The Four Powers of Leadership: Presence, Intention, Wisdom, Compassion by David Kyle
Think about someone you consider a leader. This person could be a politician, a military person, a religious figure, a president of a company, or a host of other individuals who seem to guide and influence people. What about that person makes them a leader? Is it something in their background or education? Is it personality or luck or good looks? If you were to define the qualities that make that person a leader, what would they be? Some people describe leadership as a commanding authority, others as the capacity for powerful communication. Some say it is the ability to create a broad vision, and still others view it as the ability to inspire action and create followers. In your view, what qualities does it take for a person to be a leader? What would it take for you to be a leader?

These questions and how we grow into and practice leadership on a daily basis provide the context for this book. It is about how we uncover the positive and negative aspects of leadership, and about how all of us, if we are willing to work with ourselves, can unleash our leadership potential. This book is motivated by the worldwide leadership crisis. To meet our challenges and opportunities to heal and transform the destructive conditions of the world we live in, we must explore the necessity of the right kind of leadership.

Many books on leadership over the past several years have attempted to research the characteristics and behavior that make up the "what's" and "how's" of leadership. These books focus leadership on the ability to communicate clearly, how to be strategic rather than tactical, how to motivate and establish a clear vision for others, and how successful leaders are decisive problem-solvers who are committed to a strong set of personal values. My interest in leadership is somewhat different. I approach the question of leadership from a more psychological and personal direction.

My experience working with executives in private and nonprofit organizations, large and small companies, government agencies and religious organizations has demonstrated to me that a big difference exists between leading and managing. Managing is a learned set of skills. Leading means fundamentally integrating personal power with one's positional power. This does not mean that leaders are born with no skills to learn. Leaders aren't born and there are a lot of leadership skills that need to be practiced every day. Developing leadership requires understanding and integrating into one's life, day after day, the fundamental "powers" that leaders must learn to access, cultivate, and balance in their personal and professional lives. Being a leader is not about acting out a role but rather about living out the challenge of developing the power of one's individual capacities and potentials.

The first two legs of the book are:

1.Understanding the gap between personal and positional power.

2.Learning the nature of the four powers of leadership as a map for developing leadership characteristics that can bring positional and personal power together.

3.The book rests on the third support: the models and tools I've developed over the years working with executives. I will present these models to the reader to help them understand some critical integrating principles of leadership. These models demonstrate that leadership lies in perceiving patterns rather than just reacting to events.

Practiced leadership is in knowing how to shift beliefs and perceptions by recognizing one's choices in any situation. Shadow powers focus on the axis of emotions and behaviors to get short-term results but produce little real change in the leaders themselves or others. The balancing act of leadership is in aligning an organization's hierarchical power with a sense of mutual partnership by keeping a constant eye on the purpose of any event, activity, or strategy. A final topic in this section is showing the reader how to discover one's natural process for integrating and cultivating the four powers in one's inner life, personal relationships, and professional work.

Woven throughout the book are countless stories and examples of clients and public leaders who exemplify the positive and negative characteristics of leadership, and how they demonstrate the principles, models, and tools that I present to the reader. The book concludes with a Four Powers Self Assessment that gives the reader insight into their own leadership powers.

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