Today I was listening to a podcast and heard a quote* that got me thinking about intention, attention and direction. Borrowing heavily, I came up with the following:
Intention plus attention determines your direction.
When I work with a leader and their personal brand, we often talk about what is at the heart of the work they do. What are their intentions behind the way they behave and communicate. Often when we get past the “what” they do to examine the “how” and “why” they do it, we uncover some important, often sacred, values that drive them. Their intention is always to cause something positive to happen, even when they feel they have to “tell it like it is” or hurt feelings along the way. The truth, after all, is the truth.
Paying Attention to How Our Intentions Affect Others
The truth of the matter is that good intentions are not enough. Intending to do the right thing is a start, but it is not enough to engage others around you and it is not enough to actually doing the right thing. Many of us feel we want the right things to happen but are mystified when others do not recognize this good intention. “Don’t they see that I’m doing this for the sake of the team? Or the company? Or, perhaps, others cannot recognize the good intention because, in their minds, the behavior does not support it.
How Do We Become Recognized For Our Good Intentions?
When you become clear on what your intentions are – what you want to cause to happen – you have taken an important first step. However in addition to this first step, you should consider how your actions may support or contradict that intention. By paying attention to your Personal Leadership Brand helps you recognize:
1. Your Positive Intentions,
Unfortunately, many of us are so caught up in “what” we do, that we don’t recognize why we do what we do. We focus on the means instead of the ends. And if we don’t recognize it, how do we expect other to recognize it. Through Personal Leadership Branding, we employ strategies to not only recognize what is at the heart of what we do, but to use that recognition to guide how we interact with others.
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2. How Your behavior is Perceived By Others, and
Your Personal Leadership Brand does not exist in a vacuum. It includes self-perception and includes how others perceive what we do. Paying attention to your Personal Leadership Brand helps you to notice how others respond to you. You learn to recognize where you can help others see more clearly into your positive intentions and how they align to support them. You provide this clarity through strategies specific to you.
3. Behaviors That Need to be Changed to Align with Your Positive Intentions
Some behavioral change strategies involve altering the way you do something – an easier task when you are clear about what is at the heart of your intention and not focusing on the method you have used. Other change strategies involve communicating, such as articulating your intentions as you go.
(* Original Quote: Direction, not intention determines your destination. ~ Andy Stanley)
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