Institute For The Future

Leaders: Are you radiating positive energy?

If leaders are going to thrive in a future of extreme disruption, they must not only manage their own energy, they must encourage, model, and reward positive energy in others. The tools for energy management are so much better now than they ever were—and they will get even better over the next decade. Leaders have no excuse now. Fitness will be a price of entry for top leadership roles. Extreme fitness—physical, mental, and even spiritual (though not necessarily religious)—will be required for most leadership roles.

 

Well-being Strategies

 

Over the next decade, a wide range of strategies for leadership well-being will emerge. Here are four examples that I find particularly intriguing— each with its own emphasis:

• "The Corporate Athlete" (by performance psychologist Dr. Jim Loehr and exercise physiologist Jack Groppel) is focused on balancing your physical needs with what you’re trying to achieve in business. It includes strong guidance about exercise, nutrition, and mental balance.
• "Healthiest You" (by Stanford-trained internal medicine physician Kelly Traver) is a brain-based guide to help people understand their own personal top motivators. Most of us are affected by all of them to some degree, but Traver argues that the majority of people are strongly influenced by just a few. Keeping in mind what motivates you individually can guide the kind of healthy living program that will make the most sense for you.
• "The Blue Zone Project" focuses on the ideal cycle of life: live long, live healthy, but die quickly. National Geographic funded this project to find the places on earth where people live the longest, happiest lives. The key variables all linked back to interpersonal well-being.
• "BlueWave Medicine" (by Dr. Brad Jacobs) is an integrative approach that seeks to combine the best of conventional medicine with alternative and lifestyle medicine practices. The practice includes concierge primary care, acupuncture, bodywork, massage, psychotherapy, yoga, personal training, and health coaching.

 

There is no magic in any approach. The important thing for leaders is to develop their own programs based on what motivates them, and then stick to it. I believe that any of the strategies outlined above will help leaders to create and sustain positive energy in their leadership. Every leader will need to find or create a good approach that works for them. If you’re going to be a successful leader in the disruptive world of the future, you will need to be extremely fit and project positive energy in your leadership.

 

THOSE WHO ARE FLUENT IN THE NEW LITERACY OF creating and sustaining positive energy will say:

• When I walk into a room, I radiate positive energy.
• I have a disciplined approach to my own physical, mental, and spiritual (not necessarily religious) fitness in the face of my daily work pressures, my private life, and the external world.
• I balance my personal energy throughout my working day (I  moderate my peaks and droops), and I am resilient under pressure.
• I create space for the people I lead to balance their own physical, mental, and spiritual energy.

 

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This post is an excerpt from Bob Johansen's new book The New Leadership Literacies: Thriving in a Future of Extreme Disruption and Distributed Everything.

Learn more about the book here or purchase your copy on Amazon.