The Naked Leader

The True Paths to Success are Finally Revealed

David Taylor

• Publisher: Capstone
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781841124230
• eBook ISBN: 9780857083951
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Fasten your seat belt, it's all you need to wear. There is a new wave of thinking and action that puts people before process, choice before change, and meaning before money. We are now entering a new business, leadership and global age, with a vision, agenda and spirit born out of the realisation that there has to be a different way of success, business and leadership. One that sets us free from traditional business thinking, and takes you, your business and your life to new levels of awareness, success and achievement. This next business age is in your hands. The Naked Leader is the antithesis to the process driven mentality that has wasted so many millions, destroyed the trust between company and employee, and enabled so many companies to at best stand completely still. The Naked Leader is a distillation of David Taylor's ideas and inspiration - ideas which have made him Europe's most sought-after speaker on leadership and personal growth. David is known as the "Naked Leader" because of his extraordinary ability to strip away uncertainty and doubt, and conclusively show that everything we need to be successful, we already have. The Naked Leader shares hundreds of life-changing actions, including:
* The fastest way to make any change in your life
* How to build deep and lasting rapport with anyone
* The 7 most powerful questions on earth
* How to change how you feel, in a single heartbeat
* The structure of guaranteed success
* How to be an awesome presenter
* Discovering who you really are, and why you are here
The Naked Leader strips away the mystery, hype and jargon, to reveal the single formula for assured success that is available to everyone. The book is a journey which can be taken from beginning to end, or joined at any stage - taking you to wherever you want to be, drawing on the very best leadership thinking around the world, finally revealing the answer to the ultimate question, "who are you and why are you here?" Taylor reveals the exact, specific actions to take to predict the future, and then shape it. As a practitioner, not a theorist, Taylor knows what works, and what does not. He shows us what to do, and exactly when to do it. No matter what your vision, challenge or present position, The Naked Leader ensures that you succeed, making your future no longer a matter of chance, but rather a matter of choice. It is powerful, and the results are amazing.

1

THE STRUCTURE OF GUARANTEED SUCCESS

Imagine that success has a structure. Imagine it as a formula, and that, if you follow it, you will achieve whatever you dream, desire and deserve. In effect, imagine that success is guaranteed.

Guaranteed, no matter what your background, your present position, where you want to go, or who you want to be.

Imagine no more, for your success is indeed guaranteed. It is a formula that, when followed, will lead you wherever you want to go. We cannot forget change, or chance, as they will play a part, however your fundamental driving force, by far, is choice.

Your future, your choice.

Over the last seven years I have been studying every theory, reality and form of leadership, with three aims in mind:

1 To discover if there is a common formula that runs throughout them all.

2 To find out what always works; not to invent something new, indeed, quite the reverse.

3 To remove all of the academic jargon, author hype and deliberate mystery, and apply everything that works into day-to-day realities for people like you and me.

And so Naked Leadership was formed – an approach to leadership that strips away the hype, applies the most powerful, proven tools and techniques to real life without any inherent mystery, and gives people back to themselves.

Naked Leadership has seven principles, and the first is that success has a structure, it is a formula and, despite everything that we have been told, that formula is very, very simple.

Having read literally hundreds of success, business and leadership books, attended conferences throughout the world, and worked with individuals, teams and organisations, I have found the formula for success is always the same. And this was an amazing discovery, as often this formula has been hidden behind the most amazing jargon, hype and mystery.

The aim of this book is to blow all of that away; so, to start with, here it is – just a few pages in – the formula for success that other books take hundreds of pages to reveal.

The formula for guaranteed success:

1 Know where you want to go.

2 Know where you are now.

3 Know what you have to do, to get to where you want to go.

4 Do it!

Silence in your head – enjoy that silence for a few moments, indeed, re-read the formula a few times.

Allow those thoughts from your ‘judge’ that tell you success cannot be that simple.

Welcome those feelings of doubt that you have wasted your money on a weird book.

But even as you have these two streams of thinking, please also invite in a third.

