We look with uncertainty
beyond the old choices
for clear-cut answers
to a softer, more permeable aliveness
which is every moment at the brink of death;
for something new is being born in us
 if we but let it.
We stand at a new doorway,
awaiting that which comes . . .
daring to be human creatures,
vulnerable to the beauty of existence.
 Learning to love.
—Anne Hillman -
 

 ​Many years ago I worked as personal assistant to a very difficult Financial Manager. Lao Tzu would have had a thing or two to say about him.  This man had an ego the size of a house.  He seemed to enjoy undermining and unsettling his staff, as though needing to constantly re-affirm his own superiority by making us all feel incompetent.  Today, we’d call him a bully.

In order to survive, my own ego came into play, and work came to feel more like a competition, which I spent my days trying to win.  I did everything I could to always appear cool, calm and competent, never asking for help or giving him any suggestion that I mightn’t understand something.  Even when that something  was completely new to me.  I worked around him as much as possible, because direct dealings often resulted in a bruised ego.  Mine, not his.   But the worst aspect, I think, was watching how he undermined my colleagues, particularly the junior staff, noticing how he damaged them, left them questioning their own sense of worth. 

Lao Tzu’s definition of a ‘wicked leader’ sums up this manager perfectly.  He was truly disliked by his people.  He created a culture of fear where there was no place for personal vulnerability or honesty. Needless to say, I didn't last long at that job, though when I made the decision to leave after only six months in the position, it felt to me like a personal failure.  He’d won and I’d lost.  At the same time, though, I realised that it was the organisation that had lost the most.

An extreme example of poor leadership, perhaps, but one that illustrates the nature of ego and how it can drive our behaviour through fear, desire and ambition.  An organisational culture that requires its people to always appear strong, objective and goal-focused will operate with an undercurrent of fear. Egos flourish in these environments because they’re all about having to look good in the eyes of others.  The need to be seen as successful, important, competent.  Competition will flourish also, because winning looks good, it strokes our ego, and it helps us feel good.  But it’s important to remember that this emphasis on outward appearances masks the true fears beneath.  Fear of failure.  Fear of not looking the part.  Fear of not belonging.  

The problem is that when our behaviour is driven by what others think of us, or what we look like, or what we manage to achieve, we will look outwards, not inwards, when making decisions.  We ignore, and risk losing touch with those deeper parts of ourselves where we're able to access our inner truth, our feelings and intuition, our values and beliefs. 

When we're able to step back from our ego and see it as a separate part of ourselves, we’re better able to recognise and control our ego-driven fears.  As I said in my last blog entry Head versus Heart, once we’re freed from the controlling influence of the ego, we find we have the courage to show up in the world with all of ourselves, with our strengths and weaknesses, our successes and failures.  With fear out of the way, trust is able to flourish, and we’re more likely to connect with a deeper sense of purpose in life and the courage to stand up and strive for what we believe in.

The journey to leadership begins from within – sometimes as a dream or sense of need, perhaps as a commitment to a cause or the desire to serve or solve a problem.

But the frantic pace and outer demands of the journey – the deadlines, the schedules, the overload of information and communication – can often overwhelm and cause us to lose this vital inner connection.

The Art & Spirit of Leadership is a unique leadership development program designed to help you reconnect with the leader within. Through the Circle of Trust approach, developed by educator and author Parker J. Palmer, you’ll have the opportunity to reflect on, renew and develop your inner wisdom and the courage to act on it.  You will learn practices that help you:

• Strengthen your resilience and well-being with new tools that help you to reflect and act upon what matters most
• Create trustworthy relationships to improve collaboration and effectiveness
• Use new approaches to listening and asking questions
• Manage the complexities and tensions of the organisation and/or system in which you work
• Develop the capacity to lead a more, authentic, meaningful and engaged life, both personally and professionally

​You can download a brochure here or contact Mennie for further information.

