Sharon Eden – Inner Leadership

Pleeeeeez!… If it’s genuine why headline it?  It will speak for itself.  You don’t have to do or be certain things to be ‘authentic’.  You just are!  So, with sceptical mind, I went to a conference workshop this week  entitled ‘Developing Authentic Leadership’.

To be honest, I think I went for a fight. I think I went anticipating the same old same old ideas and formulae that I could challenge and kick at.

Ian Roberts from The Thinking Partnership started with a declaration his piece wasn’t in traditional workshop style.  People were free to make comments and ask questions (so could learn from each other anyway) but he wasn’t into a traditional workshop… Or, it transpired, a traditional anything else!

Instead, he launched into several stories which showed how fake most of which goes by the name of authenticity is in our culture.  And how it’s often seen in self leadership as finding your ‘essence’ in a narcissistic way, abandoning relationships, home, work, whatever and looking for some magical fit some mystery somewhere else.

I loved it!  He was talking stuff  in my upcoming book, albeit with a different approach and a different language.  There were a few minor points where I disagreed but, hey, at core, he and I are absolutely on the same wave length,

Some other ‘coaches’ in the large audience most certainly didn’t love it!

They expressed disappointment his ‘workshop’ wasn’t in the traditional formula.  They said they were confused… always a good sign indicating old ideas are breaking down and new ones in the process of forming.

They commented on how his manner had created a negative emotional reaction in them (so much for response-ability!).  They expressed feelings mostly of anger or frustration, some of feeling insulted by his approach.  And some verged on being personally attacking.

Never mind their palpable high levels of anxiety on having their expectations of the workshop and their beliefs about authentic leadership challenged big time!

And, if they didn’t comment, a large number of them just got up and left.

These were coaches!  These were people to whom other people entrust their precious selves for growth.  Yet they couldn’t sit with their own discomfort, dislike, diagreement, inner conflict or whatever else was going on for them.  So, how on earth are they going to be able to sit with that of their clients when at a growing edge???

Found a great quotation from Einstein.  ‘If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.’

Now, I don’t believe there’s one essential truth… Ian was outlining ‘the’ truth from his perspective.  And he wasn’t elegant.  He gave it straight from the shoulder.  He responded to comments and questions, however uncomfortable, very much in the moment, present, standing in his own ground, saying it how it was for him…

He was modelling authentic leadership, what I call Inner Leadership!… Being aware of the other person’s position and feelings, being aware of his own reactions, which he later used as teaching points, and choosing neither to be defiant or compliant about the criticism but to respond honestly in the moment as best he could.

What a fabulous, fabulous opportunity for learning!

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I was going to post about my unsuccessful attempts to break in some new and ‘to die for’ shoes which are just a bit too small and cramp my toes.  I was going to use that as a metaphor for leaders who are themselves just a bit too small and, however much you try to stretch them, their ‘leather’ just won’t give.

Then it struck me like lightning that maybe the topic was about something I should be asking  myself…

“Where am I cramped?  Where is my leadership leather resisting a stretch?”

Looks like I stumbled on rich questions.  They’re marinading as I type and I’ll get back to you when they’re well and truly cooked.  In the meantime…

How about you???

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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!

I read a lot about leaders needing to be proactive, set the vision, support and develop their ‘followers’.  Sometimes the literature makes the leader sound like a benevolent version of the old patriarchal order, though ’serving’ rather than sounding off.

However, the wise leader knows when to retreat.  She knows when to let those she holds get on with things without her intervention.  She knows when she’s screwed up and that ‘fessing up is the ethical and ecological thing to do… a very wise retreat!

She also knows when to withdraw to nourish her body, feelings, mind and creative energy.

This leader’s taking her own advice, leaving for 7 days withdrawal from my normal world.  Ostensibly it’s to complete the first edit of my upcoming book.  But it’s also for woodland, lake, quietness and warm company, palpable history which touches my soul… and great food!

When’s the last time you served yourself with a leadership ‘retreat’?

The UK’s just crawled out of recession with a whimper.  Davos has just failed to reach consensus.

I keep getting told, due to the crash, there’s been a shift in the ‘doing business paradigm’ towards flattened hierarchies, a collaborative approach, shared responsibility and… I almost want to burst into song!  ‘The hills are alive with the sound of music…’

They might have been alive with the ‘we’re all going to work together more humanely and creatively…’  but I don’t see much evidence of it.  Humans make all kinds of promises when in trouble,  like praying to a god.  Only to renege on those promises when things get better.  A selective ‘forgetting’.

