Book Summary

7 Principles of
Transformational Leadership
Create a Mindset of Passion, Innovation, and Growth
Book by Hugh Blane Published by Career Press, Inc. | © 2017

Synopsis
What stands in the way of your success? How can removing obstacles along your path help you succeed and lead
others to succeed? In 7 Principles of Transformation Leadership, you will learn how your own beliefs and mindset limit
your leadership potential. Learn how self-transformation leads to transformative leadership and business success.

7 Principles of Transformational
The key concepts of 7 Principles of Transformational

Leadership (Career Press, © 2017)

Leadership can be distilled into the following insights:

provides self-evaluation tools and

strategies for personal and business
transformation. Use the lessons in this
book to overcome personal obstacles and
learn how to eliminate negative beliefs,
Understand Your Mindset and Your Purpose
Once you understand your mindset, you’ll understand how it
sometimes holds you back from living with purpose.
Make Promises You Can Keep

engage in successful projects, prioritize
effectively, and make meaningful promises
to yourself and others.
Author Hugh Blane discusses how we can
transform ourselves and others through
seven principles: purpose, promises,
projects, persuasion, praising, perseverance,
and preparation.
Making meaningful promises to yourself and others inspires trust and
leads to more successful relationships.
Engage in Meaningful Projects
Only undertake projects if they reflect your purpose, passion, and
priorities.
Exert a Positive Influence
True leaders influence rather than manipulate. Listen and positively
guide others by aligning your actions with your values.

Instill Confidence Through Praise

Set aside your own negative mindset, and you’ll be more inclined to
praise and encourage others.

Don’t Give Up
Perseverance is a greater determinant of success than talent. Learn
how to stick to your purpose-defined goals.

Don’t Live an Accidental Life

Prepare for the unexpected. Face your fears and push yourself beyond
the safe and predictable.

“The only real choice we have is to acknowledge our current mindset, accept our role in creating or
tolerating it, articulate the desired mindset we want to have, and then take action each day to create it. ”
Based on 7 Principles of Transformational Leadership by Hugh Blane, we discuss how leaders can define their purpose,
passions, and priorities in order to transform themselves and others. The author provides a framework for self-fulfillment,
inspirational leadership, and business success. We share our interpretations of this framework in the following pages.
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2

Creating Passion
Defining your purpose helps you to live a more rewarding and enriching life—both personally and professionally.
Whether you desire to increase revenue, rev up your performance, or improve your relationships with employees
or customers, there are several processes suggested by Blane that can help you define your purpose to
accomplish your goals and live a more satisfying life.

sClarify Your Leadership Purposes

If you aren’t passionate about your goals—if you aren’t relentless in pushing yourself to learn and grow your
own skillset and create value for others—it’s difficult to set meaningful goals, let alone achieve results. The first
step to living with purpose is to clarify your hopes, dreams, and aspirations. With clarity comes focus. How do
you define your purpose? How can purpose cultivate greatness?

sWhat Fuels Your Greatness?s

According to the author, the three dimensions of purpose that fuel greatness are love, talent, and value. Love
equals unbridled enthusiasm. In the world of work, it means you’re continually striving and leaning in to learn,
grow, and improve. A lack of passion results in feelings of emptiness and lack of fulfillment.

To determine how love drives your purpose, Blane suggests asking yourself the following questions:

• What part of my job do I love doing? Why?

• What part of my work do I find most rewarding?
• What is the one idea, hope, dream, or aspiration regarding my work that has grabbed hold of me and
won’t let go?
• What aspect of my work, if I were no longer able to do it, would make my work less fulfilling?

What skills and expertise do you offer customers, clients, employees, and those in your personal life who mean
the most to you? Talent is multifaceted and can drive your success in many areas. Learn more about your
leadership potential by taking stock of your talents and skills. By looking at your proudest contributions and
accomplishments, you’ll see these skills and talents in action.