In conversation with a colleague recently, I was dismayed to hear that we shouldn't use the word ‘heart’ when talking about leadership development.  Apparently ‘heart’ is frowned upon because it has subjective connotations which don’t sit well with the constant demand today for objective, measurable data.  Talk of the leader’s heart moves us into the realms of human feelings and intuition, both of which are clearly unmeasurable and, worse still, somewhat mysterious.  So this simply won’t do in today’s organisational environment which requires strong, objective, outcome-driven leadership.

As I said, I was dismayed - in fact I was disheartened - because I refer to ‘heart’ regularly when I'm talking about what we each bring to our work in the world – e.g. “the teacher’s heart” – “the leader’s heart”.  To me, ‘heart’ is so much more than simply the centre of our emotions and feelings.  When I refer to ‘heart’, I'm talking about the very core of our being, the place where we bring together our intellect, our knowledge and experience, our values and beliefs, and yes, also, our feelings and intuition.  When we’re able to operate from a place where all these parts of ourselves are integrated, feelings and intuition become an important source of creativity and wisdom.  From this integrated centre we are able to step back and separate from our ego, and recognise how ego loves to control our lives with fear, ambitions and desire.  Once freed from the controlling influence of the ego, we find we have the courage to show up in the world with all of ourselves, with our strengths and weaknesses, our successes and failures.  From this integrated centre we also can find a deeper sense of purpose in life and the courage to stand up and strive for what we believe in.

The domain of the heart is also where we develop our human capacity for making meaningful connections and building rich, respectful and trustworthy relationships with ourselves, with others and with our shared environment.

For me, the word ‘heart’ signifies the source of our personal integrity and it is central to our sense of humanity.
​
I believe the world needs more leaders with heart.

I am an optimist.  My default position has always been that things will get better; they will turn out for the good.   It’s easy to be an optimist on a personal level, but much more difficult on a global scale.   That’s because the future of our beautiful planet and our human race looks bleak most days, and downright doomed on others.

As an optimist, I love it when my optimism is reinforced and justified when good things happen around me.  And right now I’ve got an enormously good feeling of good things happening around me, with the potential that even better things are about to happen.  And I’m talking on a global scale here.  For me, the future of the world is looking brighter.

That’s because I’m one of the 26,000 people from all around the world (from nearly 170 countries) who are taking part in a massive, open (free), on-line learning course through EdX - Transforming Business, Society & Self  led by Otto Scharmer from MIT.   We’re exploring the environmental, social, and spiritual-cultural challenges we’re facing across the globe and the entrenched structures and paradigms of thought that mean our societies collectively keep on creating results that, individually, none of us want.    

It’s remarkable to realise that there are so many people – people from across the globe, from different cultures, with different beliefs and practices – yet we all share similar hopes and dreams, and worries and fears for the future of our planet and those who live on her.

Otto Scharmer ‘s U.Lab heralds a global movement for good of a scale and complexity never before experienced.   He practises what he preaches by leading from the emerging future*.  There are already many people in many places around the world doing many good things in many different areas of need.  But this massive global learning platform has the potential to bring the energy and visions all these change-makers together and create a momentum for change powerful enough and broad enough to shake the entrenched practices and paradigms of the past, and widen the opening to allow the emergence of a much healthier, more just and altogether rosier, future.

It inspires me to know that my work as a Facilitator-in-preparation with the Center for Courage & Renewal is based on principles and practices that resonate very closely with Scharmer’s vision for the emerging future.     I am part of a global movement that is part of a much greater global movement for change.

It is I who must begin.
once I begin, once I try –
here and now, 
right where I am,
not excusing myself
by saying that things
would be easier elsewhere,
without grand speeches and
ostentatious gestures,
but all the more persistently
-to live in harmony
with the ‘voice of Being’, as I
understand it within myself
-as soon as I begin that,
I suddenly discover,
to my surprise, that
I am neither the only one,
nor the first,
nor the most important one
to have set out
upon that road.

 Whether all is really lost
or not depends entirely on
whether or not I am lost.

 Vaclav Havel
(Human rights activist, political dissident and first president of democratic Czechoslovakia)