Report: Ikigai and Leadership

Ikigai and Leadership

by Dexter van Avondale

General metrics
9,063 1,666 109 6 min 39 sec 12 min 48 sec
characters words sentences reading speaking
time time

Score Writing Issues

67 150 40 110
Issues left Critical Advanced

This text scores better than 67%

of all texts checked by Grammarly

Writing Issues
11 Clarity
11 Wordy sentences

40 Correctness
3 Mixed dialects of english
8 Determiner use (a/an/the/this, etc.)
14 Comma misuse within clauses
5 Misspelled words
3 Pronoun use

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Report: Ikigai and Leadership

2 Confused words
1 Incorrect noun number
2 Incorrect verb forms
1 Punctuation in compound/complex
sentences
1 Improper formatting

Unique Words 30%

Measures vocabulary diversity by calculating the unique words
percentage of words used only once in your
document

Rare Words 27%

Measures depth of vocabulary by identifying words rare words
that are not among the 5,000 most common English
words.

Word Length 4.3

Measures average word length characters per word

Sentence Length 15.3

Measures average sentence length words per sentence

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Report: Ikigai and Leadership

Ikigai and Leadership

1
In order to be a great leader, you have to know yourself. This is paramount for a
2 3
number of reasons. You need self-mastery in order to lead others, to keep to
the path you set, but most of all you need self-mastery so that when someone
shows you a better way you can take the new information on board in a
4
constructive manner. Leaders throughout the world often lament their position
to those closest to them. Being a leader is hard and often lonely. Some leaders
lose themselves in the act of leadership and end up causing irreparable harm to
5
themselves and their organisation.
6
This is where Ikigai can have great impact on the leader. The concept of Ikigai is
to nd your life’s purpose. If that is the case, it stands to reason that you might
want to gure that out before you decide to be a leader. The best leaders are
self-ware. They know their strengths and they know their weaknesses. This
duality is the underpinnings of Ikigai, but there is so much more to it than that.
7
For truly great leaders to function they must constantly re-evaluate their Ikigai
8
and make sure that it is in line with the organisation.
9
At the same time the followers must also know their Ikigai. Without this
10
knowledge you are rudderless. Moreover you are a danger to the organization
11
and to yourself. You must know who you are and what you want before you can
move toward it. More than that you have to know what you are good at and what
you offer the world so that you can organize your efforts in the best way
possible.
12
So what exactly is Ikiga? Well… the real question it would seem is what is your
13 14
reason for life, that is to say what is you reason for living. This question is not
meant in any sort of esoteric manner. In the context of this discussion, this is

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Report: Ikigai and Leadership

15
as real as it gets. For many of us the question sits at the heart of what makes
us happy or more poignantly, what is standing in the way of our happiness.
In many ways, the ability and opportunity to ask this question is seen as a form
of privilege. Although there is some truth to that, there most certainly should
not be. Every person needs to ask this question of themselves and every leader
must answer this question before they dare assume the mantle. This question
is the beginning of wisdom through self-awareness.
Leaders, I charge you, know thyself.
16
Ikigai stands as a four tier concept. It is certainly more complex than that but
this is the structural base. By addressing these four questions of the self we
can come it, the purpose of our lives as realized through self-examination. At
17
the end of the day it also comes down to making a living, after all the purpose
of your life must also sustain your life. To be fair it might not be possible to
make a living by following your Ikigai or perhaps not in the short term. However,
being mindful of your Ikigai can only be bene cial. After all, as Socrates said,
The unexamined life is not worth living.
Question 1- What do you love?
18 19
On the surface this question seems innocuous. However there aren’t many
things in life more important than this. In the rst place, what you love is what
drives you. What you love inspires you. But, we have to be careful. What we love
can often destroy us. By examining what you love you can make sure that your
20
love is something positive. This gives you the opportunity to grow that love and
reinforce it with knowledge and purpose and help it mature. On the ip side, if
21
your love is a negative, you can isolate it and work on it. Thus you can either
remove it and replace it with something more positive or you can grow past it
and make sure that it does not cause you harm. Whatever it is that you put in
this box, it is clear that it should be held in the highest esteem of your cognitive

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Report: Ikigai and Leadership

22 23
conscious mind. Also remember that you can love as may things as your heart
can carry. Love abundantly and fully. Never, ever, diminish your love.
Question 2- What does the world need?
This question is not as broad as it would seem. Start small, local, and move
24
outward from there. What does your would need? Or you could start broader
and then move concentrically closer to home. In either case, this means you
need to look at the world we live in. Conversely, to the question of love being
directed inward, the question of what the world needs is directed outward. This
could be practical for example a product that will change an entire industry or
an abstract idea that will change the world for the better.
Question 3- What can I be paid for?
This is perhaps the hardest question to answer because the answer exists
outside the self. The related question of what people are willing to pay for is
25
also something needs to be looked at. Interestingly there is also a time element
26
that needs to be looked at here. There are many products that were complete
ops when rst released but ended up being a massive success when the
world caught up with it. The best example of this phenomenon is the sel e
27 28
stick. It was invented in the 1980’s by Hiroshi Ueda, but only gained popularity
after his patent ran out in 2003. During that time the “telescopic extender for
29 30
supporting compact camera” as Ueda called it was actually considered one of
the most useless inventions of the century. But then something amazing
happened, the age of the phone camera heralded the age of the sel e. Thus
when Wayne Fromm brought the device back and renamed it the Sel e Stick it
31
suddenly became one of the most important accessories and a must have tech
item for the discerning sel e model. So, when you answer this question make
32
sure your answers are dynamic and make sure that you are ready change with
the market.

