Continuing the conversation on leadership. Yes, we could go forever. Let me make an assumption: that miraculously you’ll have some quieter time soon to slow down a tiny bit. ‘Summer’: that magic word that means lots and lost of days for many of my clients, and just a little break if you are in the US. Apologies to those who don’t have summer when we do have one. I know that you down South take revenge and have warm Christmas.
If you have some extra time for reflection, of some sort, well, (your) leadership is not a bad topic to focus on. Read, think, take notes?
If you start deep inside you (you know that old spirituality saying that ‘the journey’ is not so long, just a few inches, head top down, that is) here is an idea: list your contradictions. Yeap. How you like A but also B, which is so opposite. How you criticize X and love Y but you are X as well, and you don’t criticise yourself. Greet the many you that live together.
Frankly, in my case, sometimes it looks like a 70’s commune of uninvited people taking over the living room and camping in the garden. There are so many ‘me’.
I really believe that perhaps step one for any reflective leadership is to acknowledge the contradictions inside, welcome the paradoxes, and do some discovery work.
And then, remain calm.
Elias Canetti (1905-1994) Nobel Prize of literature said: ‘I would like to remain simple as not to confuse the many identities I am composed of’.
Precisely. I say calm instead of simple. Maybe both are the same.
Would you like to comment?