What if I’m right?

What if this formula is right, and that if you follow it, you will achieve anything you want?

What if you have opportunities beyond anything you previously thought possible? The future of your choosing, the life of your dreams?

Imagine if you simply could not fail:

• What would you do?
• Where would you go?
• Who would you be?

For that is the promise that this book delivers.

And what’s more, I am not even going to ask you to believe it. Most leadership and human potential books tell you that you have to believe them, for them to ‘work’. I am taking the completely opposite view. In fact, I would prefer you not to believe – just go out and do it. Put what is in this book into powerful practice in your life in order to:

• reclaim your life, and your career;
• reignite your relationships and your team; and
• reinvent your organisation.

And so, the first principle of Naked Leadership is that success is a formula. What’s more, it is a simple formula. Most success formulas, all the same as this one, made much more complex, are so hard to understand – meaning that you do not have time to achieve your own success, because you have still to work out how to do it!

Not any more, you now have the formula, the big secret has been revealed. And the secret shall set you free! Actually, you have had this formula all of your life, probably not realising it. You will have achieved amazing success in your life already, in many ways, and each and every achievement followed that same structure.

1 Know where you want to go.

2 Know where you are now.

3 Know what you have to do, to get to where you want to go.

4 Do it!

As your ‘judge’ told you earlier, if the formula is this simple, why do so few people achieve ‘success’ by their own standards? Why do so many people seem unhappy with life, why do so many end their time on this earth feeling they wish they could have done, and been, so much more?

This is exactly what I have been studying – not simply the formula, but how to achieve success by following the formula. To do this I have met with, learned from, and had the great honour to work with some of the most ‘successful’ organisations in the world. I have spent hundreds of hours with children, I have stood under Oblivion at Alton Towers, in the rain, and I have met with people from all walks of life.

From all of this input (I hesitate to call it ‘research’ because most research I have ever read is so BORING!) I have identified the specific actions that we must do to navigate this formula.

1 Know where you want to go – dream bigger dreams, and know when they have been achieved.

2 Know where you are now – take ownership of your life, and be honest about where you are.

3 Know what you have to do, to get to where you want to go – widen your choices, and make true decisions, closing off all other options.

4 Do it! – With a persistent action – persistence is incompatible with failure.

I am not arrogant enough to suggest this is ‘my’ formula, it is not. I have simply distilled it down from hundreds of other, more complex success definitions. And so it is not mine to ‘give’ to you now, nor yours to take. For it is already yours, from the moment you were born.

Indeed, this is the second principle of Naked Leadership: this formula does not ‘belong’ to anyone – it belongs to everyone. It belongs to you, it belongs to everyone you know, it belongs to everyone on this earth. A lot of so called ‘gurus’ have made themselves very rich by pretending that this formula, or more likely a very complex variation of it, belongs to them. They then make you and me, and everyone, reliant on their complex interpretation of this formula, and therefore dependent on them.

A classic example of this is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, the science of human potential and, in particular, rapport. Its two founders, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, have not spoken to each other for over five years, and have recently been suing each other through the American courts!

The third principle of Naked Leadership is: to be successful, you need rely on no one, other than yourself. Everything you need, to be anything you want, lies waiting and within you.

It is totally natural that we should feel that the ‘answers’ lie outside of ourselves. After all, that is what we are taught at school (‘I am the teacher so I know the answers, you are the student and you are here to learn’). And so it is in life: I remember when I was 8, looking up at 16-year-olds wishing I could be them, because they must know so much. Then I was 16, looking up to 25-year-olds. The wisdom and happiness they must have! Then I was 25 looking up at 30-year-olds, and then I was 30, looking back at 16-year-olds, wishing I was that age again!

The fourth principle of Naked Leadership says that success is whatever you want it to be, it is yours to define. Traditionally we have been taught that success means a certain amount of money. It is, if that works for you. We have been taught that it means a certain social standing. It does, if that works for you. More often, however, I find people think of success in a different way. They talk about their relationships, they talk about love, happiness and inner peace. They look for a greater meaning in being alive, they seek greater levels of fulfilment, perhaps living with higher integrity. Increasingly also, they seek ways of helping others, to make a contribution.

