What Are You Devoted To?

I watched most of speeches from the Democratic National Convention this week. I am loving the fresh energy of Kamala Harris and find myself more enamoured with Tim Walz each day. As Chip Conley pointed out in a recent blog….

'Tim Walz stands out in a sea of elitist strivers; someone who takes the work seriously, but not himself seriously'.  

Outside of all the speeches, it was all but a formality that Kamala Harris would be confirmed as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. A ceremony to publicly declare the party consider her the right person to lead.

As humans, we like to mark life with ceremonies which tell us we have stopped being one thing and started being another. We have graduation ceremonies when we move from student to graduate, wedding ceremonies when we move from single to married, promotions and title changes when we move to a new level in a work environment and so on. We are accustomed to ritual and ceremony to help us understand when it is time to move to the next level life expects of us.

Conventions and inaugurations confirm formal leadership positions. But when it comes to leadership in life, that formality rarely happens. It is easy to miss our cue that the moment has arrived to step up into our innate leadership and authority. The decision to lead doesn’t come with a convention, a ceremony, a public declaration. Real leadership starts with a quiet internal shift. It creeps up on you. I know because it crept up on me. I had my head down, working hard, and busy with life. Yet, internally, I began to feel a nagging sense that I should be using my life in a better way. A realisation I was the adult in the room. And trust me, at first, I wasn’t crazy about that idea either. Surely someone else was going to do something about the state of the world?

We can all be guilty of talking about how bad leadership is in our company, our community or our country. I regularly see people promoted to leadership positions who still talk about ‘the leadership’ as if they are not now part of it. It is easy to tell ourselves the story that bad leadership is the flaw of someone else. But that’s a cop out. Bad leadership only becomes better because we dilute it or raise the bar with our better leadership.

It might be hard to see it in all the chaos but there is a leadership shift beginning to take place across the globe. A changing of the guard. Not just in politics but in people. Leadership ability which has been lying dormant in people is coming to life. Ignited by all the division, the destruction, the unforgivable loss of life, the inequality; something new is emerging. I have watched people in the last year who never considered themselves to be leaders, activists or political in any way suddenly take a stand over the injustices we are witnessing around the world. People who understand leadership is not a position you are given but the position you decide to take on the things that matter.  People who know we demonstrate our leadership in how we live, how we work, how we vote, how we use our power. What we are willing to devote ourselves to.

I love the word devotion. There is both softness and power in the word. It’s so heart-centred, and ceremonial in its meaning. When I say it, I can feel a sense of devotion in my body. To be devoted is not a leadership style which seeks to dominate but a type of leadership born out of love for someone, something or a belief in the way things could be. To be devoted is to care enough about what matters that you are willing to do something about it. To devote yourself is the formality of taking a vow, of dedicating yourself to the people, the work, the ideas and change you care deeply about.

I, for one, am full of hope. In this new world we are ushering in, we will care less about position and power when it comes to leadership. We will care about clarity. Clarity around what brings a sense of purpose to your life, about who you want to be, the impact you wish to have, and the action you will take because of that clarity will be how we measure leadership. I am here for that. All in. Devoted to a better, more equal, fairer world.  

So, if you also want to live and lead with greater purpose, go all in. Devote yourself to something.