When leaders operate under the illusion of control, it’s a sign that their ego is running the show. Sometimes this is a good thing (it reminds them to get to a meeting on time), sometimes it leaves no space for a good way to emerge to meet their current challenge.
However, this show running comes with [...]
... helping leadership emerge
Category Archives: leadership
The Leadership of Letting Go, Part 7
The Leadership of Letting Go, Part 6
In Part 3 of “The Leadership of Letting Go” I touched on the role of trust in leadership. People want to be able to trust, and be trusted by, their leaders. This demands that leaders be authentic. One roadblock on the road to authenticity is that what we say may not match what we really [...]
The Leadership of Letting Go, Part 5
Leadership is increasingly challenging: more demands in less time. Upping the number of hours doesn’t help either since the time to recharge and be fresh for the next day’s challenges gets eaten away. During the rest of the week, we look at some simple tools that leaders can use to help them let go of [...]
The Leadership of Letting Go, Part 4
Leadership is about taking decisions, especially good ones. At the same time, if we are attached to the outcome, then the quality of our decision-making can suffer. In his book Awareness, Anthony De Mello tells of a saying from the Chinese philosopher Tranxu: “When the archer shoots for no particular prize, he has all his [...]
The Leadership of Letting Go, Interlude
Leadership is about dealing with what is, rather than what you’ve planned for. When I started this series on the Leadership of Letting Go, I didn’t foresee that my laptop would have a serious accident today, when I was arriving at a client’s office. I was upset for a moment after it happened, who wouldn’t [...]
The Leadership of Letting Go, Part 3
The key to leadership is to recognize over what I have control, and not. Basically, I have control over myself, my thoughts, feeling and abilities. Over most everything else in life, I am powerless. Anything else is just an illusion. Let it sink in for a moment. The first time a mentor said this to [...]
The Leadership of Letting Go, Part 2
In order to live the leadership of letting go, it can be helpful to gain more insight into the sources of our need to control. While there are many sources, some of the more productive ones to investigate are linked to our personality. The Enneagram is a model of personality that sheds light on our [...]
The Leadership of Letting Go, Part 1
The Leadership Think Tank group on Linked In has been discussing the difference between leadership and management for several months now. The discussion shows no signs of running out of steam.
One fundamental difference between leadership and management revolves around (the need for) control. The tools of management benefit from control over the situation or the [...]
Leadership Lessons from a Presidential Campaign Manager
David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign, addressed the German Project Management Forum in Berlin yesterday via satellite. I was busy translating for colleagues who couldn’t keep up with his (for non-native speakers) slightly too fast delivery. I’d no time to take notes, so this is just a a rough summary. The speech [...]
What Type of Leader am I?
I came across an online Enneagram test today; it pegged me correctly as a 9w8. Looking around the site, I noticed a Famous Leader test, which comes in different sizes. When I took the nine question version of the test, my style came out to be Albert Einstein.
What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com
With [...]
