Let’s confront the brutal facts about leadership. Let’s confront them because collectively we are in trouble, because individually we are concerned, and because if we don’t confront the brutal facts there is no one to blame but ourselves.
For decades now, leaders have focused on producing short-term growth without understanding the long-term implications. What are the implications? Institutions are now crumbling. The planet is sick. Markets are unstable. More people and businesses are vying for limited resources. People are scared. And we’ve shifted the burden of our indulgence in clinging to this way of business and of life to our children and future generations.
The cold, hard fact is leaders are producing these results. And what are the results leadership is producing? Results no one wants.
Now, here’s the problem. Each of us believes it is not us that needs to change. Each leader believes it is all the other leaders in all the other organizations and institutions that needs to change. The net? No one thinks they really need to change.
So what do we have? Everyone waiting on everyone else. Let's call a spade a shovel, shall we? That is not leadership. That is a fusion of ignorance and cowardice.
Our ability to change all this is totally dependent on our ability to see ourselves as part of the system that is creating the problem. There is no other way out. The only way out is through the system itself.
If we see the problem as being outside of ourselves—that it’s other leaders producing those undesirable results, that it is all the other institutions that are failing—we will not change. If no one changes, the system will not change. If the system does not change, it will crumble.
Another cold, hard fact? By refusing to see the system within ourselves and by not making the required changes within ourselves we continue to support the system that is now failing us. We are all implicated. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and no one to blame.
Each individual leader must change. What does that mean, that each of us must change?
• It means the quality of our perception must change.
• It means the quality of our attention must change.
• It means the quality of our actions must change.
To change perception, attention and action requires development in four dimensions:
• Two dimensions are at the individual level: Self Awareness and Self Discipline.
• Two dimensions are at the collective level: Group Awareness and Group Discipline.
When those four disciplines are developed, the nature of our perception and attention is heightened.
When the nature of perception and attention is heightened, individuals and groups shift the inner place from which they function. Unforeseen, creative breakthroughs surface.
When that shift happens, people begin to operate from a space of future possibility that they feel wants to emerge.
Becoming capable of facilitating that shift is the essence of leadership today.
This capacity requires that we learn to open our mind, open our heart and open our will.
We cannot open those three portals—mind, heart and will—and remain the same people we were before. We won’t be the same people because:
- to open mind, heart and will requires mastery of our own thoughts and emotions.
- mastering our own thoughts and emotions changes the very nature of our perception.
- to shift perception means to see life in a new way.
- to see life in a new way is to see ourselves in a new way.
- to see ourselves and life in this way involves seeing our purpose, our power and our tremendous responsibility.
- to see all this is sense the future that wants to emerge through us.
- to act on all this develops the capacities we need in order to enable and allow future to emerge through us.
Listen. The problems we face are not insurmountable. Further, dealing effectively with the root problems will unleash something all of humanity (and the planet) is longing for. I don't know about you, but I find that incredibly exciting and inspiring.
You and I are responsible for facilitating this: that is how important we are.
No one can tell us how to become a leader capable of facilitating this shift. No one has mastered it, so there is no master. Therefore, we cannot become a student or an apprentice. There is no time left. We cannot wait for masters to develop. Each of us must begin to simply do it and to develop the mastery through action.
The remainder of this document provides a framework and some resources. I am actively using the framework and the resources as I work to become a leader capable of facilitating the shift within my self, within the groups I work with, within the institutions I am a part of, and within the global dynamic I have the honor to be a part of.
You may or may not find the framework and the resources useful. It is, after all, just one person’s way and one person's experience. But if it helps you develop your own framework, find your own resources, and, more importantly, to become a leader capable of facilitating the shift, then sharing it with you will have accomplished my intention. And that is what will now follow.
Lastly, if you have been waiting for your invitation to join in, it's here. I invite you to join in with the individuals who are now engaging on a most remarkable journey--becoming the type of leader capable of facilitating the process of helping groups of people shift the inner place from which they function, and therefore tapping the innovative and paradigm-breaking solutions we need to some of the most daunting problems humanity has faced.
To accept this invitation is to set out on a journey of personal transformation first and foremost, and, therefore by definition, a spiritual one. It is a journey that transcends religions, dogma, cultures, ideologies, borders and all the other arbitrary boundaries we've used to separate ourselves from others and to justify doing what we do to one another. The stakes are high. The potential is even higher. And you and I are ready.
Now, I will share with those who are interested what I can of my own framework, of the resources I use, and of my experience in using both. I wish you well on your journey.
