Hans Finzel - The Power of Passion in Leadership: Lead From Your Heart, Not Just Your Head

THE POWER OF PASSION IN LEADERSHIP

Lead From Your Heart, Not Just Your Head

Dr. Hans Finzel

THE POWER OF PASSION IN LEADERSHIP

Lead From Your Heart, Not Just Your Head

Dr. Hans Finzel

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, copied in any form or by any means, with any type of media without permission in writing from the author.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version , NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc . Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com . Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the New Living Translation of the Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust.

2015 by Hans Finzel

Top Ten Enterprises Publishing

9457 S University #712

Highlands Ranch, CO 80126

ISBN 978-0-692-33348-8

I hope you enjoy this little book about a big topic: passion in leadership. The longer I live the more I find that matters of the heart reign supreme in the lives of all leaders.

Above all else, guard your heart,

For everything you do flows from it.

Proverbs 4:23

I have made this eBook interactive, with lots of links to podcasts, books and other resources that can help you in your journey.

I would love to hear from you. I can always be reached through my website at www.hansfinzel.com on the contact tab. I promise that I read every email personally and respond, as I am able.

Website: hansfinzel.com

Twitter: @hansfinzel

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YouTube channel: Youtube.com/hansfinzel

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do the work you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. - Steve Jobs (Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs , Simon and Schuster, 2011)

My heart seemed to be battling my head for a long time. In my heart I knew something was wrong, but my head kept telling me to ignore it. I am making a great impact--so what if I am not happy? It came to a head for me one day in my garage at home. I was going on a walk and put on my favorite Life is Good, baseball cap. I noticed that they had sewn their slogan inside the cap, so when you put it on your head you see their message. Do what you like, like what you do. I said to myself, I am doing neither.

It was time for a change. I used to find fulfillment in my career, but not anymore. I needed to start paying attention to my heart. Isnt it funny how some of the oddest things can speak to us and change our whole direction in life? I guess the important thing is to listen and respond. I am a follower of Christ and find that He talks to me in all sorts of ways. Of course God speaks to me a lot through my Bible. Sometimes He speaks to me at church or through a deep conversation with someone. God uses my wife to speak to me from time to time, and I really listen to that! I love the outdoors and I often sense Gods whisper as I am pursuing my love of mountain biking or am in the hot tub on our deck. But this time it seemed He used my cap. My heart was not in what I was doing for my day jobI was just going through the motions with my head. I had to figure out how to flip my heart and my head. And there were just two options. More on that later, along with the rest of my story.

Leading from the heart is working and leading from your passion zone. Why does leading from the heart really matter? It can be natural to think, If I am smart enough, gifted enough and work hard enough, of course people will respond to my leadership. I know what I am talking about, because occasionally in my career I put my head before my heart. The more gifted you are, and the smarter you are, the more that this can be a temptation and the easy default. The problem is, that kind of leadership does not inspire people and build deep loyalty. I have noticed just the opposite. People follow people who they know, trust and believe. That trust is built between leader and follower within their hearts. People follow leaders who are operating in their passion zone. There is some sort of a magnetic loyalty that grows in followers who respond to leaders who lead with passion out front. I unpack this zone a lot more in later chapters.

Don't get me wrong. Our heads are important. A lot of great leaders that we love to follow are very smart. I can think of a lot of famous people throughout history that changed the world through their powerful intellects and gifting. But if you dissect their leadership, you always find the passion factor very high and usually the thing that drew people to follow them. Think of the likes of Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher, John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gandhi and Princess Diana. These were all very smart people who led with their hearts out front.

Nothing trumps passion. If you light yourself on fire, people will come to watch you burn. People follow people of passion. Conversely, when the fire goes out of our hearts, nothing will make people wander away faster and find someone else to follow. Some of us end up pretenders walking like zombies among the walking dead. Sound a little dramatic? It would be if I had not met some of you. I will explain that in a moment.

I love the razor sharp focus of this verse from the Old Testament book of Proverbs. It sums up the topic of this book and why everything in the leaders life flows from the heart (Proverbs 4:23 NIV):

Above all else, guard your heart,
For everything you do flows from it.

If you dont think that passion is a big deal, read that verse again. It is the deal. Our passion lives in our heart of hearts. If we lose our heart we lose our leadership credibility. Proverbs declares that everything we do and touch flows from the heart as its ultimate source. The actions of our hands and the thoughts that flow out of our mouths all emerge from our heart. Everything that we do, seems to flow from our heart of hearts.

Yes, you can lead without a heart fully alive. That is some of my own story. I have had the privilege of leading some great ventures for over three decades. In those years I have been in both places. I have led thousands with great vision and passion flowing from a heart fully alive and in sync. And I have at times lost all passion and been part of the walking dead as I went through the motions of leadership. We can become great pretenders.

The other night Donna and I were at a dinner with some new friends in Texas. Doug sat across from me. He was telling me about his former career in the Air Force and how he is now in financial services. He had a lot of passion regarding what he does in his day job. I stopped him and asked, It sounds like you really love your job? He flashed a big grin and answered, Yes, Hans, I love what I get to do. I told him that he is fortunate and that it seems to be rare.

Unlike Doug, more people are stuck in jobs they don't love. Of all the secrets to great leadership, nothing seems more important than to guard the passion of our hearts . If you are leading out of the sweet spot of your passion, it covers a multitude of other leadership sins. If youve lost it, everyone around you notices. I can help you figure out if you are leading from your heart, and how to get back there if you have strayed.