Obi Abuchi, CEO, CORE Leaders International
Obi Abuchi, CEO of CORE Leaders International and author of The Magic of Monday, is a transformational speaker with an obsession for helping leaders grow in the area of personal mastery.
Podcast
Overview
Personal mastery is the key to effective leadership, the kind that is transformational and helps people grow and develop.
Our guest for today is Obi Abuchi, the CEO of CORE Leaders International. The CORE here stands for core values, optimistic values, rewarding habits, and empowering beliefs.
To begin with, Obi shares how the book by Steven Covey that he received from his mentor influenced him to a great extent and made him realize that it’s important to master ourselves in order to be able to create the best value in the marketplace. Read on to know a lot of great stuff shared in the episode.
About Obi Abuchi
Obi is the CEO of CORE Leaders International. He has authored two books- Leading from your Core and The Magic of Monday.
Discussion
What makes a leader great?
Obi defines leadership as “relating to others in a way that unleashes the best of their motivation, their passion and their creativity to a worthwhile cause”. Obi believes that leaders who command or assert and try to lead by using their position or authority, fail to get discretionary efforts. Whereas, good leaders lead by virtue of their character and values. This makes people follow them as well as gain their respect by winning their hearts and minds.
A good leader is in tune with their doubts and beliefs, which allows them to be in tune with the people and lead them with greater compassion and purpose.
Are leaders born or made?
Leaders are made, asserts Obi firmly. He says that no one is born with resilience, rather they develop resilience as they navigate through life and gather experiences. And understanding yourself, and your values takes hard work. It’s a process of growing and developing through challenges and difficulties of life, says Obi to support his answer.
How do you help develop the core for better leadership?
Leadership is divided into three areas
– strategic, organizational leadership- which involves identifying the vision, defining the governance process, etc
– operational- involves the implementation of the vision
– personal leadership- “how do I as a leader make sure that I am resilient”
Obi says that most leaders are focused only on the first two areas and forget to manage themselves as a result of which they often experience burnout. At CORE leadership, they help leaders exactly with this area.
How do you define personal mastery skills? How does one master this?
“Personal mastery is the awareness of yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, and the ability to bring your best to any situation.”
Obi suggests that self-awareness is crucial to achieving personal mastery. Leaders need to be aware of their concerns, doubts, and fears. When they aren’t aware of themselves, it is less likely they will be able to connect with other people. Hence, leaders must find out whether it’s fear or ego that’s driving them or a sense of purpose and desire to serve. And obviously, work to make it the latter if fear drives them.
Profile
Obi Abuchi, CEO of CORE Leaders International and author of The Magic of Monday, is a transformational speaker with an obsession for helping leaders grow in the area of personal mastery. For more than two decades, he has been fascinated by the difference that truly effective, inspirational, and transformational leaders make to those around them. He’s discovered that the most inspiring leaders have learned the secret of effective influence – it begins with mastering oneself and channeling one’s ego in the service of others in order to lead in a way that is deeply purposeful, authentic, and courageous. Now, he uses that knowledge to help leaders across the world develop a stronger CORE so they can lead from the inside out.
