Four Steps to Unleash a Leader of One

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- Do not wait for permission to be a leader. J. Gerald Suarez, Smith School Professor of the Practice in Systems Thinking and Design, says individuals can take charge of their future and act as leaders, regardless of their positions within an organization. Suarez applies his research and years of experience working with executives, world leaders, educators and students in his new book, “Leader of One: Shaping Your Future through Imagination and Design.”

Suarez says the 24/7 pace of today’s world has many people barreling through life without a sense of direction. But, he says, by harnessing the right leadership and managerial skills, individuals can set themselves up to pursue their desired goals and overcome the day-to-day challenges of getting there.

“The future is something we rarely address in a formal way,” he says. “But we have the power to shape our future if we are willing to find, nurture and unleash the leader within.”

Suarez details a process called idealized design, a method first applied in corporations by Russell Ackoff, Wharton emeritus professor and Suarez’s mentor and colleague at the White House, where they worked under two presidents for more than a decade.

In the book Suarez applies the interactive planning, systems and design thinking process for individuals to mobilize their dreams to action. The cycle has four phases, which he says must be applied in a holistic fashion:

1. Contemplate. Reflect on present and past experience to widen and deepen your conception of the future.

2. Desire. Reassess your priorities to figure out what to pursue. Suarez encourages following a passion by asking, “What would I do if I did not have to work for money?”

3. Design. Set a roadmap for meeting goals.

4. Create. Take action. Suarez calls this the most difficult stage and says individuals must remain disciplined and committed when pursuing their ideal future.

Suarez says successful leaders of one understand that pursuing a desired future is more important than arriving at the destination. He encourages people to take charge of their goals now.

“You cannot shape the future in the future,” he says. “It must be done in the present.”

He says readers should use his book as a guide as they move through their careers. “Readers will find it worth revisiting in the years ahead as circumstances change and as new passions take hold,” he says.