Three Essential Steps To Fierce Leadership
Fierce is a word which gets bad press. Look it up in any dictionary and you’ll get meanings like violently aggressive or frightening, unpleasantly strong or intense.
Yet ‘fierce’ is the heart of passion and, without fierce leadership, inner or outer, you cannot do the not do-able, you cannot speak the unspeakable… and that’s no leadership at all.
Correction! Without fierceness, I cannot do the not do-able. I cannot speak the unspeakable.
And my heart screeches to break free. I’m a maverick for god’s sake! I always have been… yet there are times when I truss myself up for fear of not being acceptable, of being ‘too much’. And so might you.
In leadership, being ‘too much’ is exactly what’s required sometimes. What would the human race have missed through the absence of Galileo, Einstein, Edith Sitwell and Rosa Parks. And if you don’t know who those women were, go look them up. They also carried fierceness in their breasts… as do you and I.
At other times in leadership, being ‘too much’ could be inappropriate and destuctive… but you and I betray ourselves if we use that fear to gag and disempower our self. There is a truth in it so far as anything can be used for good or evil… but it’s not the truth.
Sometimes, I get told it is the truth, that I am ‘too much’, by people who don’t want to hear my challenges. No surprise… because I’m not here to be quiet. I’m not here to let you get away with the small version of you with which you can fool yourself. Just as I’m not willing to accept my own self-deception.
To pay you the respect you deserve, I first have to do that for myself!
So, if you don’t want to work deeply and at a pace, don’t work with me. Find a different kind of facilitator because…
I’m fierce!
Both in the gentleness of support and love in which I’ll hold you and in my unwillingness to collude with your small self… my unwillingness to collude with the internal gremlins which trick you, the trances into which you fall asleep and the stories you weave to keep yourself there. All of which is but a loving echo of my unwillingness to collude with my own.
Tears are flowing through my eyes now as I type BE FIERCE!… I’m passionate for you to be a fierce leader for yourself and others! To be that kind of a leader in a world needing you and I to step up, speak out and take action.
Three essential steps…
1. Absolutely take on board that you have the potential to do harm as well as good with fierce leadership.
2. Sharpen the senses and skills of your discernment so as to be able to distinguish the quality of your action for good rather than harm.
3. Regularly sit in that ‘dynamo of silence‘ I wrote of in my last ezine. That dynamo of silence which fuels and inspires your discernment and your leadership.
Then, go be a fierce leader. Go do fierce leadership. And embody it boisterously or gently… however you choose!
Your powerful words give me so much courage and inspire me more every time I read them.
Thank you Sharon!
Love the redefinition and passion shown here Sharon, the warning to be aware of the damage that can be done as well as the good, & the dynamo of silence place we can all benefit from operating out of. Fierce Leadership as you define it is so powerful – to be used with discernment, care & as you imply, in our own way. I hope our political leaders read this!
I am with you, Fierce and Gentle Woman!
You are the first post I read, after a long break, bathed into feminine energy of birth and creation.
In order to give birth to our true self, our inner leader, there has to be some fierce and courageous battle to win!
With compassion and gentleness,for all the women of the world,I am grateful for your being too much!
Marion
Love your honesty, energy and enthusiasm! Oh how I’ve suffered for mine in times past. Don’t regret it now. But I am pleased I’ve learned to work with the energy with discernment now – not always true in the past!
You are right – great leaders are both fierce and gentle, depending on the need. Keep up the bold message, Sharon.
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Tracy, Zoe, Marion, Wendy and Steve… value your comments… This post was burning a hole in me and your contributions vlidate that ‘burning’. Thank you!
Sharon – I agree. Sometimes to bring out the best in people it is necessary to be fierce. Being gentle at the wrong time can be enabling. The old adage ” tough love” is rooted in this great concept but as you say has to be implemented wisely and empathetically!
Absolutely agree with your post !! Would like to see more people in my profession (HR), and more people in the workplace in general, have genuine passion for what they do. If we had more “fierce leadership”, we could break out of cultures that seem to churn endlessly, and truly move things forward. Thanks for your thoughts !!
Great point about ‘tough love’ Dorothy… Thank you for your oh so pertinent comment!
Pleasure Steve… Couldn’t agree more about HR! And that’s what I’m certainly about, getting more passion into the workplace. Thanks for your excellent thoughts.
Yes, Sharon, to be a fierce woman conjures up shock and horrow for some – whether business leaders or not – and yet the above contains the combination of masculine and feminine and certainly inspires me. Keep the home fires burning.
Fierce and passionate come through here! And yes, I believe that leadership has that edge to it. It comes across as intimidating sometimes, but also so attractive! Like looking at a panther. There is something about someone fiercely standing for what they believe in that touches a raw nerve with everyone around. Funny, I wrote this week on Dr. Jack King’s blog about leaders not usually seeing themselves as gentle. The way you put it here, both are two sides of a single, shiny coin.
Yes, Monica… that’s the way I see it, two sides of the one coin as in the yin yang. Thanks for adding that special ingredient.
And thank you, Irene, for the reminder it’s always ‘both/and’ rather than ‘either/or’.
This is such a great resource that you are providing and you give it away for free. I enjoy seeing websites that understand the value of providing a prime resource for free. I truly loved reading your post. Thanks!
Hi Physical Therapist… Appreciate you dropping by… you@re welcome!
great post as usual!
Thanks Mark.. appreciate the feedback.
Appreciate your feedback… Thanks!