• You are the one and only true leader of your life
• To lead is to guide and direct
• You have a tendency to guide and direct your life in repetitive ways
• When you create a unique purpose and aim you rebalance your leader behaviors to thrive

Understanding yourself and the world around you is a basic human need. It helps you survive, adapt, grow, learn, and thrive. The four leader behaviors that guide and direct your life are: visualize, organize, harmonize, and energize . . . .

Visualizing and organizing are direction-oriented behaviors and harmonizing and energizing are guidance-oriented behaviors.

• Visualize is abstract in nature and grow thoughts, inspiration, imagination, ideas, and vision for purpose and aim
• Organize is concrete in nature and grows methodology, order and structure to fulfill goals
• Harmonize is symbolic in nature and grows attunement, coordination, unity, and peace with your inner self and others
• Energize is literal in nature and grows play, vitality, strength and joy for the adventure of life

The thriving tendencies of each behavior also have their opposing survival tendencies. A full discussion of the thriving and survival tendencies along with the challenges of each, are outlined in Chapter 3 of U.N.I.Q.U.E.: Growing the Leader Within.

For this discussion, I would like to provide some insight on behavior and personality assessments from my own experience, since part of Chapter 3 contains the Leader Balance Wheel exercise.

In my earlier years of conducting leadership training for youth, I used various well known models of personality assessment and profiles. Many of the assessments are based upon behavioral traits. I began to observe an unintended effect of these tools on our students.

Understanding the nature of your personality and behavior is a useful tool, but not when that understanding turns into a label you place on yourself or others. I call these labels “spirit blockers” when they create a fixed way of being that limits your capacity for growth and expansion. While you may have strong tendencies towards, let’s say organize, you are not an organizer per se. You are a person who has developed strong organize behavior. I find it counterproductive to use behavior to define your core being.

Scientists previously thought the brain was hardwired by genetics and early life experiences. Recently, scientist studying the brain discovered “plasticity” an amazing ability to rewire our brain in order to learn new things and create new experiences. In other words, our wiring is not fixed.

After learning about plasticity, I altered my own Leader Balance Inventory. The language I use to identity the four leader behaviors are verbs, not nouns.

So the next time you use a behavior to describe yourself, try speaking in terms of a verb. That connects you to your action without pigeon-holing yourself, or others, as a fixed human being.

My favorite quote that illustrates this point is by Richard Bach, “You are never given a wish or a dream without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however." The power is inside you, it is up to you to remove your spirit blockers, balance your behavior, and step into your dreams as a powerful leader.

We all possess the four leader behaviors. We can learn to cultivate, fertilize, grow, and balance all four behaviors to expand our capacity to flourish.

In Part 5 of the Leadership Conundrum series, I will explore the six leader-friendly gardening practices as they relate to other behaviors and the impact they have on those around us.