Boil It Down To Essence
In the first volume of Mark Twain’s autobiography he talked about “boiling down to it’s essence.” He was referring to people, events, and characters in stories. I have always been intrigued by essence and blogged about essence most recently in What Is Your Essence? Essence can be defined as “the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character.” When thinking of people and organizations I think of essence as the soul, substance, and core values. This really is as Twain described it “boiling” down to. It’s the honest and critical view of us or our organizations.
Highly effective leaders are context generators. I often discuss that context matters. Our essence generates that context. Our essence is the personification of our values, principles, and character. From an essence standpoint those values, principles and character are always implicit in the leader’s actions. Notice I didn’t say present from “words.” Essence is how a person walks the talk, or doesn’t. As leaders, our essence is reflected in our organizations.
Byron's Babbles 
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