Sharon Eden – Inner Leadership

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  A ‘familiar’ outdated and dysfunctional for a world of business moving and vibrating  far faster than we’ve ever known it  before.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?

The deepest essence of  leadership is Inner Leadership.  Logic tells me that no Inner Leadership means no followers.  But I’ve known some seriously untrustworthy leaders with generous followings.  So, how on earth do they do that?

Suddenly, thinking of Inner Leadership, I realised naive superb me had been seeing through her idealistic glasses again!  It was obvious why untrustworthy leaders can have generous followings.

Firstly, ‘presence’ is the stuff of leaders while charisma is the stuff of ‘gurus’ and ‘superstars’… who also have followers.

No surprises then that the untrustworthy leaders of whom I’m aware absolutely excel at doing charisma.  They’re very, very, very affable.  They’re so good at consciously creating high levels of rapport that they’re almost ‘snake oil salesmen’… convincing to the point of ludicrousness.

Secondly, I’ve followed untrustworthy leaders myself  in the past, one over many years.  And, guess what?  I did so for my learning!

I found out exactly how it felt to be on the receiving end of untrustworthy leadership.  When reality dawned, it wasn’t a pleasant experience or one I wanted to ever inflict on anyone else.

Plus those untrustworthy leaders mirrored back to me my own untrustworthiness, my own ability for ‘snake oil’ salesmanship.  I discovered my own superifical ‘guru/superstar’ and the part of me who could shaft other people  in the name of self-preservation and success.

Happily, being aware of your personality ‘parts’ can bring you freedom from them.  Only when you can identify with a part can you then learn to dis-identify from it; to have mastery/mistressy over it rather than it being in charge of and running you.

So I feel much gratitude for the untrustworthy leaders I followed.  I am thankful for their pivotal role in my growth as a human being as well as a leader; for their contribution to my own Inner Leadership.

And, as well as learning from trustworthy leaders, here’s a big ‘Yayyyy’ for their opposites, the untrustworthy ones and all they can teach us… however challenging that might be.

Where’s the audacity in organisations and their people?  Even with the current economic situation, where much has been said about doing things differently, I see clients wanting to return to the status quo ‘comfort’.  No change here thank you!

Courageous, intrepid, dauntless, adventurous, impertinent and forward.  Extremely bold, daring and original.  Highly inventive.  Lively, unrestrained and uninhibited.

Audacious!

Einstein, Elizabeth Fry, Leonardo da Vinci, Florence Nightingale, Richard Branson, Anita Roddick, Steve Jobs, Mo Mowlem, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, my 73 year old aunt graduating with her first degree…

Extra-ordinary people?  Or just ordinary people going the extra mile with themselves?

And what if you listened to your own ‘inner leadership’, the voice which calls you to your own extra mile?

Uncomfortable?  Scary?  Likely to cause controversy?  Possibly. Yet what’s the enormous price of you playing ’small’ and denying your own purpose, your own passion and your own power?

What’s the thing only your voice can say, only you can be and only you can do which will be of service to others, humanity and yourself?

When you know that… go, be and do it!

As Steve Jobs once said… “Here’s to the crazy ones…”

Last night I caught Shirley Bassey, a veteran UK superstar and cabaret artist, in a TV tribute show. There she was, still strong voiced, thrilling her fans, bumping and grinding in sequinned splendour.

I was impressed by her being true to her brand after all these years. And, at the same time, I felt poignancy that nothing about her ‘performance’ appeared different to how she was decades ago.

Not her problem! The perception was of course all mine.

Particularly as personal and professional evolution are two of my important values. Being an evolving ’self” which gets richer over time and, in consequence, enriches your role… rather than you just ‘performing’.

An evolving self which not only engages with others but enables them to engage with you too. A relationhip of presence and respect which encourages and applauds the best from others; which serves them and, by so doing, enriches you too.

Dame Shirley gave me a great gift. In those moments I got the full impact of a conscious realisation. The kind which hits you like a sledge hammer when the slow burn of creeping awareness hasn’t worked.

I’m leaving behind my own version of ‘bump and grind’. An ‘in-yer-face’ personality ‘performance’ behind which I could hide my evolving self. A defence fueled by an historic fear of paradoxically being ‘too much’.

No more! As Karan Salmansohn said, “You’re nobody ’til somebody hates you”! Or as Seth Godin puts it, when you’re being your ‘remarkable’ self you’ll always have criticisers. And what I know is the more you embody your evolving self, the more ably you’ll deal with those underminers.

So… what’s it to be? ‘Bump and grind’ or evolving self, ‘bump and grind’ or evolving self, ‘ bump and grind’ or …… ?

It’s over a month since I last blogged… a whole month.  Yes.. it’s been one humdinger of a month with lots of calls on my time, energy, emotions, mind, body and spirit.

And that’s no excuse for not turning up!

I weary of the ‘authenticity’ ploy used by some web personalities as to why that link didn’t work or why they didn’t come up with the goods when they said they would.  Whatever the reason, bottom line is, if they’d committed to something, they just screwed up.  Like I screwed up this month.

And any Leader worth their salt takes responsibility for their actions.  Any leader worth their salt just says, “I screwed up guys. Here’s what I learned. And here’s how I intend to take this forward.”

Look forward to blogging more regularly from now on!

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