Leadership Journeys
I was asked to give the closing lecture to this years graduating class of my old alumni last week. Something to allow reflection on their leadership journey and to help prepare for the next stage was the request. So we worked with Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey Cycle.
What was interesting was that some of the Masters graduates had travelled far and wide and had many more paths to explore on their journeys. Others were not on a journey. They had covered a great distance, but without travelling too far from home. Each had got different benefits from the experience. So what is it about leadership development programs that make them work - and work for different people in different ways?
The answer came at the same time as an accidental reunion of fellow journeymen from the Kimberley Odyssey we completed in May. Between us we have trained and worked with hundreds of leaders and read thousands of books and research articles on leadership development and all the questions they raise. That doesn’t mean the answers came easily.
At the Breakfast Brainstorm on Leadership we attended, all the participants had the opportunity to work through the same questions: about leaders being born not made, the role of mentors and false guides, the importance of development through challenge and trials, the role of self-awareness and why only some answer the call.
Within the many elements of the many stages of the complete leadership development cycle touched on in this forum in many parts - there emerged one theme. ‘You can not hope to lead others if you can not lead yourself.’ Leadership is different in its style and form in different environments, but it is the same in essence. It is about personal leadership first.
This gave me cause to reflect on the essential nature of leadership and the perspective required to lead, with the conclusion: ‘If you are ever to lead others you must be prepared to go on the journey yourself.’ That is your journey - not anothers.
From this we learn that leaders are both born and made, each person having their own unique leadership potential, that they must choose to find in themselves, before it can be developed. In the rush to develop leadership we sometimes take the ‘person’ out of the personal development component. In finding another’s style of leadership we may never find our own. When we understand this can we cease looking for ‘leadership’ and begin to find the true leaders.
The failure of leadership programs are rarely in their intent, but often in their design. When we realize that any program that does not ’see’ the unique complexity of each individual within its form will only develop a type of leadership - but not the leader within, we begin the real work and a journey into the unknown.
For those that have commenced their actual journeys - Go safely and with courage (and enjoy the view).
(More on the Hero Monomyth)
August 9th, 2004 at 1:06 pm
Will
Well said. In my experience, the more I live life as a journey of discovery about myself, the
more effective I am as an authentic leader of my own life. The inevitable(?)by-product is that
others are attracted to this authenticity, and so, in this way, I lead others. And, in doing so,
I complete the cycle because I learn more about myself in leading others…
I’ve found that not all “others” are automatically attracted to MY authentic life.
However, the more authentic I become, a) it doesn’t matter what others think, and b) there’s
something about just BEING authentic that is attractive to others, regardless of how it may
manifest. So being authentic is the key (for me) to effectively leading anyone else.
Journey on!
Digby
August 16th, 2004 at 8:04 pm
Will
Thank you, as always, for your insight. Ever since I first read about Joseph Campbell’s concept of the Hero’s Journey, I have worked towards - indeed pushed myself towards, at times - a life of “walking my talk”. OK, I don’t always achieve this, but that is my goal. As Digby says, it becomes irrelevant what others think of my “talk”, I am the only one to judge whether it is relevant to me or not. At the same time, I respect the “talk” of others as their own journey.
As this has become a consuming passion, I am no longer pulled back to past events and issues. They sort of disappear out of my life, unless someone reminds me. And I feel light:-)
Thanks for this space:-)
Blessings
Wendy
August 29th, 2004 at 9:16 am
Is it necessary to go on a leadership journey to lead?
I caught myself saying the other day that there are only two leadership traits that are important: tolerance for ambiguity and consistency of application. We want from our leaders leadership by example. Our leaders need to understand our value system and lead in a principled way. We want to know how we should act so as to survive.
We also want those same leaders to be able to be clear when there are conflicting dilemmas, understanding the questions and resolving them successfully - that’s what leadership is for. Tolerance for ambiguity is what enables this.
As you both have elegantly said, because leadership is out in front, it requires authenticity in what we do and an inner judgement about that. No one else can do this for us (although they can lead us to it).
Personal leadership development does not then need to go far, but it does need to go deep enough to cope with being authentic and clear in conflict - to the level of the value system that a person needs to lead in.
When new challenges present themselves and the system changes or becomes more complex - we then need transformation up and not simply translation within. At that time the journey (rather than the travelling) begins.
September 22nd, 2004 at 4:36 am
This is affirmed in the echoes of the older Confucian traditions of leadership in ‘The Great Learning’ noted by Peter Senge in the book ‘Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future’ where he quotes Master Nan Huai Chin - “If you want to be a leader, you have to be a real human being… and if you want to be a great leader you have to enter the seven meditative spaces” (p186)
Those seven spaces are: awareness, stopping, calmness, stillness, peace, true thinking and attainment.
However to know what those words truly mean - you need to have already attained those spaces.
When we let go of our concept of leadership and cultivate leaders we will find the future emerges from the group, rather than the group needing to wait for a future leader to emerge.