one more hurdle in the path of discovering what might really be waiting for you to realise.

What does it take to achieve this state in which it is possible to hear what is truly important to you and to those you lead? It takes the willingness and the ability to listen to oneself. It takes the strength to hear what you prefer to delete and open yourself to feedback from within as well as from those around you. It also takes the willingness and the skill to own the connections that you inevitably have with all those with whom you share your life and with whom you work. And thirdly it takes rapport with the world around you. Someone who accepts that what they experience in the world around them is indeed a part of themselves is someone who is at one with the world - a true leader.

How is it possible to achieve this state of inspiration?

Think of the people with whom you have come into contact today. Who has been significant to you either because of the nature of their presence or because of their absence? What is it about them that affects you either for the better or for worse? What emotions do their actions or inaction's trigger in you? And what is it about these actions that you either admire or reject? As my grandmother used to say 'It takes one to know one'. How is what you recognise in these key people true of you too? How do you have the actual or the potential to have this same quality within yourself? 'There but for the grace of God go I.' How does it feel to know that what you recognise in these others is feedback to how you are or how you can be? How does it feel to accept all these parts of you?

What have you paid attention to in what is happening in the world at large today? What have you selected to be your personal headlines for the day? What has affected your emotions in some way? How are these events an expression of the person you are and have the potential to be - good or bad? How does that feel to recognise this - that you and the world are completely interconnected? You are indeed one with others and with the bigger systems of which you are a part. What does it mean to you to integrate in this way all that you initially recognise as being outside of yourself?

These questions include some of the keys to the doors that open to the true potential of your influence. In the world of a true leader there is no blame there is only ownership and connection to all that they experience. A leader is someone who is at one with themselves and all that they recognise in the world around them.