Sharon Eden – Inner Leadership

Leaders are loved, hated, praised, villified, applauded or condemned by some people some of the time.  Most likely all of the time in different measure.

As a leader, you won’t get to hear the negative stuff spoken behind closed doors or lurking silently on other people’s agendas.  Apart  from the critical missives from brave souls who’ve got the balls or don’t care what you think of them.

Yet it’s absolutely critical you do get to hear the ‘unspeakable’ about yourself.  It guards against grandiosity.  It guards against  complacency.  It guards against it all being about yourself.  So welcome the next constructive criticism or dung throwing as a pre-emptive strike for your professional and personal growth.  It’s world class fodder for developing your Inner Leadership.

And, as a leader, it’s critical YOU speak the unspeakable!  It’s critical for evolution and creative change.  It’s critical for your own credibility.

I’m sick of  UK governmental leaders for their grisly, sickly smiles and political shitck.   Say we screwed up and we’re sorry.  Say our party’s got nothing new to offer and we’re just making it look as if it has.  Where’s their courage to challenge worn out ideas?

I’m sick of the captains of industry, business and banking who pay lip service to social and ecological responsibility.  Say we’re only doing this to look good in the share-holders’ and customers’ eyes… but we don’t give a toss really.  Where’s their heart, soul and common humanity for others, our world and themselves?

Where are the Galileos, the Ghandis, the Darwins?  Where are the Emily Pankhursts, the Edith Sitwells, the Simone de Beauvoirs?  Leaders who in their time and their field spoke the unspeakable whatever the cost.

Where am I in all of this?  And where are you?

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!