By Jack Speer
BizWatch Co-Publisher

			Conventional wisdom says you must learn about the great leaders of the past and present in order to lead.  That group might include Gandhi, Lincoln, Alexander, or even Warren Buffet.  Learning the lives of leaders of the past can help us identify the traits that allowed those leaders and heroes to triumph.  At the same time, our research shows that in order to achieve Pinnacle Performance the most important leadership factor to study is you--the times you performed so well that you surprised yourself and everyone around you. Imagine if Abraham Lincoln had set out to imitate George Washington or Napoleon.  If any of the great leaders of the past had made their goal to imitate some leader before them, they would not only have failed--they'd have looked completely ridiculous.

Lincoln was a unique persona for a once-in-time situation--to save the American Union.  Everyone who has studied the life of Lincoln knows that he was not the leader as we know him throughout his life--in fact, he had bouts of depression that immobilized him and kept him in bed for weeks at a time. He lost all of his early elections before winning the nomination to become president in a dark time for the United States.  At that point, he became the voice of eloquence that ultimately kept the nation from splitting asunder.

Understanding How We Perform When We Are at Our Pinnacle Many of us have been baffled by our own performance patterns.  We have been successful--some of us hugely so-- yet our performance may be seen by ourselves and others as spotty and uneven.    Yet somehow, we have that moment of brilliance when we close the deal, make the sale, make the scientific discovery that launches a new technology.  Learning the patterns of your own Pinnacle Performance will require some self-analysis  and it never hurts to work with someone who knows you and someone you can trust to have good judgment.

Painting by Kibuuka, www.kibuuka.com

Here are some ways to identify your own Pinnacle Performance patterns. If you have a pattern of success and being put into positions of leadership, look inside yourself and accept that you have unique gifts that have gotten you where you are today.  Success sometimes comes as an accident, but if it's not real, you don't have it very long.  You do have some very positive things going for you.   Choose 3-5 instances when you performed so successfully in a project, sale, development situation that it surprised both you and those around you.  Try to write a case study on yourself.  Who gave you the project?  Did you begin right away?  Did you do it in spurts?  Did you work with others?  Did you "disappear" at times just to think about it?  Did you work steadily?  Did you work into the night?  How did you get past obstacles?  Where there moments when you frustrated and even bewildered yourself by your approach or behavior?  Answer all of these questions until you get to the point of understanding when you achieved your breakthroughs and when and how the process became successful.  That will tell you what circumstances you have to recreate to achieve your Pinnacle Performance pattern.   Take charge of your own Pinnacle Performance Patterns.  Certainly, accept feedback from your boss, your peers and your direct reports about your performance.  Always remember that you are a work in progress and that you are continually redirecting your actions and approaches based on feedback.  At the same time, as you establish your own Pinnacle Performance Patterns, act and operate in the ways in which you have been most successful.  You may not have the type of performance pattern that we typically think of as normal--into the office at a certain time, mapping out a plan and following it.  Perhaps you have sudden flashes of insight or leap into action to seize opportunity moments only you can see.  Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address, one of the great speeches in world literature, on the back of an envelope on the way to a battlefield.  His boss, if he had had a boss, might very well have said that he was cutting it way too close.  Yet if Lincoln had not followed his own genius, the world would be poorer.   By learning and using your Pinnacle Performance Patterns, the world will be richer.