James Scouller's Blog, page 11
August 9, 2013
Why Do We Have So Few Servant Leaders?
While I have no statistical data to prove it, it seems to me we lack servant leaders in the fields of business and politics. And that’s even though Robert Greenleaf first described servant leadership – the idea that leaders are there to serve those they lead – over 35 years ago in 1977. And, indeed, despite his ideas being generally well received.
So why don’t we have more servant leaders? Well, here’s my view. I suggest three reasons…
Reason #1: Transactional Rather Than Transformational
It was the scholar, James MacGregor Burns, who first defined the difference between transactional and transformational leaders. In essence, he said:
The transformational leader taps into his people’s needs and values, inspires them with new possibilities and raises their confidence, conviction and desire to achieve a common, moral, motivating purpose.
The transactional leader, on the other hand, gets followers to act in a certain way in return for something they want to have or avoid. So, for example, politicians may offer tax cuts in exchange for votes and business leaders may offer large bonuses for on-target results or threaten punishment if results aren’t good enough – in both cases without pushing towards a moral, inspirational purpose.
Not surprisingly, it’s the transformational leader who’s more likely to be a catalyst for genuine progress – not just a turnaround or rescue, which just restores the organisation (or nation) back to square one.
Which style is easier to apply? From experience as an ex-corporate leader and now an executive coach, I’d say the transactional style is easier. Why? Because it’s less risky. You don’t have to declare what you stand for. You don’t have to take a risk by expressing a motivational – perhaps even inspirational – vision. You don’t even need a vision! And in not striving to achieve a high moral purpose, you’re less likely to fail.
And can you guess which category our “don’t-rock-the-boat, don’t upset the status quo” political and business institutions favour? You guessed it. Transactional leaders.
Okay, you may be thinking, I can see why this means we’re likely to have more transactional than transformational leaders, but how does this link with servant leadership?
Well, in my view, a servant leader will invariably be a transformational leader. Why? Because you can’t serve others as a leader if you haven’t tapped into their potential and needs and defined a common, moral, motivating destination (what many people refer to as a vision). The servant leader will know that a transactional approach to leadership may keep the ship afloat, but it won’t take it anywhere worthwhile or inspiring.
My point is that it’s too easy for transactional leaders to rise to the top in politics and business. And until we place a higher value on servant leadership and the desire for a moral inspirational purpose, I think it will remain that way.
Reason #2: Lack of Vision
The second reason follows on from the first. It’s that too many leaders perform their roles without creating a vision (a sense of destination) that motivates them and their followers. I have to admit that the importance of vision as a CEO didn’t strike me until late on in my second managing director role. So I had the same problem. But I wasn’t, and am still not, alone.
This is partly because we have many transactional leaders who, almost by definition, don’t see a vision as essential. The trouble is, you cannot be a servant leader without leading your people in a direction they want to follow. Indeed, you cannot be a true leader without a shared sense of direction. After all, the word “leader” presupposes that you are leading people somewhere, does it not? Thus, a vision or a sense of direction is essential.
But the lack of vision is not just because we have so many transactional leaders.
It’s also because too many so-called “visions” are either bland, superficial, too centred on delivering benefits for a small elite (for example the senior managers or shareholders), have no action blueprint behind them or lack the thrust to overcome the inevitable obstacles. Thus, “vision” has earned a bad name and many otherwise capable leaders are sceptical of the need for it. To be honest, that was my problem in the mid-1990s.
However, there are leaders who do recognise the importance of vision in motivating and galvanising those they lead, but still they don’t create a credible, motivating sense of destination for their nation or organisation. In my experience, in private, they find this more than embarrassing; they find it almost shameful. They believe it exposes them as inadequate leaders.
Their mistake is to assume the leader must be the sole creator of a vision, like Moses coming down the mountain. They don’t realise that you can co-create a vision with your closest colleagues – whether you call them your “direct reports” or your “team”.
