(Personal) leadership is hot. And compassion, what about it...

'Leadership' is hot. Everywhere on the internet, in almost all speaches, leadership is a magic word. As a coach, I read loads of interesting and fantastic articles about (personal) leadership. And of course, I fully support the meaning of diving into aspects related to leadership. Wonderful people talk about it, write about it. Enrichening and inspiring the way of thinking, feeling, living, acting.

'Courage is contagious', according to Brene Brown in her last book 'Dare to lead', one of the finest works about leadership, I think. Brene Brown also says 'Who we are is how we lead' . This is so true… So getting to know who we are is number one, and that reminds me to the title of Russ Moxley's book 'Becoming a leader is becoming yourself'. Also very recently Shelly Francis wrote a beautiful book: 'The Courage Way', strongly recommended to all of you working in- or with leadership. Shelly Francis' book is recognized as one of the best books on the theme leadership.

Times are changing. The economic system will change, society will change, structures in working life will change. Leadership in the old fashioned way will make place to new forms of leadership. We all have to deal with our own leadership...

So I took a dive in my own biography: who was a great leader in my carreer? What made him of her a good leader, are there qualifications to that. Terms as authenticity, warmhearted, good listeners, empathy, skilled, professionals, connecting people, courageous, and many more of this kept on going in my mind. All turned out to be true.

Values, there we go again. In the course 'Brave Leader' Brene Brown, all participants are invited to contemplate about their values, so...so was I. And that really wasn't that easy. My values turned out to be so important. 'Living to your values' would be to max you can achieve in life. A guide. Thank you Susan David! Values underpin my personal leadership. I will try to explain some more personally...in a short way.

Last month I was absorbed in 'Wounded Healers' of Henri Nouwen. A very interesting person, writing so clearly about his own pitfalls and his own questions. A couple of months ago I read 'On the brink of everything' of Parker J Palmer. And again: not only about guts, glory and successes... More than 20 years ago I worked in a company with a wonderful owner who always had place for everyone, having had his own pitfalls...and there we go.

This is what I found out. Henri Nouwen talks about 'articulation', the ability of being aware of you own personal dynamics in the inner life. How beautiful this is as a start as a form of (personal) leadership: articulation... Owning your biography. About story-truth-story-truth-story etc. The courage to rumble in your own story (thank you Brene Brown...).

To me the second one is 'compassion', and on that very moment I started to have some real difficulties in the process thinking about my question about personal leadership. Compassion turned out to be a very deep and complex issue... I had to go back some years ago to give 'compassion' a real place in thinking of forms of personal leadership.

Some years ago I visited Les Arques/Lot/France to visit the famous Pieta of Ossip Zadkine. In this sculpture I met the upmost form of compassion, I realize now... Compassion is not weakness, to put it clear: it hasn't got anything to do with 'feeling sorry', as lots of people think. Krista Tippett once speeched about it and mentioning this, and right she was. Compassion is a way of life, accepting all things happening in your life and on the very same moment developing the desire to take action... This sculpture made a hugh impression on me, compassion all in it.

Related to compassion, and one step before getting being able to take action, could 'contemplation' be the next one to mention as a form of leadership? Suddenly I remembered the 4 questions of Byron Katie in 'The Work', in an interview with a gay man, who had so many troubles with himself admitting himself being gay. On LinkedIn I shared this interview. In my profile you can look for it. 'Contemplate', she asked her guest. And again, to rumble, ask questions. Tough questions sometimes. Asking questions, a quality of being a 'human being'.

But most of all I would like to share a form of leadership as my outcome of the three aspects. To me this outcome was a revelation, my favourite leaders have one thing in common: hospitality. They were able to pay attention to so many people, they created space for those people. Nowadays I hear a lot of times "we are our brain", and that's very true indeed...but there is more: our own story is Always there, with all human aspects in it. As long as people live on earth, people are storytellers. Why, how, who, pilgrim questions, and I can go on for hours... Hospitality comes up as a very important element to store it, to embrace it all, to accept it, to give it space. So I wrote down all these aspects I thought about, and made a kind of model. I do realize there are so many examples of forms of leadership.

As I mentioned as a start of this article, leadership is hot. It will evoluate, it will develop itself. Further and further. So my thoughts are also just some thoughts, one of so many opinions about this issue, in the wilderness of the complexity of what we call 'leadership'. But herewith shared, knowing and realizing I miss something, but I will keep on trying to think further on the subject 'leadership'. To be continued...

Best,

Pieter C. Grimbergen