Leadership Skill: What Is Your LQ: Leadership Quotient?

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Plato

Whether leading yourself toward a higher path, leading a family, community, congregation, or an entire organization, this is a good time to reexamine your leadership effectiveness. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, how would you rate yourself as a leader? Leadership effectiveness, what I like to call LQ or Leadership Quotient, is primarily determined by a combination of Physical Intelligence, Mental Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, and Spiritual Intelligence. These four areas (Body, Mind, Heart, and Spirit) are essential toward the making of a whole leader. Let’s explore the key leadership factors that bring wholeness:

1. Inspire with Integrity (Spirit or Conscience)

2. Initiative and Innovation (Body and Mind)

3. Impactful Influence (Heart)

An easy way to remember this is LQ = 6I (Inspiration, Integrity, Initiative, Innovation, Impact, and Influence). This exercise will only take about fifteen minutes in which you answer some questions and honestly rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 for each factor.

1. Inspire with Integrity (Spirit or Conscience)

Are you energized with a larger than life vision or transcendent goal that serves the greater good and inspires others, or is your focus limited to only your own immediate needs? Are you aware of your highest purpose?

Great leaders subordinate their ego to their spirit or conscience by putting the needs of others before their own and finding a cause or purpose that’s greater than themselves. This gives a leader the moral authority to lead others.

On a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself for * Inspiration _________

(*In my book, The Hero Soul, http://www.herosoul.com, pg. 117, I provide deeper reflections on ‘inspiration’).

Do your actions reflect your vision, beliefs, and values? Do you do as you say and honor your word? Andrew Carnegie once said, “As I grow older, I pay less attention to what [people] say. I just watch what they do.”

On a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself for Integrity ___________

2. Initiative and Innovation (Body and Mind)

Once you know what your highest purpose and core genius is, how well do you execute on your vision and key priorities? Are you focused on doing the right things, what’s important, or are you spending too much time on urgent but not important activities and doing things right?

Leadership is about doing, taking initiative, and getting things done. Do you usually wait for things to happen and wait for others to initiate, or do you make things happen and initiate things on your own?

Additionally, the body is the temple of the spirit. Are you taking care of your body by exercising regularly and eating healthy so you have enough energy to take lots of action, or are you often succumbing to whims of the day?

On a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself for Initiative ___________

Are you continually growing and innovating as a leader in the never ending pursuit of excellence, or are you settling for mediocrity by being comfortable with the status quo?

Are you using your creative problem-solving skills and imagination to become a change-agent by experimenting with new ideas, solutions, and technology, or are you continually in fire-fighting mode by being frequently blindsided with change?

On a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself for Innovation ___________

3. Impactful Influence (Heart)

Are you reaching out to people and making an emotional impact in their lives? Are you getting to intimately know people in your circle of influence and taking the time to find out their fears, desires, challenges, and goals? Are you touching people’s lives by serving? The old adage, “people don’t care about what you know, until they know you care,” applies here.

The hero’s journey is about following your bliss and doing what you love doing in service to others. Interestingly, through the heart, by making an emotional impact in people’s lives and serving, the spiritual dimension is tapped. Rabrindranath Tagore once said, "I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy." In other words, service is spirit.

On a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself for Impact ___________

Finally, influence is a measure of your character that comes with time and experience. How wide and impactful is your influence? Are people seeking you out for your leadership, mentorship, and guidance? What is the quality of people you have attracted in your work and life?

We are in many ways the sum total reflection of the people in our circle of influence. Look around you. What type of people have you attracted in your sphere of influence? The majority of people you attract in your life, whether negative or positive, bright or ignorant, are mostly a reflection of your own character. If you’re not happy with the quality of people in your circle of influence, it’s time to work on yourself.

On a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself for Influence ___________

After you’ve rated yourself for all six factors (Inspiration, Integrity, Initiative, Innovation, Impact, and Influence), add all the scores and divide by six. This indicator will give you a rough idea of your total LQ and where you need to make improvements. Make it a goal in this year to raise the bar in every category.

We have now come full circle in the leadership cycle starting with spirit (call it whatever you want) and ending with spirit; for everything rises and falls on leadership, everything comes from the spirit and returns to the spirit like the dust in the wind. Our highest purpose comes from spirit and returns to it in the form of service.

By subordinating our vision to the spirit, our conscience, our highest purpose is revealed. If you are not sure about your purpose, ask your higher self for guidance. A great way to do this is to ask a question before you go to sleep fully expecting an answer to be revealed in a dream or when you wake up. It might take several tries, but that’s okay, keep at it -- and the answer will be revealed to you. A question you could ask might be, “What is my highest purpose?” or “How can I use my core genius to serve the greatest good?”

Personally, I’ve found prayer to be the most effective means and have recently adopted a prayer that Oprah Winfrey has used for several years, “Use me God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.”

May your own hero’s journey meet with the crest of the rising sun.