So the lack of vision – and vision is always an element of servant leadership – is caused by too many transactional leaders, “vision” acquiring a bad name and leaders assuming that if they don’t have a ready-made vision (and many don’t) they are inadequate. They don’t realise that you can co-create a vision.
Reason #3: Lack of Self-Esteem
But there’s a third, more subtle, more invisible reason for the lack of servant leaders. It’s that so many leaders lack self-esteem.
Now this may surprise you. You may have assumed that anyone who’s become a leader is always psychologically robust and refined. Not so. I’ve worked with many leaders who had pockets of negative self-esteem buried deep within their minds. You may not have realised it on meeting them because they disguised their fears well, but those pockets of fear and shame were there nonetheless.
The problem of self-esteem deficits is so widespread among leaders I’ve worked with that I’m coming to suspect that nearly every leader has a self-esteem issue of some kind that’s limiting their ability to lead.
For example, deep down they may believe they’re not good enough and thus fear the risk of failure or making a mistake or being proven wrong and the humiliation that goes with all three. Or that although they’re good at what they do, they are ruthless and if they allow people to get too close to them, their unpleasant nature will be exposed and they’ll be rejected; something that (unconsciously) terrifies them.
What has self-esteem got to do with servant leadership? Well, the servant leader sees his role as serving the interests of those he leads. And to want to do so he must care about those people. But here’s the rub. If you have significant self-esteem issues you have pockets of fear in your mind. And yet the world doesn’t stop; you have to go on being a husband, wife, father, mother, friend and leader. Thus, you constantly face circumstances that touch on and potentially expose your deepest fears, so you have to find ways of defending yourself against these anxieties. Psychologists call these ways “defence mechanisms”.
My point is that we can use up so much energy defending ourselves against these unconscious threats that we find it hard, sometimes even impossible, to notice, connect with and care about others. Thus, the basic requirement for being a servant leader – caring about others’ needs and potential – is absent.
This is why it’s so important for us to have leaders who work on self-mastery. Self-mastery allows you to free yourself from the fears undermining your self-esteem and raise your ability to connect with and serve others… in other words, be a servant leader.
Big Picture
To summarise, I believe there are three forces that, together, are limiting the number of servant leaders.
First, the prevalence of transactional leaders – partly because our institutions favour transactional leadership and partly because it’s easier. Second, the absence of vision in leadership and indeed a lack of emphasis on vision, for more than one reason. Third, leaders’ lack of self-esteem.
I hope you found this helpful.
The author of this blog is James Scouller, an executive coach. His book, The Three Levels of Leadership: How to Develop Your Leadership Presence, Knowhow and Skill, was published by Management Books 2000 in May 2011. You can learn more about it at www.three-levels-of-leadership.com. If you want to see its reviews, click here: leadership book reviews. If you want to know where to buy it, click HERE.
July 19, 2013
Why Do Leaders Need to Understand Perception Filters?
After The Three Levels of Leadership came out in 2011, readers followed up with questions on leadership, leadership psychology and self-mastery – all of them interesting. So interesting, in fact, that I’m releasing my answers here as they supplement the “Three Levels” material and others may find them useful. Here’s the ninth in the series. I’ll post the others over the coming months…
Q9. You say it’s important for leaders to be aware of their perception filters. But why does it matter so much to leaders?
“Imagine you are sitting alone in a chair in your home one evening. And imagine you are in a relaxed, content state of mind. Perhaps you are reading or watching TV.
Now imagine your front doorbell rings. And imagine that the moment you hear it ring, you are furious. Now how would you behave? You might stride angrily towards the front door with your teeth gritted and your jaw jutting out and wrench the door open while glaring at the person on the other side. So you can see how your behaviour flows from your emotional state. Now what would you have to be thinking just after hearing the doorbell ring in order for you to feel such intense anger? Perhaps you assumed this is someone you have been waiting for and he’s several hours late. Or perhaps you saw this person as an unwanted interruption to whatever you are doing.
