Finding Your Passion: How Knowing Yourself Fuels Authentic Leadership

Many years ago, someone called me a “typical sanguine” and I had no idea about what that meant but it caused me to study the temperaments. I learned about their strengths and weaknesses and learned that no temperament is perfect! I discovered I was a sanguine and that by nature I am a happy person.

I went on a quest that year to learn about me. What do I love? What makes me happy, sad, cry, and laugh? What makes my heart soar? How do I become motivational and not manipulative? How do people see me? Am I genuine? Am I a Lizard or a Chameleon? (Lizards do not change with their environment, but Chameleons change colors to blend in).

I started looking for my true passion. What motivates me the most? I believe that passion is not situational but born out of what fulfills you. I love people and want to help them to thrive so I wanted to put my passion and skills into a mission I could get behind. When you believe in something it’s not so easy to walk away when there is a challenge, instead you want to help fix it! Passion gives you the energy that moves you to action. I found passion and a mission to believe in when I went to work for the Maxwell organization over 25 years ago. It is not about one thing or one person; but about the vision and mission and how I see myself adding value to it. I want to make a difference, and you can do that when you play to your strengths; but you need to know what they are! Over the years there have been different roles and different divisions, but they have all been people focused; thereby allowing my passion for the mission to be realized.

So, do you know what fuels your passion? Sometimes it takes some evaluation; but whatever you do don’t get stuck being a “typical” anything! Be you!

“The most powerful ripple in any room belongs to the person who chooses to serve, not the person who is seen.”

— John C. Maxwell, Founder

What We Learned in Paraguay

In 2014, when we began our partnership with the government of Paraguay, we made an assumption most organizations make: change flows from the top down. Get the president on board, get the ministers trained, and the rest follows by institutional gravity.
But the change that endured — measured five years later in institutional culture surveys — came disproportionately from the mid-level: school principals who quietly changed their staff meetings, department heads who started their Monday briefings with a question instead of an announcement.
47K+
Leaders Trained in Paraguay
5 yr
Duration of Partnership
83%
Report Culture Shift in Their Team

The Stage Is a Microphone, Not a Generator

This is the core misunderstanding of how influence works. Most of us believe leadership influence flows like a broadcast signal: the more prominent the speaker, the more powerful the signal.

But influence doesn’t work like a broadcast. It works like a ripple. Ripples are generated by contact — by the specific, personal, relational moment in which one person’s character touches another’s.

Mark Cole

CEO, Maxwell Leadership Foundation
Mark leads the Foundation’s global strategy and has spent 25 years working alongside John C. Maxwell to bring transformational leadership to nations worldwide.
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The Room You're In Is
the Right Room to Start

You don’t need a bigger audience or a more prominent role. You need the person in front of you, and a decision to lead them well.