Published January 22, 2022.
Updated with this posting.
The Initial Spark of Interest
I’m a leadership guy. Have been for a long time. It happened when I was asked to join a community board as their clergy representative. It was the most diverse board of any kind that I have ever seen. Remarkably, they worked well together. There was no one person who dominated and everyone else just compliantly followed along. We were a unified group. Even in our diversity, we shared a common purpose. I had never seen this before in any organization where I had been involved. I knew then that leadership was my calling.
Immediately, I did a leadership seminar series from a couple of Harvard MBA consultants that I knew. Then I began to read everything I could about leadership. I was surprised at how much I found in the conceptions of leadership at the time out of sync with my own experience.
The first two books that impacted me were James MacGregor Burns’ Leadership and Peter Drucker’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship. They presented to me a perspective of leadership that was not simply the hero-worship of prominent CEOs and politicians. I began to read about organizational theory. It was all new to me.
A Season of Failure
Then I was hired to create a student leadership development program at a small college. I utterly failed for three years to produce a program. I really knew nothing about how to develop leadership or build a program.
At the time, I was also serving as the college’s minister to students. Realizing that I was poorly prepared to go to business school and that a Ph.D. in any field relevant to the world of leadership would be too narrowly focused to provide me with what I felt I needed, I enrolled in a seminary doctoral program for ministers at the mid-point in their careers. At that time, thirty years ago, I was able to develop my own course of study to try and understand the social dimensions of leadership.
I refocused the college’s leadership program on mobilizing student groups - resident halls, academic clubs, sports teams, fraternities, sororities, and campus organizations - to participate in two service projects. As a result, approximately ten percent of the student body experienced what later I came to call leadership impact.
Then my time at the college was done. Our family moved closer to our parents and siblings, and I began a consulting practice. Like everything I had done before in my life, I knew nothing about being a consultant or running a business. I did know how to talk to people and how to be a problem solver. I was good at it too. My ten-year-old son remarked at the time, “Dad talks people into having problems and offers to fix them.” Truer words have never been spoken about me.
The Circle of Impact Years
Over the next twenty years, my consulting practice went through ups and downs like any small business. During that time I began to see patterns of behavior that pointed towards problems that inhibited every type of organization from reaching its potential. If a company is not reaching its potential, you can guess that the senior leaders and most of the employees are not either. Acknowledging that is the first obstacle to overcome.
As one project led to another, the issue of unrealized potential became more apparent.
These patterns of behavior are identified by observing how people and groups think, relate, and structure their organizations. Ultimately, these three categories developed into a model of leadership that I call the Circle of Impact.
My point is that by observation, study, self-critical analysis, and lots of conversation I came to see the world of leadership as vastly different than a function of an organization’s structure.
The difference is that the three dimensions of Ideas, Relationships, and Structure need to be aligned or integrated into a system that everyone can understand and utilize. This lack of alignment is a problem that is derived from how organizations are structured. They tend to be fragmented into isolated segments. I have much to say about this because I see organizational structure as a principal problem facing global society today.
I can tell a person’s orientation towards leadership when I ask what their favorite book on leadership is. There are hundreds of books on personal and corporate values. An even larger number about relationships. There is also a wide spectrum of literature on organizational design and structure. The problem pattern here is that very few people see how these dimensions need to be aligned. Those people see it more intuitively rather than analytically.
The first version of the Circle of Impact model appeared around 2000. The next fifteen years were a time of refinement and testing to see if the model worked. Did the Circle of Impact match the reality that I found in the wide diversity of organizations that I served? I discovered that when the Circle of Impact was used for problem-solving, as a planning process tool, for the development of the leadership of teams, or personally as a self-critical guide to one’s own development, it always worked.
The Three Endings
Like many people and businesses, the Recession of the late 2000s hit me hard. All my clients left me within a six-week period of time. A year and a half later it was clear that the end of my consulting practice was near. Organizations were looking for hacks to their system. They didn’t want to see that their system was broken.
During this time, I transitioned from being a board member of a denomination-based non-profit organization to being its part-time executive director. Our principal purpose was to raise money for the ministries that serve students on university campuses across North Carolina. A year and a half later, having secured our first substantial commitment, I was fired. It was clear the board liked the idea of the fund-raising campaign, but not the idea that they individually and their churches specifically had some obligation to contribute. So, I was let go, and within six months, the money raised returned, and the organization disbanded. The Circle of Impact patterns of behavior appeared like a perfect storm of dysfunction.
In addition, at the same time, my marriage of thirty years ended. This is why I call this period of time ‘the three endings.’ As disappointing and painful as it was to see the end of my consulting practice, my marriage, and then being fired for the first time in my career, it was like a door opening in a room that I had spent most of my adult life in. I walked through that door and closed it behind me. A new chapter in my life began.
Where I am Going
During the winter of 2014-15, I decided that if I was going to do something with the rest of my life, I had to leave my home state of North Carolina and start over. I moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming where I spent three years writing my first book, Circle of Impact: Taking Personal Initiative To Ignite Change. The book draws upon all that I have described above. It is the first book describing a 21st-century model of leadership. Virtually everything else you can find on leadership is still derivative of 20th-century ideas and practices. I have made an intellectual break with that world.
That break is represented in seeing that “all leadership begins with personal initiative to create impact that makes a difference that matters.” I don’t believe that leadership is a role or title. Leadership is too often confused with management. Managers can lead by their own personal initiative to create impact that makes a difference, or they don’t. It is a choice.
I am very pleased with the book. If my life were to end today, it would be the pinnacle of my life’s achievement. The story of the publication and promotion of the book is a case study of what happens when the alignment of the three dimensions fails.
After a year traveling the US promoting the book, my focus shifted toward fulfilling the goal that I describe in the book.
My goal is to move 1% of the world’s population to take personal initiative to create impact in their local communities.
Today, while still writing daily, my time is focused on leadership training and the development of The Eddy Network Podcast.
What To Expect From Me
I have no interest in being a critic. I am not interested in criticizing past leaders or thought leaders. It is a diversion from what is much more important. We are all captured by our moment in time. It is best to try to understand why someone wrote something fifty years ago rather than simply disagree or seek to cancel them. We arrived where we are because of the people who came before us and those we encounter today. In the future, people will look back at our time, read our Substack articles, watch our videos, and decipher Twitter and TikTok feeds, trying to understand how our time compares to theirs.
I am convinced by what I have observed, studied, and discussed over the past decades that we are at a transition point. No time in human history has the opportunity for every individual to live a life of impact greater than it is today. This is true regardless of wars, pandemics, or the rise of authoritarian governments. Each of us has within us the potential to make a difference. I want to convince you that your future is greater than your past. It is just a prelude to significance. There are huge obstacles in our way. But obstacles often are found to be made of sand.
I am not going to predict the future. Instead, I want to us see how we can create it. One act of impact at a time. One of the Guiding Principles of the Circle of Impact contains four watchwords to help us focus through this time of transition.
Start Small. Act Locally. Share Globally. Take the Long View.
If you have questions, ask them. If you have comments, share them respectfully. If you have a story to tell, share it so that we can all learn from you. If you, your organization, or your community needs help, just ask.
Fascinating to read Ed
I bought circle of impact last night after dipping into some of your videos and picking up your theme around the importance of community. I'm in that 'Ending' mode myself after losing my job recently and working out what's next - I have some strong ideas of what's next but need to turn them into financial viability. I recognise the need, the hunger, for stronger local communities too and looking forward to reading your book.