Let’s begin with a paraphrase from the great Spanish poet, Antonio Machado: ‘What have you done with what has been entrusted to you?’
As a Leader, what has been entrusted to you? Consider the following.
Yourself. Nosce te ipsum. ‘Know thyself.’ If you want to understand and lead others begin by looking into your own heart. Here are two questions that might help you know yourself as a person and as a leader:
Person = What are three choices you have made during your life thus far that have powerfully contributed to your being the person you are today?
Leader = What are three choices you have made during your life thus far that have powerfully contributed to your being the leader you are today?
Seeking to understand your character strengths, limitations and growing edges (your virtues, your vices, your core values, you guiding life principles, your philosophy of life and leadership, your deep tacit assumptions, your stereotypes and your prejudices)
The relationship you have with yourself. On a consistent basis, do you nurture more than deplete your P.I.E.S.? [i.e. the Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual Dimensions that help define who you are] Do you identify and develop your ‘natural’ skills, talents, and abilities? Do you identify your virtues and vices and emphasize your virtues more than your vices? Do you forgive yourself when you stumble or fall? When you are ‘wrong’ do you recognize it and do you admit it? When you break ‘trust’ do you seek forgiveness, reconciliation and healing?
The relationship between you and those who have freely chosen to follow you; the by-product of this relationship is ‘leadership.’ Consider the tap roots that nurture and sustain this relationship: trust, caring, support-accountability, clear agreements, core values, core guiding principles, the ethical and moral use of power. Do you help one another grow and develop? When trust is broken is there forgiveness, healing and reconciliation?
The by-product, leadership [i.e. the relationship between the leader and those who freely choose to follow], can be health-full, dis-ease-full, functional, dysfunctional, effective, ineffective, faithful to…, unfaithful to…, high achieving and distinctive, or low achieving and mediocre.
Developing and building your capacity for certain disciplines, including but not limited to: Reflection, Listening, Inquiry, and Dialogue.
Developing your skills, your use of the tools, and your capacity in order to engage and address: Problems, Paradoxes, Polarities, and Dilemmas.
Developing the skill and the capacity to persuade and influence (and to employ these more than coercion and manipulation AND to understand why you choose to coerce and manipulate when you do so).
Gentle reader, there are more ‘Considerations’ but for now, I invite you to spend some time reflecting upon these (you might invite a leader you know to explore them; perhaps even to explore them with you).