The value you offer as a professional and in your interpersonal relationships is not always tangible. Value could
be the benefit you provide to customers or employees; value can mean you’re making someone else’s life better
or easier. It could be the benefit others receive from the service you provide.

To get a better sense of your value, the author suggests the following exercise: list as many activities as possible
that you do in your role. List a minimum of two results for each activity. Review the activities and results you’ve
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identified. Which do you do in distinctive and highly valuable ways? What are your top four most valuable
activities? Once you’ve answered these, ask yourself the following questions:

• In my professional life, what are the most valuable contributions I make to my customer, my
colleagues, and my organization?
• What aspects of my work are distinctive? What differentiates me from my colleagues who have the
same role?
• What part of my work, if I were to no longer do it, would leave my customer bitterly disappointed?
• How can I increase the value I bring to my organization?

Remember that people care more about the value of the outcome of the experience rather than what tool was
used to achieve that result. Answering the above questions can help you arrive at insights that may help you identify
your leadership purpose. With these answers, you can create your purpose statement by completing the following:

“I create [what you do] so that [whoever your customer is] can achieve [what].”

Once you’ve written this down, ask others if it seems accurate. See if it feels right to you, and adjust accordingly.
Use this statement as a guide for all you do.

sBe Distinct or Be Extincts

Be yourself, not only what you believe your employees or customers want you to be. If you pretend to be
someone you’re not, this can sabotage your relationships and your success. Be honest about your strengths—
be honest about what drives you to work hard. Once you’ve defined your distinctiveness more sharply, you can
build on it and become a meaningful catalyst for the achievements of others.

Again, it comes down to purpose. If you have a purpose that is meaningful and invigorating to you, the effort
will come naturally. If you understand and listen to your customers and are honest about what you can and
cannot do for them, you honor yourself and them. Once you have a strong purpose, you’re energized to work
hard and listen more productively, and will work with confidence.

In order to have a better sense of what makes you distinctive as a leader, ask yourself: “What do I believe?” This
can help you determine whether or not you’re leading according to your values. By aligning everything you do
with your values-based beliefs, you engage in a more inspired personal and professional life.

sKnow What You’re Sellings

Blane contends that it’s important to make the connection between your beliefs and the impact you hope to
make on others. In other words, figure out what you’re selling—is it excellent customer service? Is it inspiration?
Transformation? Whether you’re selling a tangible product or not, the bottom line is, you’re selling an experience.
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Does the experience you’re offering align with your beliefs? If you’re a health coach, do you value healthy and
sustainable eating?

Pay close attention to your intent and your impact on others. People will buy what you’re selling based on the
experience you provide, regardless of your intent. So make sure your intent is aligned with what you offer. Again,
if you’re a health coach and you intend to inspire others to greater health, ensure your coaching focuses on
transformative health practices.

sDetermine Your Brands

Transformational leaders develop their own individual brand, which has a direct influence on how and whether
a client experiences something of value. Your brand—which is a succinct definition of what you offer—should
be aligned with your beliefs and the experience you’re aiming to provide your clients. Defining your brand
involves clarifying your intended impact, getting feedback from your peers to determine how others perceive
your brand, and clarifying the behaviors you’ll need to change to fulfill your brand’s promise. For instance, if your
communication style isn’t clear, you’ll need to change how you communicate.

Once you begin to see how others see you, you’ll be able to better determine how you need to change your
actions and attitudes in order for others to see you the way you would like them to. Self-reflection and feedback
from others are both equally important.

sTransform Yourself from Overwhelmed to Flourishings

Being overwhelmed leads to decreased performance and well-being in leaders, as well as employees, thereby
stifling innovation. Changing your mindset and clarifying your purpose can enable you to identify and eliminate
those stressors that keep you from flourishing.

