By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy
Here’s an idea to help you strengthen the power of your beliefs. Reading time: 3:34

Leaders are willing to wear their BVDs in public for all to see. Your BVDs are who you are underneath it all. B for Beliefs. V for Values. And D for Disciplines.

As Max De Pree writes in his book: Leadership is an Art: “Managers who have no beliefs but only understand methodology and quantification are modern day eunuchs.” Ouch!

The dictionary says that a eunuch is a man who has had his sexual organs removed. Secondary definitions underscore the political futility of a eunuch as one who lacks virility or power.

Even though De Pree’s observation some 25 years ago is obviously sexist and hardly politically correct, the concept is still valid. Leaders without beliefs call into question their manhood, their humanity.

If they can’t stand up in public for something—in their BVDs—then no one can stand with them. Without people standing with you or following you, you are no leader.

So the most effective leaders grow their beliefs, their values and their disciplines (i.e. a regimen that develops or improves a skill) in their gardens of curiosity. There they learn what interests them, what sparks their passion, what drives their thinking, what heightens their vision, what invigorates their involvement and what ultimately validates their existence.

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