Now wipe this scenario from your mind and imagine again you’re sitting in the same chair in the same room on the same evening, in your house alone, feeling quietly contented. And once again the doorbell rings. But this time, the moment it rings, you feel ecstatically happy. Now how would you respond behaviourally? You might jump up eagerly and walk quickly towards the door just like before, but this time with a smile on your face and a twinkle in your eyes as you open the door eagerly to see who is on the other side. What would you have to be thinking to react in such a way when you heard the doorbell ring? You might assume this is someone you really want to see – perhaps someone you’ve been looking forward to seeing for hours.
Now note what has just happened. The same physical event – the front doorbell ringing – has produced entirely different emotional and physical (behavioural) consequences.
Why is this? It’s because you haven’t responded to the physical event. You have instead responded to your perception of the physical event. In other words, to the meaning and significance you projected onto the event. You see, this particular event had no automatic universal meaning over and above there being someone at your front door. The point I’m making is that we don’t react to physical events – we react to our perception of those events. And what drives our perception? It is our beliefs about the event. They act as a perception filter.
Thus, you could say that your perception is pure awareness filtered by your beliefs.
Anyone wanting to grow themselves as a leader by practising self-mastery must come to learn that their intellectual, emotional and behavioural responses are not governed by the circumstances they meet. They are instead governed by how they perceive those circumstances. And your perceptions are driven by the beliefs in your mind either before or at the moment of the event happening. In other words, we unknowingly create perception filters and these drive our mental and emotional state and thus our behaviour.
So the person who wants to be the best leader he or she can be by practising self-mastery – one of the three elements of personal leadership – must understand why perception matters. For if you don’t understand its importance you’ll always be at the mercy of the unconscious contents of your mind and you’ll find it impossible to control your response to events. Thus, you won’t be leading, you will be constantly (and blindly) reacting.
That’s why it’s important for leaders and those who aspire to leadership roles to understand perception.”
June 18, 2013
What Is The Best Way to Motivate Your Team?
On a leadership forum elsewhere on the Internet someone asked, “What is the best way to motivate your team?” I responded by drawing on the four-dimensional definition of leadership in chapter one of The Three Levels of Leadership and I thought some readers of this blog might be interested in my answer.
“Interesting question. This is where I’d go back to the basics of leadership.
As you know, I define “leadership” in my book as a process of paying attention simultaneously to four dimensions: (1) Motivating purpose (2) Task progress and results (3) Group unity (4) Individuals’ needs. So I’d say that paying attention to all four dimensions should motivate your team.
Dimension #1: Motivating Purpose
To take the first dimension, as others already suggested, you need a common motivating purpose. A purpose they care about, that they want to achieve.
It could be a vision, but it doesn’t have to be a vision. It could instead be expressed as a mission, a goal or a target. Whatever it is, it must provide a motivating purpose.
And as [another contributor] said, the leader doesn’t have to provide this common purpose. He or she doesn’t have to be like Moses coming down the mountain with tablets of stone; the team members can decide the purpose together.
A clear, shared, motivating purpose is the first key, in my view, to motivating a team.
Dimension #2: Task, Progress & Results
Moving onto the second dimension, if you don’t translate the vision/target/goals/mission into purposeful activity, then it’s just a dream. So people have to work on making it happen.
That’s when you all need a plan, people need to have clear responsibilities, they need to be following up, solving problems as they arise, adjusting plans as failures occur or surprises happen and so on.
You also need an emphasis on quality and timeliness of execution, not just from the leader, but from peer pressure too. I’ve found that having a clear role and feeling pride in being part of a team with high standards is itself motivating.
Dimension #3: Group Unity
But there’s the third dimension too. It’s motivating, in my experience, to be part of a team that feels like a team. Where every individual is subordinating his or her selfish interests to the team’s aims and supporting each other. This is what the French call “esprit de corps” and we call “team spirit”.
It’s the sense of working for a cause that’s bigger than us; it gives us the all-important feeling of belonging that’s so important to motivating a team.
For me, this means making sure that everyone feels included and noticed; that everyone understands how decisions will be made and that they’re okay with that; and ensuring there are no hidden agendas – that people are saying what they’re really thinking and feeling and have learned to conflict productively, not brush big issues under the carpet.