While there may be a general belief that leaders and employees who underperform are lazy, unwilling, or unable
to innovate, this isn’t true in most instances. Rather, feeling overwhelmed may be the cause of feelings of
powerlessness, which then results in subpar performance. Don’t accept underperformance as the norm. Instead,
learn how to lead yourself and others in a manner that allows them to flourish, not languish. Burnout is not a badge
of honor. Learning to deal with stress allows leaders and employees alike to think bigger and be innovative.
Transformational leadership involves working smarter, not harder. Managing one’s time and priorities is imperative.

If you’re not flourishing, it’s impossible to help others excel at what they do, whether it’s your employees or your
customers. We flourish by changing our mindset, and we change our mindset by changing our beliefs. Unmasking
the beliefs that hold us back opens the door to living with passion. By engaging in the personal reflection that
leads to transformation, you can clarify your hopes and dreams, come up with new ideas, and live with passion.
Make a decision to identify the passions and priorities that define you as a person. By doing so, you can lead
others to their own successes.
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Creating Growth
The author believes that personal growth is a catalyst for leadership-focused growth, and that leaders who
engage in this process become better leaders of others. As a passionate leader, you’ll set a positive example,
inspiring others to live with meaning and purpose. How do you do this? By making and keeping only meaningful
promises, prioritizing according to your values and beliefs, and only engaging in projects that reflect your
priorities.

sThe Power of Positive Promisess

The purpose of promises is to establish credibility and trust. Most everyone has the experience of being let down
by someone who didn’t fulfill a promise, and they consequently lost faith in that person. Transformative leaders
know to only make promises they can fulfill and that have meaning. This means they keep the faith of others.

Promises must have a higher purpose or objective, or they lack power. They must also be voluntary—never
forced. In order to make effective promises, you must learn to say no as much as saying yes. If we make a promise
to those we care about—our employees, clients, friends, and family—it’s crucial that we follow through. They’re
counting on us to fulfill our relationship pact.

Just like all other aspects of transformational leadership, making powerful promises begins with making promises
to yourself. Take a moment to identify the promises you want to make for yourself that align with your purpose.
For example, if you’re committed to transformation, can you promise yourself you’ll take the time to examine
your beliefs regularly so you live according to your values? How can promises help you clarify your goals for
growth—in yourself and others?

Performance decreases as fear increases—fear of accountability, fear of making mistakes, fear of leaving a dead-
end job, fear of not being seen as smart and successful or of upsetting others—the fears we face are many. Can
you make the promise to identify your fears and learn to face them? How can you promise to lead others to face
their own fears? How can identifying your fears help you to grow? Make a list of your fears and make a promise
to address each one.

sPrioritize for Maximum Growths

How can you prioritize tasks and responsibilities in order to catalyze growth? If you don’t identify what’s important,
everything will be, or nothing will be. Again, your mindset shapes your priorities. If you live with the fear of
becoming poor or destitute, your priority will be to make money, not to create or find meaning. If you prioritize
meaning over money, you have the opportunity to do what you love and create purpose from passion. As the
author suggests, working harder to make more money will only make you do just that, work harder—not live your
life with joy or passion. Doing the work we’re passionate about has the wonderful side effect of financial success.
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The author suggests examining your priorities to determine how to transform them. Ask yourself the following
questions: “How does my calendar reflect what’s important to me?” and “What does it tell me about what I’m
doing too much, what I’m not doing enough—based on my passions and purpose?” Clarity leads to focus; focus
leads to prioritizing effectively for maximum personal and professional growth. Make sure your purpose,
promises, and priorities are aligned.

Identify the barriers to fulfilling your promises and priorities. How can you eliminate them? What do they tell
you about how you live your life? What supports your promises and priorities? How can you bring more of that
support into your life?

sTransformative Leaders Know That “Project” is a Verbs

Every action you take should be aligned with your personal beliefs and mission. Transformative leaders know
that work projects should also be aligned with your highest goals and aspirations. When it comes to the daily
tasks of professional and personal life, “projects” are a means of transformation, a way to support your purpose.
Each project you undertake or propose should be aligned with your passions, promises, and priorities.

