Just over a decade ago, I had the privilege to chair the Governance Committee of one of the largest NGOs in the planet, the World YMCA.

Under the prodigious leadership and mentorship of an amazing man, Ken Colloton, I oversaw the process of the constitutional modernisation of this 177-year-old movement, working with the finest leaders from all over the world.

Ken introduced me to a concept of leadership as governance. Since this isn’t a LinkedIn post, all I will say is that this is system’s thinking driven leadership.

Here is what I’ve since learnt about this style of leadership. Leadership Impact (LI) = Common Good Orientation (CGO) + Environment Curation (EC) / Self-Orientation (SO) or LI = CGO + EC / SO.

What this equation means is that leadership impact is driven by the leader’s focus on common good and creating a conducive environment for the pursuance of such common good.

This numerator is in turn diminished by the degree of the leader’s self-orientation. The higher the orientation to self, the lesser the leadership impact.

I am astonished how many leaders make their leadership about themselves and still expect to make impact.

Jesus was on point after all: he or she who is the greatest (leadership impact) is the one that serves (common good).