Dimension #4: Individual Attention
Now people say “the team is more important than the individual,” but the paradox is that every team is made of individuals. And individuals differ. That’s why we’re individuals. We have different skills, different levels of confidence and resilience, different ambitions and different things going on in the background of our life.
This is where the fourth dimension of leadership comes in. In my experience, you can’t treat every member of the group the same. You have to treat individuals as individuals.
You have to understand what makes them tick, how much autonomy they want, what’s worrying them, what their ambitions are and, of course, you have to be good at selecting them in the first place. You also have to give them the opportunities to grow themselves as members and leaders in their own right. Just as important, you must be ready to have the tough conversations and fire or discipline people when necessary. This is all part of paying attention to individuals as individuals.
Attention to Basics
So in a sense there’s no one best way to motivate your team. That’s because great team leadership isn’t one-dimensional.
For me, it’s about attention to basics, which means attention to the four dimensions of leadership. Get them right and your people will be motivated, performance will be good, creativity will be high… and members of the team will most likely feel they’re having a fulfilling experience.”
June 17, 2013
Where Do Leaders’ Limiting Beliefs Come From?
After The Three Levels of Leadership came out in 2011, readers followed up with questions on leadership, leadership psychology and self-mastery – all of them interesting. So interesting, in fact, that I’m releasing my answers here as they supplement the “Three Levels” material and others may find them useful. Here’s the eighth in the series. I’ll post the others over the coming months…
Q8. On page 170 of your book, The Three Levels of Leadership, you state: “Over time, the number of limiting beliefs in your psyche usually increases and forms what I call the False Self.” What are the primary sources of the disinformation leading to these limiting beliefs? Can this disinformation be squelched at source to avoid contamination of the Self?
“You ask, what are the primary sources of the limiting beliefs comprising the False Self? Well, I assume you’re talking about the limiting beliefs at its core; the limiting beliefs about our self-image and how life works. These beliefs limit our ability to lead a happy, fulfilling life… and, of course, our ability to lead others.
Now regarding the sources of these limiting beliefs, I’d say these are the main ones:
Interpretations of the behaviour we receive from other people.
Interpretations of life experiences.
Interpretations arising from the collective unconscious.
It’s from these that we’re most likely to draw powerful negative conclusions about ourselves, usually when we’re young (and by young, I mean up to the age of twenty). But to be clear, limiting beliefs can develop beyond that age. I’ll say a bit more about each source…
Interpretation of Behaviour Received
We can draw negative conclusions about ourselves – or more specifically, about our self-image – from the behaviour we receive from key people in our lives, like parents, peers and teachers.
So, for example, if our parents constantly ignore us when we’re little, we might decide we’re insignificant. Or if members of the opposite sex reject our romantic advances in our teenage years, we might assume we’re unattractive or unlikeable. And if we receive consistent criticism from teachers we might infer that we’re stupid, inept or useless.
Interpretation of Life Experiences
This is where we apply negative interpretations to our – or others’ – life experiences and then draw unhelpful conclusions about our qualities, flaws or potential.
To take one example, imagine someone who constantly fails his driving test. He might decide this means he’ll never pass. Even worse, that perhaps he’s useless! Or imagine someone whose parents died in a car crash when she was young. She might decide this means that life is cruel, that she’s on her own, that she’ll never be happy, that people she loves will always abandon her one way or another.
Interpretation of the Collective Unconscious
By “collective unconscious” I mean the world’s widely held ideals, archetypal life themes, beliefs, values and emotions. It’s the shared ideas we take for granted, that we rarely think of challenging.
The collective unconscious can influence the way we interpret history and even how we interpret scientific test results. It can also affect our behaviour – think of a lynch mob, where individuals will do things to others, including murder, that they wouldn’t consider doing on their own. The point is that by absorbing limiting or negative interpretations about the world or ourselves from the collective unconscious we can create personal limiting beliefs.
