1. Action to Being
As trait-based, charismatic and
situational theories of leadership
evolve toward process-driven,
adaptive and gender-neutral
approaches, type-A assertive
behavior is being augmented
with the proven value of listening,
balance, resilience, calm and
presence. Thanks to the work
of Richard Boyatzis and Daniel
Goleman, an understanding of
emotional intelligence’s importance
has entered the mainstream. As
a result, self-regulation, empathy,
social skills and self-awareness
are becoming key indicators of
leadership effectiveness, especially
in situations where a team needs to
think outside the box and not just
play politics with a boss who makes
all the decisions. That’s not to say
that decisive, take-charge leadership
no longer has value: There is a time
and place for both.
2. Vision to Presence
In the late 1990s, one of my regular
gigs involved facilitating lengthy
debates over mission and vision
statements, which would ultimately
get boiled down to variations on
“We are the best … .” Today, most
leaders realize what I suspected back
then: By itself, the mighty mission
statement doesn’t motivate workers.
Without an emotional connection—a
core sense of meaning and
aspiration—humans are not moved
to act.
Twenty-first-century leaders must
be mindful, connected and present
to what is happening now. Ellen
Langer and Dan Siegel have studied
the impact of mindfulness on
organizations and leaders for many
years. What they have found is slowly
making its way into boardrooms
around the globe: The ability to drop
into a mindful brain state, where
one is not analyzing or planning
but is instead observing thoughts
and sensations, produces a state of
presence where new ways of seeing
emerge. All truly powerful vision is
actually about the present, not the
future. People are moved by how
a leader expresses a core sense
of what’s possible right now. From
this place of centered and focused
presence, ideas that will transform
the future are born.
3. Ego to Eco Awareness
Otto Scharmer, founder of MIT’s
Presencing Institute, has written
about a crucial mind-shift taking
place for today’s most effective
leaders at individual, organizational
and global levels. It’s the move
from an I-based awareness (ego
perspective) to what he calls an
“eco-awareness.” For leaders who
embrace their role as a unifier and
force of inspiration, Scharmer says
this eco-awareness “creates a more
empathic and generative quality of
collective attention than people are
used to experiencing, where too
often we simply debate and reconfirm what we already know.”
There will always be a need for
strong, independent and selfassured—some might even say
egocentric—leadership, especially
in times of crisis. Yet, more and
more often, today’s real leadership
challenge lies in bringing together
the full panoply of talents a team or
an organization can leverage to solve
a problem. This collective dynamic
is where an eco-aware leader can
shine, bringing people together
into a systemic sense of cohesion,
collaboration and unity.
4. Ethical to Authentic
As a core attribute of effective
leadership for many years, ethical
thought and behavior is as important
today as ever. Yet, if we look beneath
the surface of traditional business
ethics, we find a strong bias toward
black-and-white thinking. In a
traditional hierarchy, the leader is
the ultimate arbiter of right or wrong,
and there is typically one directive
to follow: “My way or the highway.”
As Harvard Business School’s Bill
George writes, today’s leaders need
not be simply ethical, but authentic.
Authentic leaders operate in a
more nuanced way; they reflect on
decisions from the inside out, using
an internal, moral compass and
scanning for feedback from peers,
subordinates and the environment.
The difference is subtle but crucial:
Authentic leaders need to make
difficult decisions based on listening,
consensus and intuition. They
need, at times, to acknowledge
vulnerability and the limitations
of their knowledge, yet still take a
strong stand. Authenticity is more
challenging than simple judgments
of right and wrong, because today’s
world is far too complex and there
are rarely any easy answers.
5. Knowledge to Wisdom
In my last corporate job, I worked as
a consultant in a firm whose motto
at the time was, “Everything that
can be known, can be measured.”
It was a great conceit and a great
marketing tool, but it was based
on a false premise: that objective
knowledge would always win out.
Today, we know better.
Knowledge is important, and a
good leader will strive to expand his
or her foundation of facts, theory
and data, keeping up with the
latest research in a wide range of
fields. Yet wisdom, in a post-heroic
world, calls forth a different stance:
knowing what you don’t know and
learning to be facile with your internal
landscape of thoughts, feelings, and
judgments. As Edgar Schein writes,
to dwell in the unknown, asking deep
and provocative questions, rather
than espousing answers, is a more
powerful, inspirational and, ultimately,
wise ground from which to lead.
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Coaching World 29