In summary, the Seven Leadership Capacities are:
1. Shift Your Perception--To see the new solutions required of today you must see the constraints of your current mind-set, and learn to shift your perception at will to swing a wider arc.
2. Point the Direction--Time is of the essence. There's a place we need to get to. If you keep changing directions you will waste time, energy and resources. That is a waste of your personal power, and you have all the power you need and not an ounce to waste.
3. Have a Plan--To get from here to there you need a plan. More importantly, you need the benefit of planning. Only in having mastered the art and science of planning can you effectively improvise. And you must master the art and science of improvisation if you are going to surf the waves of change.
4. Be Inclusive--The challenges we face will require power to face and resolve. The most powerful force in the universe is inclusiveness. You cannot access inclusiveness without becoming inclusive. The new leaders will embody this.
5. Hold the Focus--All the above is for naught unless you can hold the focus. If you cannot hold the focus, you will continually fall back asleep into the old form of leadership. You must be able to stay awake within the new form. Do so by strengthening your capacity to hold the focus.
6. Evolve--This capacity is more or less an extension of all those that precede it. And yet it stands alone, worthy of its own merit. The faster you can evolve, the better you can both handle and effect change. As you become a vortex of change, change is much less daunting. You can dance with it.
7. Reset--You will need to create small gaps of time in which you can reset yourself. Renewing your self is important, but having the capacity to reset your self is bigger and broader. To reset your self is actually to die a small death. So something new can be born. Warriors can do this in the blink of an eye. It is one of their greatest allies. You and I need to make it ours as well.
The capacites are interrelated, interconnected and are therefore interdependent. To fully activate these seven capacities, you must transmute your shortcomings and your shadow, which will transform who you are, and will result in your transfiguration into a leader you do not recognize. And it will cost you everything you think is important. In exchange, you will have at your command all that actually is.
(c)2008 Otis Woodard