It would be a very boring world indeed if we all had exactly the same definitions of success. And perhaps the 20th century forced us to believe that we can only be successful if we achieve more than other people. Has this made our world a better place? Has this helped you achieve all you seek? As you read this now, are you totally fulfilled in all that you do, and all that you are?

The fifth principle of Naked Leadership is that success can happen very fast, often in a heartbeat. Everywhere we are surrounded by change, and we have learned little from the disastrous ‘change’ initiatives of the late ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Epilogue
• THANK YOU
• DELIVERING THE DREAM
• 1 THE STRUCTURE OF GUARANTEED SUCCESS
• 2 LIVING AS A LEADER
• 3 OUR SECRET DRIVING FORCES
• 4 A LEADER’S BIGGEST TIMEWASTERS
• 5 THE POWER OF MENTORING
• 6 JOB EVALUATION IN THE BIN
• 7 REVERSE HEADHUNTING – GET YOUR OWN BACK
• 8 SYNCHRONICITY
• 9 WHO’S TO BLAME?
• 10 LEADERS BORN AND NOT MADE!
• 11 BALANCE THE SOURCES OF POWER
• 12 CHARISMA IN A HEARTBEAT!
• 13 YOUR CV STANDS, OR FALLS, FOR YOU
• 14 INFLUENCE IN COMPANY MEETINGS (BORING OR OTHERWISE)
• 15 YOUR TEAM – FROM GOOD TO UNSTOPPABLE
• 16 OWNERSHIP – WHO’S IN CHARGE OF YOU?
• 17 INTEGRITY-BASED NETWORKING
• 18 ORGANISATIONAL DE-STRUCTURES
• 19 ROOM 101
• 20 DOOM OR DISASTER, WELCOME TO NEG-LAND
• 21 FOLLOWING THE LINES AND BREAKING THE RULES
• 22 JARGON FREE NLP!
• 23 RECAPTURE THE MAGIC . . .
• 24 SKILLS OF LEADERSHIP OVER MANAGEMENT
• 25 ‘OH, I’VE HAD SUCH A CURIOUS DREAM!’
• 26 SUCCESSION PLANNING
• 27 YOUR PERSONALITY BECOMES THEIR PERSONALITY . . .
• 28 PROJECT SUCCESS
• 29 THE POWER OF STATE – EVERYONE NEEDS A PLACE TO BE
• 30 THE FASTEST WAY TO MAKE ANY CHANGE IN YOUR LIFE
• 31 LEADERSHIP BY MAGAZINE
• 32 VALUES-BASED LEADERSHIP
• 33 MODELLING
• 34 HIDDEN ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
• 35 MAKING SUCCESS SO EASY TO ACHIEVE, AND FAILURE IMPOSSIBLE
• 36 INSPIRATION JUST GOT REAL
• 37 ONE TEAM – ONE VOICE
• 38 ATTRACTING THE HEADHUNTERS
• 39 MAKING YOUR STRATEGIES AS ONE
• 40 OUR NEXT GENERATION
• 41 BUILDING TOTAL AND ABSOLUTE RAPPORT
• 42 ENLIGHTENED LEADERSHIP
• 43 PROJECT LEADERSHIP
• 44 THE CHOICE OF OPPOSITES
• 45 PEOPLE MEAN BUSINESS – IMPROVE PERFORMANCE BY AT LEAST 10%
• 46 THE FIVE PITFALLS OF LEADERSHIP
• 47 THE MOST POWERFUL QUESTIONS ON EARTH . . . PLUS . . .
• 48 AWESOME PRESENTATIONS
• 49 LEADERSHIP IN TIMES OF WAR . . .
• 50 THE 7 GREATEST CONSPIRACIES OF SUCCESS
• 51 LEADERSHIP BY E-MAIL
• Index