Leadership & Prosperity

Exactly a month ago I had the privilege to deliver a leadership development workshop to 15 deeply engaged EMBA students at IE Business School in Madrid. The topic of the workshop was Leadership & Prosperity – prosper on the inside to be able to prosper on the outside. 

Leadership Quest

Everything you possess of skill, and wealth, and handicraft, wasn't it first merely a thought and a quest? 

Rumi

The true meaning of this incredible opportunity goes far beyond being a simple one-off initiative. In fact, it is part of the entire vision of changing the game of leadership in institutions where the focus would be the individual and the inner game of leadership, rather than the outer game of leadership and the analysis of competencies of leaders. This represents only a piece of the puzzle, which looks at the vision of what true humanity should be – the one that strives to be a lot bigger than individual interests, fears and limitations. This vision of humanity recognises that individual potentials are just one important particle of a collective space. A humanity that is ready to step into all directions of individual development to discover the true potential: deep within, wide around, close beside, far in front and long behind. A humanity where development of people is a starting and an ending point of all endeavours, and continuous learning is a tool for that process - a tool that is best used with openness, non-judgement, curiosity, thinking big, accepting challenges, allowing change – a humanity that is eventually bigger than individuals. 

The Madrid initiative was a part of this leadership quest and the response of the individuals to participate and experiment with the ideas we offered to them demonstrated that there is a longing for what this quest brings!

Shifting Leadership Dimensions

In this multi-dimensional model of leadership, everyone has within them the capacity to lead, and any organization or community is most dynamic, most alive, and most productive when there is a commitment to leadership at every level.

Kimsey-House

As part of our own leadership journey requirement, I was honoured to co-lead this workshop with my colleague, as Leader Beside, Cory Sanford, with the support of Raquel Ferrer, as the Leader Behind. As we asked the participants to experience each of the 5 dimensions of Co-Active Leadership, we strived to demonstrate the shift in the model between each dimension. For those who are not familiar with the Co-Active 5-dimensional leadership model (www.coactive.com), here are the dimensions and a short description of what they represent: Leader Within (authentic leader taking full responsibility for the impact), Leader in Front (having a value-based vision and engaging and inspiring others through clear direction, connection and inclusion), Leader Beside (overcoming competing priorities by creating alignment and fostering collaboration and connection), Leader Behind (knowing when to step back to create leadership opportunities for others and evoking leadership in them) and Leader in the Field (seeing the big picture and cultivating the collective intelligence). 

The participants had the opportunity to experiment with the model by physically walkingthrough the dimensions in service of anchoring the truth, which is that we all have a choice to be leaders in different dimensions and we have this choice at all times. Starting from a well-known fact that your official leading role is not a guarantee for your authentic and prosperous leadership, or as Stephen Covey has said “Leadership is a choice and not a position.”, what we longed for our participants was to recognize their values and limiting beliefs that emerged for them in each dimension, with the desire for them to be pulled (rather than pushed) to choose this edgy and yet rewarding shift between the leadership dimensions. 

In their book Scaling Leadership: Building Organizational Capability and Capacity to Create Outcomes that Matter Most co-authors Robert J. Anderson and William A. Adams have said: Creative leaders multiply their strengths beyond technical competence by leading in deep relationship, with radical humanity, passion and integrity.

What is this if not the invitation to access and deeply experience Leader Beside, Leader in Front and Leader Within in order to demonstrate a leadership that is a lot stronger and more creative.   

Needless to say, the model was an eye-opener for the participants, especially with the use of embodiment, which had ahuge impact on the group – and us as the leaders (always and again). I have not been a be part of this leadership development business for a long time, yet I have been a part of it long enough to learn that there is no good training without learning both on the giving and on the receiving end, without the need of being perfect or expert in something, but rather being open, vulnerable and connected to my audience. 

Experiencing Leadership

If you want to build a boat, do not drum up people to collect wood or assign them tasks or work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Here are some of the most powerful lessons that emerged from this leadership experience – for us as the leaders and for our participants:

·       There is more to leadership than the power of one single person. 

·       A true Leader in Front dares to know and dares to have a powerful inviting value-based vision. 

·       Being a true Leader Beside requires intimacy as an ability to see the wholeness of another human being standing next to you so that you can shine together. It is a leadership skill of relating and it means leaning into another person with trust and courage to call them forth.  

·       Self-awareness is an essential strength of a Leader Behind. Choosing to step back even when you have so much to offer makes you a selfless leader who has the ability to get over oneself for a bigger cause. 

·       The power of a Leader in the Field lies in noticing the impact and responding to it in a creative rather than reactive way.

·       The Leader Within is the core, the centre, the place of knowing what matters most. It is the place of authenticity and integrity. 

·       Regardless of which dimension we feel most comfortable in or which one we feel is available to us, we can choose to access any of them at all times to make our leadership rich and mature.

Prosper from the inside so you can prosper on the outside

Authenticity is your most precious commodity as a leader.

Marcus Buckingham 

In order to consciously access different leadership dimensions and express what each one has to offer, we first need to be clear about what our authentic leadership is. 

We strongly believe that the authentic leadership leads to prosperity inside and out and exactly this was our stake for the work we were doing with our participants. At the minimum, authentic leadership means knowing one’s values, understanding one’s limiting beliefs and clarifying what matter most. On that note, it was interesting to lead the discussion on the limiting beliefs around money in the business school setting. Once again, we realised that becoming a driver of true and lasting change in one’s world can only happen by rewriting the rules from one’s most authentic self and that includes limiting beliefs to a great extent. Bob Anderson and Bill Adams in their book Mastering Leadership define leadership as deployment of self into circumstances to create outcomes that matter most. For such leadership to take place, we need leaders who will first give themselves permission to know what truly matters most to them and their world and be bold and vulnerable in eliminating limiting beliefs that stand in their way. So they can create meaningful outcomes and prosper on the inside and on the outside.

True leadership is a daring game that requires authenticity and integrity at all times. The Leader Within dimension is at the heart of the Co-Active leadership model because we should always start from ourselves. As Warren Bennis has said becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.

For those who are more into taking responsibility than giving permission, know that the self-expression is a function of responsibility (Werner Erhard). Being responsible towards oneself and their world to show up authentic at all times is a creative leadership imperative. Without leadership that is an expression of one’s true self, there is no possibility for prosperity in any other leadership dimension to the extent one would otherwise do so by being grounded in their own authentic leader within. 

Integrity – a mountain with no top

Integrity is an essential part of leadership. A true leader is trusted. Walking the talk is what determines if you will be trusted or not. Thus, during times of comfort or discomfort, integrity is an imperative of a true leadership and it always needs to have one’s attention in the leadership development process. This workshop, Leadership and Prosperity, opened the door for further exploration and curiosity around integrity – this was true for our participants and for us as leaders. I love the quote by Werner Erhard that says:

“Integrity is a mountain with no top. Therefore, those who set off on this task must learn to enjoy climbing because there is no end to the process. And as the climb continues, life continues to get better.”

From the Leadership and Prosperity workshop perspective, we would say better and more prosperous - from both the inside and the outside.