This can come from what we absorb in the stories we learn and tell each other about what’s right and wrong, inevitable or avoidable, good or bad, heroic or cowardly or kind and unkind. Think, for example, of what we take in from watching films, playing games, from what we read in newspapers and novels, hear on the radio or see on television.
Thus, instead of experiencing something directly, we can experience it indirectly, leaving the collective unconscious to set standards on, for example, what is true and false… or good and bad … or important and unimportant… or beautiful and ugly.
So for example, we might assume from reading about the economy that we live in a dog-eat-dog world, that we’re in constant danger and must always be wary of people we don’t know. Or we might compare ourselves unfavourably with high-profile people – based perhaps on appearance, intelligence or natural talents and thus believe (and feel) we are second-rate. Or because the collective unconscious tells us that boy-meets-girl-and-marries is the classic theme of adult life, single people may conclude from this that they’re unattractive or inferior.
Our Mental Interpretation is the key
Note that in every case it’s not the outer event itself that’s key.
The key is our interpretation. That is, the meaning and significance we place on the other person’s behaviour, the life experience or the message from the collective unconscious – and what it says about us.
More Vulnerable To Negative Interpretations When We’re Young
As I mentioned earlier, our most powerful limiting beliefs are more likely to arise when we’re young. Why?
Well, think about the term “self-awareness”. It has two aspects: the capacity to be aware and the sense of self that we’re aware of.
Now an infant has the capacity of pure awareness, but it doesn’t have a well-developed self-image. So how does it develop its early self-image? Mainly by interpreting others’ behaviour towards it. So, for example, if the parents ignore the infant constantly, even when it’s hungry or needs its nappy changed, you can understand why the limiting belief “I must be insignificant, I must be unimportant” might take hold.
You see, in infancy, we’re still forming our view of who we are and what we capable of. And of course an infant has no mastery experiences against which to compare what’s happening to and around it and thus gain some perspective. By “mastery experiences,” I mean those moments when we’ve coped or achieved in the face of resistance and obstacles. They give us positive memories to lift us in times of trial and help us interpret events more objectively. Thus, they can prevent us from drawing negative conclusions about ourselves too quickly.
And, of course, infants – having only a pre-language-based intellect – have no capacity for reasoning for and against any immature negative self-thoughts and so they can’t rebut them. For example, it can’t say to itself, “Yes, mum and dad keep ignoring me, but Auntie Jane doesn’t, so that means I am significant to her and thus the problem is with my parents, not me.”
Now as the infant becomes a child, then a teenager and then a young adult, its self-image becomes clearer and better established. And, hopefully, it gains mastery experiences it can use to steady itself when faced with negative interpretations. But can you see that it’s when we’re young that our self-image is most easily bruised? Which is why limiting beliefs are more likely to develop then.
Can We Stop the Negative Interpretations Developing at the Time?
You also ask, “Can this disinformation be squelched at source to avoid contamination of the Self?”
The answer is yes. That’s what self-mastery is all about. But only once you’ve realised the distinction between you, the Self, (a centre of pure awareness, will and imagination) and the False Self (the sum total of your negative beliefs). For only then can you identify when the False Self is at work inside you and disidentify from it, reducing its power over you.
This doesn’t mean you need to know the terms “Self” and “False Self”. But you do need to realise that you’re not your thoughts and feelings – that although you have them, you are not them, that you are more than them and can change what you’re thinking and feeling. This is the philosophical basis of Cognitive Behavioural therapy and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive therapy.
Until this distinction is made, the Self is so identified with its False Self beliefs that it identifies itself as the False Self. Thus, it assumes that everything it believes and feels is real, so doesn’t realise this is “disinformation,” to use your word. So in practice, the ability to disidentify develops only after we’ve become self-aware enough to realise we’re locked into limiting habits and, from there, begun to look for the beliefs behind them.
I ought to be clear what I mean by “disidentify” for those who haven’t read The Three Levels of Leadership. I mean the process of (1) realising that you are neither your mind nor its contents, especially its beliefs, passing thoughts and emotions; (2) identifying the specific limiting beliefs controlling your emotional states and behavioural habits; (3) examining them; and then (4) letting them go. In chapter 9, I recommend techniques to help you with disidentification.