For an old paradigm to be overthrown you have to reach critical mass.  But I’m impatient for the new and hacked off by the seductive pull of the old.

IT ISN’T WORKING ANY MORE!

And what holds us back clutching at the familiar?  A ‘familiar’ outdated and dysfunctional for a world of business moving and vibrating  far faster than we’ve ever known it  before.  What holds us back is our enduring existential fear of change and the unknown!

Fears are there to be worked with creatively.  Name them, face them and then ‘take tea with them’; welcome them into your parlour.  Then and only then can you achieve mistressy of your fears through developing that Inner Leadership.

Then and only then can you creatively inspire, influence, motivate and mobilise yourself, as well as others, to create and BE THE CHANGE … a massive, quadruple win  for business and humanity as a whole.

I’m so riled about the slipping back and reneging on potential.  And that ‘hot’ response tells me there’s work for me to do.  To what music of change and to what fears am I not paying attention?  And to what music of change and what fears aren’t you?

Less is more!

A great maxim I learned over and over in my trainings as a psychotherapist, coach and trainer. Get out of your own way and you get out of your client’s or group’s way.  It’s all about them, not you.

Unless, of course, you want to be the sort of leader who acts like the worst kind of guru or super star.  Showmanship, power trip and little substance.

Having set the vision and outlined the outcome, trust your ‘group’ to achieve it.  Be available for consultation where needed and, when it is, be a coach. It’s not an opportunity to show how clever you are.  It’s an opportunity to be of service.  To help your people  expand  their abilities and their own Inner Leadership.

Unless, of course, you want to be the sort of leader who gets their rocks off with control and power over others.  The sort of leader who constantly interferes, disables their people and creates dependance on themself as leader.  ‘They need me!’  Who says???

Create clear and wholesome relationship which offers potential for others to respond similarly.  Act unselfishly and they’ll respond by simply doing what it is that needs to be done.

Unless, of course, you want to be the sort of leader who manipulates rather than influences.  The kind of leader who’s always got a hidden agenda.  The kind of leader who’s always out for ‘what’s in it for me?’

Personal development is essential for good leadership.

The ability to lead yourself, to make choices about who you are and how you behave is essential for good leadership.  The ability to disable your historic behavioural reactions, narcissistic needs and the dramas they create is essential for good leadership.

Good leadership is always, always about doing less and being more!

The rush of the festive season can have us gasp with all we ‘have to’ do and then collapse on the 25th when really it’s a day to celebrate new life.  While I respect those for whom the traditional meaning of Christmas is sacred, I’m talking about another aspect of sacredness which applies specifically to you.

Your self!

It’s that ’self’ within which calls you through fair means or foul, any whichway it can, to pay attention to yourself and how you’re being in the world.  The purpose of that?  To learn how to improve yourself; a metaphorical new birth of how you are and how you operate as a human being… which of itself defines the quality of your leadership!

It’s that ’self’ within which urges, prods and even demands through kicking the door down that you ‘grow’ yourself through developing and refining your Inner Leadership.

As a leader THAT is your sacred work!  A sacred response-ability to the people you serve, the communities you serve, the organisations you serve… and oh so importantly to yourself.

So take some quietness in the hub-bub of the season to ask…

In what ways can I improve my leadership for 2010?

The logical ya-di-ya-di-ya answers usually come first.  While, of couse, they have value… you knew them anyway.  So keep making notes until you get what might seem biazarre or nonsensical ones.  They hold all the juice!

Then put your answers out of sight and let your Inner Leader get on with the job of clarification.  Go back to your notes at least 7 days later and be surprised and delighted by what you discover.

Wishing you the most inspirational and revelational festive season…

Much richness to you!

Just read a blog by Mindy Gibbins-Klein ‘Be bold, be opinionated or don’t bother’ And I realised how lazy I’ve got by being ‘busy’ with 28 hour days.  What a great way to keep myself from being sharp and at the edge of my thinking.  What a great way to keep myself safe from being shot down or receiving validation!

There’s no room to grow when a leader plays safe… for others, for the organisation or for their self.  And lack of growth guarantees paralysis, depression and death by atrophy because the market is always moving on.

Definitely time to get off my butt!