The power of intention: personal involvement and ownership (1/6)

All Leaders Initiative's "Intent-Based Leadership" approach is based on the power of "intention". This notion makes it possible to encapsulate two dimensions essential to the action of any organization: the purpose (what is our design, our objective?) and utility (do our actions, behaviours and attitudes favour achievement of this purpose?). In this series of six short articles, we clarify the notion of intention, what its particular attributes are, before concluding as a reminder about the conditions for full expression of its power.

The power of intention is

based on personal involvement and ownership. Let us start with linguistic markers by defining and etymologising the word intention. According to Larousse, it is a "Disposition of mind by which one deliberately proposes an aim; that aim itself". Earlier, Littré evoked the "Action of stretching the mind, and, consequently, movement of the soul by which one tends towards some end". And to clarify in etymological origins: "Provenç. entencio, entensio; Span. intencion; Ital. intenzione; from Lat. intentionem, action of stretching, tension, application, will, from intensum, supine of intendere, be attentive, will".

In short, intention implies a choice, a will, as well as a

tension, a movement, a dynamic. This leads us to the first essential attribute of the notion of intention: a dimension of personal involvement with respect to the intention itself that is at stake (Littré's "movement of the soul by which one tends towards some end" is in this regard both explicit and poetic…). This involvement occurs in the initiation of intention, the "possession" one has of it through one's determination. Here, "determination" must be understood in two senses: determine the intention (define it) but also be determined, resolved about it. A second mental and psychological aspect of intention related to involvement is ownership. Ownership that I make of overall intention, both vision, mission and framework for collective action. If this overall intention is brought to me (proposed or ordered…), it acquires its dynamic as soon as I appropriate it to guide my own choices and their effects.

This dimension of ownership of overall intention

invites and incites each person to think responsibly, in other words as a leader… In the next episode, we address the second key attribute of intention: being " action-oriented"…