Googling 'leadership'

I am currently interested in leadership ( may be a weak point in many organisations ? ) and how our leadership in software demonstration can change the things and make a real difference. So what ? My feeling is that proving the value of our solution could no be enough because we need also to be a leader, to inspire others and our customer by having significant impact not only during the presentation but also during every customer's interactions

So I googled the word "leadership" in order to find out interesting materials that could inspire me. And luckily the google juice provided me very nice insights about leadership on TED website :

First, I have got a nice lesson from Benjamin ZANDER whose name came first in the google research as a well known speaker on leadership. This video actually is not only about classical music but about how you can share ideas that inspire and engage people. What are some of the characteristics of a true leader according to Benjamin ?

1. "A leader has no any doubts for one moment the capacity of the people he is leading to realize whatever he is dreaming"
   
2. The leader doesn't think about every single note along the line but he thinks about the whole vision without caring all the fences underneath .
   
3. The leader takes his power from his ability to make others powerful, his job is to awaken possibilities in other people
   
4. The main question a leader ask himself during a presentation is "how many shinning eyes I have in front of me ?" and Benjamin adds "Success is not about wealth and fame and and power it is about how many shinning eyes I have around me".

And further more, still on the web with google, I found some interesting (and sometimes strange) ideas in different pages and video about leadership that I have written down on the paper and that I am going to share with you...

A little bit strange ( but still nice) :

• "Effective leaders have the ability to consistently move themselves and others to action because they understand the invisible forces that shape up" Oooooh and by the bargain I lost the link address of this page ! what's the essence of theses invisible forces ? ( may be crossing over to the dark side...) Can you help me in your comments understand this statement.

I also have encountered a nice idea about running a company :

• "Our goal for a company is to be excellent, not to be the biggest, not to be the most profitable but to do the best job possible"

And one idea from Seth Godin's blog

• "What works is leading. Leading a (relatively) small group of people. Taking them somewhere they'd like to go. Connecting them to one another."

And eventually, still looking desperately about leadership I discovered a pearl in this wonderful Eddi Reader's song "What You Do With What You've Got". The meditation behind this song that deals with how to use the best of our our gifts and talents inspire me as all of us can become a leader with what he was given, in other words we are probably leaders when we give the best we can.

As a conclusion, I ended my Google travel in leadership topics wondering about how to be a leader could be related to software demonstrations. We do not only have to prove the value of our solution, we have also to get our own and may be personal idea in the way our customer should choose our solution and afterwards share this vision in every customer's interaction

What do you think of this post ? What do you think about how leadership skills can improve our software demo ? Looking forward to reading your comments