Once you’ve found and disidentified from your most limiting beliefs, it becomes easier to see and “squelch” (to use your word) limiting thoughts and emotions as they arise. (These will often continue to appear because of old thinking habits.) But, to do this, you’ve first got to put in the disidentification practice that’s central to self-mastery.”
June 8, 2013
What One Thing Would Help Leaders With Presence?
I received this question on my YouTube channel in response to the video, “What is Presence?“: What one thing do you think would help leaders with presence? I couldn’t answer it fully on YouTube as I was limited to 500 characters, so here’s my full answer…
It depends on what you mean by presence. Do you mean real presence or what looks like presence?
What I mean by “presence” is something no one can fake. It’s the real you, embodied, in action. But “charisma”, as I explain in the second video in the series, “Presence versus Charisma“, is different. I use the term charisma to mean faked presence. Charisma can mimic presence, but it’s usually found out either because of the charismatic person’s negative effect on others or because he/she crumbles under pressure.
I’ll assume you mean real presence. Now your question was, “What one thing do you think would help leaders with presence?”
In my view, at the early stage of a leader’s growth, there’s no ONE thing that would help leaders begin to express their unique presence. Anything that raises people’s confidence… their connection with their values and ability to express those values in the choices they make… the way they stand, move and behave (especially the way they talk) … and their capacity to choose their responses to other people (not blindly react)… will help. You see, I believe there are degrees of presence and many ways to start expressing more of it.
But if you’d instead asked, “What one thing do you think would help leaders express their full, pure presence,” I’d have said something different. I’d say, work on your sense of inner wholeness.
That’s because presence flows from an inner state – a state of wholeness.
By “wholeness,” I mean freedom from fear, inner conflict and the constant need to compare yourself against other people. It’s a sense of fullness; that you’re not driven to achieve something from a sense of lack. You experience an inner wholeness and yet also, at the same time, a desire to creatively express more of it. So you don’t stagnate. And you live your life with no fixed expectations about the future and what should or shouldn’t happen. (That’s not to say you live life with no intent or plans, but you have no emotional attachments to the specific way life unfolds.) Similarly, there’s no unhappiness about your past; no feelings that this or that shouldn’t have happened.
This is what I call pure presence and I describe it in more detail in chapter 5 of The Three Levels of Leadership.
Now I believe the path towards this state is narrower. It’s about realising that the self-image you thought was you, isn’t real, but is just a mental construction… that instead the real You is a centre of pure will, pure awareness and pure imagination. It’s also about realising that while you’re a distinct individual, you’re connected to everyone around you, not separate.
So if someone wants to express their pure presence, I believe they have to practise self-mastery. This means seeing and disidentifying from their limiting beliefs, taking control of their mind and going beyond their old self-image – many times – in a upward spiral. That’s when leaders will realise they don’t just HAVE presence, but that they ARE a presence.
I suggest ways of working on self-mastery in chapter 9 of The Three Levels of Leadership.
May 21, 2013
Does Paying Attention to Limiting Beliefs Reinforce Them?
After The Three Levels of Leadership came out in 2011, readers followed up with questions on leadership, leadership psychology and self-mastery – all of them interesting. So interesting, in fact, that I’m releasing my answers here as they supplement the “Three Levels” material and others may find them useful. Here’s the seventh in the series. I’ll post the others over the coming months…
Q7. I’ve heard it said that paying attention to ideas and habits only strengthens them, so won’t I only strengthen my limiting beliefs if I unearth and examine them?
“There’s a difference between paying continued attention to limiting beliefs and simply defining and examining them in the process of letting them go.
Let’s define our terms. For me, ‘continuing to pay attention to these beliefs’ means giving them the energy of your consciousness (your pure self-awareness), causing you to believe they are so true that you identify with them. And because you identify with them, you habitually act on them.
