The Fires of the Forge

The Seven Capacities of Leadership Overview--Part 11

An Afterword on Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve

As I was talking with my wife tonight about an interview she'd seen on Larry King Live, I realized that my overview of Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve is not complete. Why?

I guess it is my 'social conditioning' to avoid mixing business and spirituality, but, in fact, the issues we face cannot possibly be solved without reuniting the two subjects. Mind you, I do not believe religion has a place in business. I do not support religion. Not because religion itself is 'bad.' But every form of religion I have seen as expressed by humans separates--it is separtive.

True spirituality, defrocked of the ideology of religion, unifies and is inclusive. And that is what is called for now. So until I can see a religion being expressed by humans where the stated (or implied) message is not "we've got it and you don't," I do not support religion. However, I will always support spirituality in any venue, including business, so long as the expression of it is inclusiveness (which is the Christ Principle in action.)

There is a darkness in the world today (as there has been for some time), call it evil if you will. (I hesitate to use the word, and not because I am afraid of it but because I believe it is so misunderstood.) And the problem is, we don't know what to do about it. We think we need to clobber it, destroy it, eliminate it or, if that isn't possible to avoid or ignore it and "focus on the positive". I could write quite a bit about all of this points, but I won't because doing so is tangential to this Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve. We all know the darkness is there, that it must be dealt with, and that to all intents and purposes, we have not yet found an effective way to do so. That is the point.

“The only devils in the world are those running around in our hearts. 
That is where the battle should be fought.”  Ghandi

So where is the darkness? The darkness is in you and in me. Yet our social conditioning is to be terrified of it, to deny it, to gloss over it, to lock it away in a room and never open the door, to act like it isn't there, to disown it, or just about anything you can think of other than to face it. But in the end, there it is. And there you are. And there I am.

“A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.” Carl Jung
 
"All things, to give light, must endure burning." Goethe

The darkness we see out in the world is no more than a reflection of the cumulative darkness in each of us as individuals. Whether you agree with that or not, just consider it. Because, if that were true, do you begin to see the solution? Is that solution, perhaps, what it means to pick up one's own cross and follow the way of the Christ?

In aggregate, the darkness seems overwhelming in proportion. Like we have to wait for some force much greater than us to save us from it. That's a strategy, to be sure. But frankly, I don't think it is prudent to rely on that as the only strategy. Not when we can also perhaps actively do something. I'd rather to all I know to do, both passively and actively. As my friend Gary says when we'd go onto the competitive field of battle "to leave it all on the field of battle."

The power to work with the darkness is in you and in me: our job is to transmute the darkness in our selves. So let's talk emotional intelligence. All the studies say you should want to be emotionally intelligent for a lot of really good, pragmatic reasons. But that isn't the full picture of what emotional intelligence is.

To cut to the chase, you cannot possibly actually gain emotional intelligence and not end up  transmuting the darkness in your self. In short, all the un-emotionally intelligent things you do stem from the fact you have not yet transmuted that darkness.

"If you don't bring forth what is inside you, what you don't bring forth will destroy you.”

The Gospel of Thomas

Your darkness is simply your unrealized potential, and embedded therein is your greatest gift.

Thus, my overview of Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve was incomplete because I didn't mention that one of the most important reasons you need to evolve is because when you evolve you transmute the darkness in your self. And when you do that, you transmute it for the entire world. That is one of the most important reasons why I want you to care about your own evolution, aside from all the intensely practical and pragmatic business reasons to do so. And if you are a true leader, you know your responsibility extends far beyond the walls of your business. At least, leaders who believe such are those leaders I am writing for and trying to reach.

"And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image [as the Lord] from one degree of glory to another."   
2 Corinthians 3:18

What does it mean, my friend, to unveil your face? What would you see? How might you do that? Who would you become? Answers I cannot answer for you, but that you can know, from your own personal experience. Isn't that incredible, that you and I can know that for ourselves? About the only thing I can tell you, and I speak from personal experience: you'd evolve.

And that is the Afterword on this Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve. Now I feel we can move on to number 7.

(c)2008 Otis Woodard

The Seven Capacities of Leadership Overview--Part 10

Let’s continue with the last of three installments on Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve.

I left you hanging by saying “So-called leaders today know little if nothing about tapping that power, that force [which underpins life itself]. How do you tap it?” Here's how.

You align your whole self, your emotions, thoughts and physical actions (and therefore your ego, agenda, purpose and will) with that force. It is the ultimate act of surrender. You have to give up (or be willing to give up) everything to get it.

Yet by aligning with that force, you become an instrument of it. And when you do, the reality of two scriptural statements, far beyond most people’s capacity to understand, will stand revealed.

“For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.” Mark 4:25

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” John 14:12

That may be too far out to you. I can understand that. But I am not writing for the rank and file. I am not writing to become popular. I am not writing to keep you as a reader. I am writing from my heart and my passion and to be of service.

When the wave of leaders of sufficient mettle to meet the challenges we face does inevitably rise from the periphery that defines the murky edges between the leadership we know and the leadership that is being born, they will have that force. In their left hand they will touch the evolutionary force of life. In their right hand they will touch the involutionary capacity of nature. And those leaders will be instruments of both.

