Leadership vacancies
What is the role of willpower in leadership? When CEOs take active stands against voter restrictions, it may not be a comfortable action but necessary when political leadership vacancies arise. Leadership willpower is required.
Some are questioning why business leaders are getting involved in the voter restrictions being pursued by several states. When challenges arise, leaders choose comfort or engagement. It is an act of stepping backward or moving forward. Unfortunately, some political leaders are choosing to step back rather than enabling a better future. A political leadership vacancy exists.
When leadership vacancies occur, what do you do? Willpower helps.
Willpower is the energy of character. The future brings anxiety within individuals and society. A minority retreat to what is known, so they don’t have to decide what to do in the unknown. Willpower centers our purpose and stirs us to act for betterment.
Betterment is about personal character applied to building an enhanced future for as many as possible.
Willpower taps into a desire to be a better person and craft a healthier community through inevitable changes. Unfortunately, a few believe they can turn back time and remain comfortably in an outdated version of the future. When a few begin to drive the agenda, fixed mindsets prevail, and society falters. Rather than empowering the most, some build barriers – limiting those different than them.
When leadership shirks its responsibility, do you have the willpower to close the gap?
Willpower is often misunderstood – the term first appeared in American newspapers around the mid-19th century. It embodies different elements of self-control, effort, and resolve. To me, willpower appears when we know there is a better future self and society, and we lead through the tensions toward a greater good. Willpower is the energy within the character of our leadership.
It may seem uncomfortable for CEOs to take stances on political issues, yet it is needed when political leadership vacancies exist (as we are witnessing today). When gaps appear, leadership willpower is required to close them.
As team members and citizens, when the future provokes fear, we need to find our sense of character. Inactive and divisive character are both weaknesses. We need to use our willpower to counter uncertainty and anxiety with the confidence of constructing inclusion and achieving a new purpose within a new future.
References
Kugelmann, R. (2013). Willpower. Theory & Psychology, 23(4), 479–498. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354313490244