Now if you identify with your beliefs and act on them repeatedly then, yes, you will reinforce them. For as neuroscientists teach us, you’ll only strengthen the neural pathways in your brain that represent the habits.
However, the idea of working on your limiting beliefs is to see them clearly so you can learn to realise they are not true and stop identifying with them. But of course it’s impossible to do this if you don’t first surface them.
The truth is simple: you can’t disidentify from a belief until you’ve first understood what it was you were identifying with. Putting it another way, you cannot give away what you don’t first own.
So the key point is this: surfacing, defining and examining your limiting beliefs isn’t the same as continuing to sustain them.
If you think about it, hundreds of years ago we didn’t know about the dangers of germs and bacteria. Indeed, they didn’t exist in the consciousness of people in the Middle Ages. But that didn’t mean they weren’t there and it didn’t mean they weren’t causing problems. So ignorance wasn’t bliss for people of that era. But then Louis Pasteur discovered bacteria and our world began to change. We learned to pasteurise milk. And surgeons learned to wash their hands and clean instruments before surgery.
Now would anyone argue that because we’re recognising germs exist we are making our health worse? No. The truth is, now we are aware of them we can deal with the germs.
So no, accepting a problem exists is not the same as continuing to feed it. And indeed, turning a blind eye to reality is an excellent way of letting the problem continue. If you want to achieve self-mastery, grow your leadership presence and be the best leader you can be, you’ll have to become aware of and deal with your limiting beliefs.”
May 10, 2013
Can A Negative Self-Image Reduce Awareness?
After The Three Levels of Leadership came out in 2011, readers followed up with questions on leadership, leadership psychology and self-mastery – all of them interesting. So interesting, in fact, that I’m releasing my answers here as they supplement the “Three Levels” material and others may find them useful. Here’s the sixth in the series. I’ll post the others over the coming months…
Q6. If you have a negative self-image arising from limiting beliefs and negative feelings about yourself stemming from the beliefs, can that reduce your self-awareness?
“In one sense yes, but in another sense, no…
Numbing Yourself Against Feelings
I say ‘yes’ because if you decide to defend yourself against the limiting beliefs that make up your negative self-image and their painful feelings (above all, shame) by numbing yourself against them, you can indeed reduce what you are consciously aware of. Ironically, such decisions are usually unconscious.
Note what I just said: ‘you can reduce what you are consciously aware of.’ In other words, you stop feeling your feelings – or, at least, you stop feeling them as much as you did – in what I call your conscious mind. This is the field of conscious awareness.
Using the model of the psyche I outlined in The Three Levels of Leadership, the conscious mind resides in the lowest of the four levels of your mind: physical mind. This field of conscious awareness holds whatever you’re consciously aware of right now – the sounds around you, the meaning of the words you’re reading here, any sensations in your body and so on.
By numbing yourself, you either don’t notice your negative feelings or you make them bearable. It’s not something everyone does, but it is a coping mechanism I’ve seen in some leaders, business owners and senior executives.
The Side Effects
Unfortunately there’s often a side effect: you not only lose contact with your negative feelings, you can also lose contact with your values and what’s happening emotionally inside you and indeed around you.
Why does that matter?
Well, your values are the ideas that motivate you, so you can lose energy and momentum. And your emotions are a source of information about what’s happening to you and other people. So you’ll find it harder to feel empathy with others, thus it will be more difficult to connect with them and influence them. And if you lose contact with your values and emotions, your emotional intelligence reduces. Remember, conscious self-awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence.
All this explains why I said ‘yes’ in answering your question, but it’s equally correct to say ‘no’.
Awareness & Self
That’s because your power of awareness is something you can’t turn off. Why do I say that? Because as a Self you don’t just have the power of awareness; you are a centre of pure awareness (plus of course pure imagination and pure will).
So even if you push your painful feelings out of the conscious field of awareness into the unconscious zone of your mind, they will still be there and – here’s the crucial bit – they’ll still exert an effect.