That is relevance.

So does it sound like you are going to be able to become a leader of tomorrow and do it on your own terms? I obviously don’t think so. Draw your own conclusion. But I don't think we are not going to get through this unscathed. We won’t become the leaders of tomorrow and be the people we are today. It simply isn’t possible.

The forces of life, being inherently creative and evolutionary in nature, will not be at your command unless you are willing to evolve. An intellectual understanding of self development is insufficient. Self knowledge, the only true form of power, is what is required. And that, my friend, is why Leadership Capacity 6 is Evolve.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

That notion is much more than a notion and much more powerful than you think. The man who said it knows it. He freed India from English rule without firing a shot. That leader was Gandhi.

If you live up to Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve you will most certainly need the capacity of Leadership Capacity 7. Want to know what that one is? I'll tell you. Leadership Capacity 7 is Reset. I could have as easily called it Renew. But more on that in my next post.

©2008 Otis Woodard

The Seven Capacities of Leadership Overview--Part 9

Let’s continue with the second of three installments on Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve.

The problems we face today, collectively, are daunting aren’t they? As a result, we are staring at an impending requirement that we smash the old paradigm of leadership because the problems we face were created by, among other things, individuals operating under the current form of leadership.

The only way for you to participate in the change from the old paradigm of leadership to the new paradigm is to evolve your leadership, which is not possible without evolving your self. As I have said before, if you do not, you will no longer be relevant as a leader. Stephen Covey in his book The Eighth Habit talked about this. He said.

“Here is the problem. Where do you start? Where do you start? What are the steps to help move from this industrial age control model—this paradigm—to the knowledge worker age release model? Do you know where you start? Always with your self. It’s an inside out approach.”

A leader called me a couple of months ago, wanting help because his business was stuck. Listless it was. And so were his people. And sales. He felt horrible: he felt responsible. And yet unable to respond.

I asked him what the stuckness of his business told him about himself. Silence on the other end of the line. “I guess I don’t know.” I asked him to think about it and call me back in a few days. I got an excited but somewhat tentative email a couple of days later that said, “That means I am stuck, doesn’t it?”

Bull’s eye.

You are the epicenter of all the change you want to see happen.

“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” W. Edwards Deming

So that is true, yet there is more. The reason you must develop the capacity to evolve is not only because you are the epicenter of the change your world requires nor because life is change. There's even more to it than that.

You need to evolve because you need more power than you have today. The problems we collectively face will require more power that we individually possess. The power you and I need is at our fingertips. And you we have not claimed it. And yet we can. What is that power?

Look at life itself. The whole motion of life is evolution occurring within a dynamic state of balance. I encourage you to read that again. That force is ageless, timeless, unyielding, unbending and more powerful than we can possibly imagine. It is both the heartbeat and the moving blood of life. So-called leaders today know little if nothing about tapping that power, that force. How do you tap it?

More on that in the next post, when we get to the last of the three installments on Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve.

©2008 Otis Woodard

The Seven Capacities of Leadership Overview--Part 8

There are actually very few leaders in the world today. That’s a brazen statement. Can I back it up? Let’s give it a go and you judge for your self. And let’s see if I can express why Evolve is one of the top seven capacities of a leader. It will take me three posts to do justice to Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve. Hang with.

What is leadership? We won’t fully groc that subject here. But I assert to you that leadership has an inherently destabilizing nature and is about evolution, about creation, about creativity, about stepping in to what is not yet known and making it known.

So what about your leadership? What was once unknown that you have made known? What paradigms have you shattered? What have you destroyed in order to create? How adeptly do you destabilize things in order to shake out what you cannot see and yet sense is there? What can you point out around you that is evolving as a result of your leadership?

Or are you more about preservation? About “not messing with success?” About preserving growth? About preserving your power, control, ego, reputation, bank account? About preserving your job? Can you bet the farm (and would you), or do you hedge your bets? Diversify? Keep the options open? Play it safe?

Leadership is about evolution: management is about preservation
Leadership is about creation: management is about reproduction
Leadership is about breaking paradigms: management is about optimizing within paradigms
Leadership is about stimulating progress: management is about preserving the core
Leadership is about release: management is about control
Leadership is about heart: management is about mind
Leadership is about transformation: management is about transactions

So are you a leader or are you a manager? You decide. Most leaders are simply the highest managers in the organization. They are leaders only by position, only by title. What have you seen?

I can only say I have not met many leaders, not by the definition above. I’d like to become one, to rise to what I have just written. I write to you not because I have become a true leader, but because I sense it is possible. And required, in these times of ours.

Speaking of these times, I want to ask you this. If we had the type of leaders today described above, would we have the type of mess we are looking at in the USA and globally? No. And it is going to take some true leaders who will destroy some very sacred societal notions to unlock this jam. In short, we are going to have to evolve, and that is what leaders do.

“The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.” Carl Jung

So what does all this talk about leadership being tantamount to evolution have to do with you? A lot. More than you know. And we shall continue that tomorrow.

©2008 Otis Woodard