The book “The Leadership Contract” by Vince Molinaro is about conscious leadership. It’s about being aware of and committed to the responsibilities that come with being a leader before accepting a formal leadership position.

It starts with a riveting letter by the authors mentor to them that states 

“Success is a funny thing. On one hand it has the effect of giving one a sense of achievement, pride in accomplishment, affirmation of skills, and promotes a desire to expand to the next horizon. The other side is a reaction from others. Some will rejoice in your achievements. Others, perhaps because of  their insecurities will feel threatened. These people will inadvertently or purposefully make moves to discourage you, undercut the significance of your success, or redirect you to paths that are less threatening for them. Some people are jealous of others’ success. (Why does he get all the “breaks”?). Little do they realize that opportunities exist for everyone.”

The author defines 4 pivotal moments in one’s leadership journey – when someone notices that you have a potential to be a leader, when you become a supervisor or front line leader, when you get promoted to middle or senior manager, and when you assume an executive role. At each of these turning points, a leader needs to ask themselves whether they are ready for the increased challenges and for facing the “heat” that comes with each of these promotions. These are referred to as big “D” decisions.

Daily, quarterly and yearly actions are recommended to be undertaken by a leader to ensure that they stay true to a leadership contract. A leadership contract is a document that is not legally binding but lists the fine print that the leader should abide by. It has 4 tenets of leadership 1) its a decision 2) its an obligation 3) its hard work and 4) its community.  

Decisions can be big such as whether to accept a promotion or move to a new role. Or small “d” decisions that need to be made during every day meetings such as – How do I show up as a leader at the moment?  What are my obligations as a leader at the moment? What do my core values dictate that I do at the moment? 

Both these big and small decisions require clarity and commitment on our part – What is the role really about? What are the expectations? What will success look like? What values must I bring as a leader? What impact must I have?

The obligations in the leadership contract are to ourselves, to our customers, to our organization, to our employees and to our communities. Are you ready to meet these obligations?

Becoming a strong leader requires hard work. Do you have the resilience and resolve to work hard at being a strong leader? Do you see hard work optimistically as an opportunity and not as a problem? Do you start addressing problems as early on as possible before they become big ones, seek out potential problems rather than avoid them until they blow up, view solutions of problems as part of your job description rather than a nuisance? 

Leadership can be isolating and so it’s critical for leaders to develop a community of leaders both inside and outside the organization. There needs to be a strong support system for the leaders to reach out to in case of need.

Leaders should sign a leadership contract so that they are informed of what becoming a leader entails. As you sign it, ask yourself – Am I up for this? Am I fully committed to what I need to do to make my team and my company successful? Am I prepared for the hardships that will come my way? Am I committing for the right reasons or am I only doing this to feed my ego?

To define your value as a leader, you can ask your direct reports and stakeholders to evaluate you on – What is the primary leadership value you bring to the organization? What are your strengths as a leader? What are your key development opportunities? What blind spots do you need to pay attention to? How effectively do you follow the 4 tenets of the leadership contract? Identify one item you need to do to increase your effectiveness as a leader.

Some of the daily actions to put leadership into action are asking yourself each day before starting work – What leadership decision do I have to make today? What leadership obligations do I have to live up to today? What hard work do I have to tackle today? What relationship with colleagues do I have to make stronger today in order to build a community of leaders?

Some of the quarterly actions are spending 3-4 hours reflecting on your last quarter – What big and small decisions did I make? What hard work did I tackle? What hard work did I avoid? Did I become stronger or weaker as a leader? How did I strengthen the sense of community among leaders in my organization? Looking ahead to the next quarter, how will I put the 4 tenets of leadership into action?

Annual actions involve soliciting feedback from your team and stakeholders and reaffirming your commitment to your leadership by re-signing the leadership contract.

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