From Ian Sampson
During my recent visit to Pakistan, my host at the Islamabad Club chuckled and said :
” Do you mean “Leadership In Action” or “Leadership Inaction?”
“It has to be the first,” I smiled in reply. “Leadership Inaction” is an oxymoron. Leaders are sometimes still but their quietness should not be confused with inactivity. Even at rest a good leader is always seeking to move things forward.”
“I see that,” he replied. ” In our leadership training of civil servants here in Pakistan, we teach them that too.”
I paused over the homemade pistachio ice cream and said, ” And that is why we call this approach Powerful Leadership in Action: because power comes first from being able to lead yourself, then others.”
Warming to the subject, my friend chimed in: ” And then we can also leave a leadership legacy through the high quality leadership practices that we pass on to the next generation of leaders! We must talk more about sharing this knowledge in this part of the world.”
My host and I share a common interest: imparting practical approaches to all kinds of problems in ways that build personal, group and organisational leadership capability.
In Australia, this is one part of the work done by us at Cause & Effective. We serve CEOs and Boards who lead ‘for cause’ organisations in improving and even transforming the ways they achieve their purpose and plans.
We would be pleased to talk with you if you are interested in exploring how we could work together.
About Ian: Ian Sampson (B.Comm., LLB., FAICD, FAIM) is a Cause & Effective Associate. He is a Strategic Advisor to Boards, an Executive Coach and a Facilitator of our Powerful Leadership in Action Program . He can be contacted here
B-Cause 
I like it Ian. There is quite a lot of information doing the rounds at the moment about leadership and introversion. There seems to be a shifting trend away from the assumption that charismatic extroverts are the best leaders and that when introverts accept who they are and stop trying to norm their behaviour to extroversion they can be powerful leaders.
Thanks Sara.
In the Powerful Leadership in Action (PLA) approach which we are using in Cause & Effective, we work from an essential premise: a leader is one who moves the action forward; leadership is the action of moving situations forward.
This approach allows all kinds of styles and approaches to come forth. An effective leader who moves a situation forward might accomplish that by any number of means.
The skill lies in knowing how, which is what PLA is all about. PLA allows leadership to emerge in any situation. It is lead by ordinary people who are committed to achieve something. It therefore is applicable to introverts just as much as extroverts – Ian