Sometimes smaller daily actions can make us more productive than large-scale projects. Transformational
projects are based on the idea that for you to be successful, you must maintain a larger vision while zeroing in
on the tasks you must complete to realize it, in the short and long term. Breaking your project goals into smaller
concrete actions that align with your clear purpose provides many opportunities for success, and success is
contagious. Again, master your mindset—cultivate ruthless focus to remain on course.

Beware of blind worship of methodology. If it limits your ability to be flexible and creative, take time to ask
yourself, your clients, and your employees what’s important to them—and restate your project goals accordingly.
As always, cultivating success requires cultivating clarity. Transformational leaders aren’t afraid to ask questions
and readjust; they are constantly making sure their employees and customers are flourishing. When everyone
flourishes, so too does personal satisfaction and enjoyment of work—and the organization’s bottom line.

Insights—Cultivate Self-Awareness and Lead
with Success
Reframe Your Past and
Reclaim Your Future
Nurture Curiosity
and Courage
Stand out by Aligning
with Your Gifts and Talents
Be a Catalyst for
Community and Connection
Transform with Love
Book Summary: ...Transformational Leadership
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Take time to understand which of your past actions
have been successful and which have not. Consider
both successes and failures as learning experiences.
Don’t judge, but examine yourself with an open mind
and a desire to better understand your leadership
style and potential. With that knowledge, you can take
charge of your future.
Be curious. Dig deeper for a greater understanding of
how you view the world and how your blind spots can
hold you back. Have the courage to think bigger about
your leadership potential. If you suffer from JDTM—or
“just doing the minimum”—it’s time to take a look at
why you’re no longer passionate about your work and
whether it stems from feelings of burnout, fear of
failure, or complacency.
Define your unique talents by defining your mission
and purpose, and you’ll cultivate a uniquely transfor-
mative leadership style. What beliefs do you have
about the world? How can you translate those beliefs
into action? How can you make a difference?
Purposefully help others cultivate a mindset of con-
stant reflection, so they know what helps them suc-
ceed and what doesn’t. Be an example of positive
transformation to everyone you meet. Don’t be afraid
to show others how you’ve been vulnerable, and how
you transcended those feelings.
Love what you do; appreciate and value your employ-
ees; fall in love with the act of praising and encouraging
others. Start with an open mind and a willingness to
listen, even if you don’t like what you’re hearing. Learn
to grow in response to adversity, and you will flourish.
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Conclusion
Transformation isn’t possible without a clear sense of purpose and without examining and changing your mindset.
In 7 Principles of Transformational Leadership, Blane provides the tools and strategies you need to transform your
life into one of meaning and purpose so you can lead yourself—and others—towards business success.

“
The jumping-off point for greatness both individually and
organizationally is a clear and compelling purpose. People at work or in
your personal life who have achieved something extraordinary or who live lives defined
as ‘rewarding’ and ‘uplifting’ have a clear and compelling idea about what is important
to them, why it is important, and what value they will achieve by working to accomplish it. ”

If you’ve enjoyed our insights on Hugh Blane’s 7 Principles of Transformational Leadership: Create a Mindset of
Passion, Innovation, and Growth, we encourage you to access the other 7 Principles of Transformational Leadership
assets in the Skillsoft library, or purchase the hardcopy.

About the Author

HUGH BLANE, president of Claris Consulting, is a nationally recognized business strate-
gist and an expert on leadership and team performance and influence. Blane has worked
with thousands of people in a wide variety of organizations including Spacelabs Medical,
KPMG, Costco, Starbucks, and Microsoft. In his consulting and coaching work, Blane helps
clients develop the leadership, teaming, communication, and influencing skills necessary
to business success. In his free time Blane has been involved with The Center for Career
Alternatives as a mentor and has co-facilitated leadership seminars for at-risk children
and their parents. This is his first book.

7 Principles of Transformational Leadership: Create a Mindset of Passion, Innovation, and Growth, by Hugh Blane.
Copyright © 2017, Career Press, 256 pages, ISBN 978-1632650931.