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Report: Ikigai and Leadership

Question 4 - What are you good at?

Once you answered the preceding questions you can tackle this one. Here it is
33
vital to be honest with yourself. You have to be honest with yourself throughout
the process but here there is a particular danger. At the end of the day
34
whatever you decide to pursue must entail some level of pro ciency in order to
35
garner success. You cannot decide that your Ikigai is be the world’s greatest
36
singer if are tone deaf. Once you have metered out the preceding questions you
have to take a realistic view of what you are good at the see how that can work
37
in relation to the other elements.
The way all this plays into leadership is obvious when looking at Ikigai through
38
the lens of leadership, however this is also a valuable exercise for those who
39
follow. Firstly, you have to know yourself in order to ascertain whether or not
40
you agree with the person you have decided to follow. After all one cannot just
blindly follow. At the same time, as a follower, you have to sometimes let the
leader know that you don’t like the direction they are taking and that means you
have be to acutely aware of what you believe in.
It is important to make sure that we hold our leaders to a higher standard and
this means we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. The fact of the
matter is that once we have a leader, it is far too easy to become complacent in
how we interact with that leader. In a word this kind of thinking is lazy. This is
one of the problems with the current paradigm of leadership, we have created
this false idea that the leader is supposed to think for us. This paradigm is
further perpetuated by the leaders because they are more concerned with
holding on to their power than with the act of leadership.
This is the fundamental failure of leadership and yet we cannot blame the
41
leaders. Human nature being what it is this is a natural out shoot of power.
Power corrupts; there is no doubt about that. Therefore we must hold our

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Report: Ikigai and Leadership

leaders to task and make sure that the feedback loop is positive. To do this we
have to be secure in ourselves and this is where Ikigai can make a huge impact.
Final thoughts
42
Question everything. There is nothing wrong with wanting to gain better
understanding. Any leader that is afraid of questions has missed the point of
43
leadership. As the leader your task is to take the organisation to an optimum
44
state of being, to do this you have to listen to your followers, your critics and
45
detractors. Being the leader does not make you right. Being right makes you a
46
leader. I have been told often that I always want to be right, as if that a bad
thing. It’s not. It’s a very good thing. The real issue is insisting you are right
regardless of evidence to the contrary.
Great leaders can and must acknowledge their failures and shortcomings. As a
leader, if you are wrong, you must stand on the highest platform and proclaim
47 48
this to your follows. This is not weakness it is strength. This will allow the
49 50
leader to course correct and make sure the organizational integrity is
51
maintained.The leader has to be right all the time. The only way to truly achieve
this state is to constantly review what you know and be ready to adjust your
knowledge. Keep in mind that you never know what people are capable of and
you can always learn something new, from anyone. Remember, the wise man
learns more from the fool than the fool does from the wise man.

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 Report: Ikigai and Leadership

1. In order to → To Wordy sentences Clarity

2. a number of → Wordy sentences Clarity

several, some, many

3. in order to → to Wordy sentences Clarity

4. constructively Wordy sentences Clarity

5. organisation → organization Mixed dialects of English Correctness

6. a great Determiner use (a/an/the/this, etc.) Correctness

7. function, Comma misuse within clauses Correctness

8. organisation → organization Mixed dialects of English Correctness

9. time, Comma misuse within clauses Correctness

10. Moreover, Comma misuse within clauses Correctness

11. to Wordy sentences Clarity

12. Ikiga → Ikea Misspelled words Correctness

13. say, Comma misuse within clauses Correctness

14. you → your Pronoun use Correctness

15. us, Comma misuse within clauses Correctness

16. four tier → four-tier Misspelled words Correctness

17. day, Comma misuse within clauses Correctness

18. surface, Comma misuse within clauses Correctness

19. However, Comma misuse within clauses Correctness

20. allows you Wordy sentences Clarity

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 Report: Ikigai and Leadership

21. a negative Determiner use (a/an/the/this, etc.) Correctness

22. Also, Comma misuse within clauses Correctness

23. may → many Confused words Correctness

24. your → you Pronoun use Correctness

25. that needs Pronoun use Correctness

26. Many products were Wordy sentences Clarity

27. 980’s → 980s Incorrect noun number Correctness

28. Ueda, Comma misuse within clauses Correctness

29. the compact Determiner use (a/an/the/this, etc.) Correctness

30. actually Wordy sentences Clarity

31. must have → must-have Misspelled words Correctness

32. to change Incorrect verb forms Correctness

33. , to Comma misuse within clauses Correctness

34. in order to → to Wordy sentences Clarity

35. is be → is Incorrect verb forms Correctness

36. tone deaf → tone-deaf Misspelled words Correctness

37. in relation to → Wordy sentences Clarity

about, to, with, concerning

38. however, Comma misuse within clauses Correctness

39. in order to → to Wordy sentences Clarity

40. all, Comma misuse within clauses Correctness

41. out shoot → outshoot Confused words Correctness

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 Report: Ikigai and Leadership

42. a better Determiner use (a/an/the/this, etc.) Correctness

43. organisation → organization Mixed dialects of English Correctness

44. , and Comma misuse within clauses Correctness

45. the leader → a leader Determiner use (a/an/the/this, etc.) Correctness

46. right, Punctuation in compound/complex Correctness

sentences

47. a weakness Determiner use (a/an/the/this, etc.) Correctness

48. a strength Determiner use (a/an/the/this, etc.) Correctness

49. course correct → Misspelled words Correctness

course-correct

50. the organizational Determiner use (a/an/the/this, etc.) Correctness

51. . The Improper formatting Correctness

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