Effortless Leadership – working with (vs. against) the reality of being human working in and on complex systems.
I touched on this on my “About” page. But, because even the notion of “effortless” is new to many leaders, it’s worth a bit of a deeper dive here. And, along with that, some quick videos sharing real world stories about effortless leadership – even (or especially) in complex scenarios.
A bit deeper – If I were you, I’d be asking myself something like this: “Do I really believe that leadership has to be a struggle? Or do I believe there simply must be a better way?”. I’m in the second camp – for four reasons.
First, I’ve had the experience of working effortlessly with partners, teams and even whole organizations. There’s a structure to it when it works – a set of initial conditions – along with implicit principles, practices and processes – that, when made explicit, make it replicable. You, too, likely have your own success stories – ones that allow you to gauge for yourself what works – and what doesn’t.
Second, much of what I’ve discovered is innate to being human – it’s “built in”. Given the right initial conditions, being fully human (in our most creative, valuable ways) comes naturally to us. I was lucky enough to experience the reality of this as a trauma and developmental psychotherapist – drawing on these innate qualities to guide my clients in healing themselves – creating their own deep, lasting impact.
Third, reality isn’t made up of “pieces”/”silos” – reality is a set of “wholes” – of systems. When we understand and apply what we’ve discovered about systems to humans working in organizations (systems) to improve reality (more systems), we’re moving with the flow of reality, not against it. Just like there are initial conditions, principles, etc. for being human, similar sets exist for working with systems – of all sorts and sizes.
Finally, working harder and harder just isn’t working. And, in too many situations, it actually makes things worse. Applying hierarchical leadership, decision making and organizational processes in these complex settings actually does damage. Couple that with the fact that working harder simply isn’t sustainable and you loop back to that earlier question – “Do I believe that there simply must be a better way?”. Well, there has to be – and there is.
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