When we’re inspired we energize people in pursuit of a better future, we foster enthusiasm and commitment to progress – even in the face of challenges – and we encourage creativity and the confidence to explore new ideas that elevate growth and improvement.

Inspiration helps us to lead, exceptionally.

Where do you find inspiration? What or who inspires you?

I find mentors a great source of inspiration. Some of these I’ve never met, some I’ve never told, but today I’d love to share one of them with you because, well, if this person inspires me then maybe they will inspire you too.

There’s Something About Mary

You may have heard of the late Peter Drucker, who pioneered many of our current ideas about leadership and management. Peter was considered one of the great business gurus of all time, but most people don’t know that he had a guru himself, one whom I’d be surprised if you’d heard of, but who has been a great mentor and inspiration to me – Mary Parker Follett.

Mary was born near Boston in 1868, and as early as high school became fascinated by the way that knowledge and power were distributed in society.  Living in a same-gender relationship (at that time!), she made her first career as a social worker; helped pioneer the concept of community centres, which spread to over 240 cities in her lifetime. Mary also made a name for herself as author, lecturer and management consultant, providing personal advice to countless people, including President Theodore Roosevelt.

Mary believed that leadership was ‘not defined by the exercise of power, but by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led.’ ‘The most essential work of the leader is to create more leaders,’ she wrote, asserting that ‘the aim of every form of organisation should be not to share power but to increase power, to seek the methods by which power can be increased in all.’

It’s Mary’s ideas around power that inspired my work on partnering.

Over sixty years after Peter Drucker, in one of the most popular business books of our time, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, another leadership guru – Stephen R. Covey – devoted nearly half of its length to furthering a concept pioneered by Mary: interdependence.

Interdependence asks us to let go of a win-lose mindset and strive instead for mutual connection and co-creation; it means working independently, together. And when you think about it, most of the most significant relationships in our lives are interdependent—they’re not based on winning and losing. And it’s not only within our power to approach our professional relationships in the same way, but also absolutely essential that we do so.

Data bears this out: a Google study that analysed 180 businesses to find out what makes an effective team concluded that the most important factor was interdependence. That this idea is so relevant to our present moment, 100 years since Mary first formulated it, just goes to show how ahead of her time this revolutionary thinker truly was.

I wonder how differently the field of management and leadership consulting could have been if a more rigid, hierarchical model had not eclipsed her work after her death from cancer in 1933?

Mary is a legend; an inspiration.

Her thought leadership inspires me in my work and my leadering, her choice to live outside of the socially constructed norms of her day inspires me to live my life, my way and the deep truth of her work inspires me to find and connect to mine.

Being inspired is an important part of leading, exceptionally – inspiration to pursue a better future, or even believe that it is possible.

Who inspires you?
Who elevates your thinking and perspective?
Expands your view of the world and yourself?

Is there a mentor in your world that helps you stay committed and convicted in your pursuit of a better future?

If not, might now be the time to seek one…?