In your personal life, you are likely a member of many communities. In leadership, you are responsible for guiding a community. And in business, the entire network of people who make your business a reality is a community. Robust communities with a strong harmony are impactful in their purpose and the lives of the people they touch. So think carefully about the communities you connect with, lead and create as they will determine your success.
Over this season of December 2021 and January 2022, we are taking time out from our usual weekly newsletters and focusing in on the theme of Achievement. In this four-part series, I hope to be able to raise points for reflection that will enable greater achievement in your life, leadership and business.
Active Knowledge Question:
Have you ever reflected on the communities which are a part of or responsible for?
A Community
A Community defines a group of people who are in some way connected. These connections may be strong or lose and will vary over time as members come and go and respond to the forces impacting it.
The looser the community, the less likely it will respond to events that impact its well-being, but it may well be the emergence of a threat to members of that community that coalesce its presence.
Communities consist of people, and those people may define themselves in many different ways – occupation, place of employment, schooling, upbringing, location, age, gender, culture, language, wealth, experiences, preferences, identifying traits, and so the list can continue.
A community that we may define as strong will likely have identifiable leaders and members, a purpose, goals, processes, and a formality to their coming together. These are traits that allow that community to form, connect and move.
However, someone can identify with a community without any ‘formal’ acknowledgement or recognition and that community can influence the way that person acts and responds to various events.
Communities are everywhere and are vital in life, leadership and business as strong communities are catalysts of achievement.
In Life – Connect
As an individual, the communities you connect with will profoundly impact your ability to succeed in life. And bear in mind that ‘connect’ just doesn’t mean those of which you are a formal member but also those which you would ‘associate’ yourself with. By associate, I mean, if someone mentioned that community, you would say in the back of your mind, ‘I’m part of that community’.
To grow and advance as an individual, you want to belong to communities that will uplift your strengths and discourage your weaknesses. You want to mix with people who will challenge you to bring your best to the forefront.
So as an individual, be very deliberate and conscious of the communities to which you belong and associate yourself with. Now, I’m not saying this as an action driven by ego – see what clubs I belong to – but rather one underpinned by introspection – where do I need to grow and strengthen myself.
In Leadership – Seed
As a leader, you are at the centre of a group of people who turn into you for guidance. Make careful note that you are not at the top of a pyramid with everyone else below you; no, you are in the centre.
As a leader, your role becomes one of seeding that community. You have a group of loosely connected people around you, and your role is to make them a community. To make them a community with a clear purpose, motive, vision, and care for each other.
The strength of that community to move forward lies in your ability to seed that purpose, motive and vision. The stronger these elements are the more competitive a community with be; that is, its ability to achieve its vision. And I always see vision as being a quest.
In Business – Create
Stepping out from your role as a leader in possibly just one part of a business, your role as a senior leader is to create a community out of all the people who work within and with a business.
This is likely a diverse and disparate set of people who must be drawn together. Always remember that the competitive strength of a business rests in the combined talent and effort of every person who works within and with the business. And leadership’s ability to muster that potential creativity and energy will determine a business’s competitiveness and success.
A robust and harmonist community will achieve and overcome any challenge in front of it. The prime goal of senior leadership is to create this community, which represents a lot more than simply culture. The workings of the competitive engine that exist within every business will create such a community.
In life, be very deliberate and selective of the communities you associate yourself with. In leadership, actively seed a community for the people you lead. And in business, ensure the strongest element in your business is its community. And through these actions, success will be enduring.
An entirely new level of performance.
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All the best in the success of your business,
Richard Shrapnel