For example, they may cause you to become irritable or angry. Or they may cause you to avoid certain behaviours, like assertiveness – behaviours that as a leader you can’t avoid for long. Or they may cause a build-up of unhelpful chemicals in your body, like cortisol, leading to disease or illness. But because it’s all happening unconsciously you won’t know (in your conscious mind) what’s taking place and why. That’s when you become a victim of your own defence mechanism.
It’s Not Straightforward
So the answer to your question isn’t straightforward.
A negative self-image can reduce what you are consciously aware of if you happen to be using a psychological defence of numbing yourself against your feelings.
But you can never switch off your most basic human faculty: the power of pure awareness. All that happens is that the feelings go underground into the unconscious part of your mind. But you, the Self, respond to the feelings at a deeper level (meaning that unconsciously you are still aware of them). Thus, they continue exerting an effect on your mental state and behaviour… until you expose and dissolve the limiting beliefs behind the feelings.”
April 23, 2013
Will Practising Self-Mastery Mean I’ll Have No Feelings?
After The Three Levels of Leadership came out in 2011, readers followed up with questions on leadership, leadership psychology and self-mastery – all of them interesting. So interesting, in fact, that I’m releasing my answers here as they supplement the “Three Levels” material and others may find them useful. Here’s the fifth in the series. I’ll post the others over the coming months…
Q5. You say you can experience feelings of joy while learning to be detached as you grow your leadership presence by practising self-mastery – but won’t detachment mean no feelings?
“Your assumption that if leaders practise detachment they won’t have any feelings is important… and incorrect. So let’s start by being clear about detachment and attachment.
Attachment
‘Attachment’ means you desire certain conditions so strongly that your sense of identity, your place in the world and your mental state (especially your happiness) depends on meeting those conditions – and, indeed, avoiding the opposite of these conditions.
Thus, for example, a person can be attached to success, money, sex, power or many other objects of attachment.
Detachment
However, ‘detachment’ means being emotionally independent of conditions. But note this next point because it’s subtle and essential: detachment is not numbness. It’s the freedom to flow, leading to the joy of being alive without conditions.
So practising detachment in pursuit of self-mastery doesn’t mean a loss of feelings, but it will mean losing the False Self feelings that drive unhelpful interpersonal behaviour. These feelings are fear (in its many guises) and pride (feeling superior, feeling you know it all, feeling you don’t need to grow).
Joy Isn’t The Same As Happiness
We also need to be clear on what I mean by joy. You see, for many people the words ‘joy’ and ‘happiness’ are synonymous, but they’re not the same thing and it may be that when you say ‘joy’ you really mean ‘happiness’.
Happiness & Unhappiness
Imagine a line representing a continuum between happiness and unhappiness. We can represent them as two opposite states like this:
Now if you regard happiness and unhappiness as a pair of opposites, as most people do, you have – probably without realising it – defined happiness as a conditional idea… meaning certain conditions have to be true before you can be happy.
For example, that you’re in a loving relationship, that you have a good job, that you have no debts, that you have $1 million in the bank, that your football team is winning trophies … and so on. And therefore unhappiness flows when these conditions aren’t met.
Joy
But you see joy isn’t conditional. And that’s why it’s not the same as happiness. It has no opposite. So building on the above diagram, you can depict the difference between happiness and joy like this:
So joy is not a position on the line between happiness and unhappiness – it’s not a compromise between the two. Nor is it synonymous with happiness – it’s at a different level; an unconditional level. If you’ve read any spiritual literature you may be aware that mystics have another word for joy: bliss.
My point is that self-mastery and joy go together. The feeling of joy is an inevitable result of self-mastery. Why? Because self-mastery frees you from dependence on emotional conditions – or to put it another way, from the tyranny of emotional opposites.
Self-Mastery & Joy
The person who experiences joy sees and experiences life’s beauty, excitement and flow at every moment – and this is what it’s like to be in an advanced state of self-mastery.
In other words, the person who is well on the way to mastering her mind experiences joy regardless of outer conditions because her mental state doesn’t depend on them – she is detached. She isn’t caught in the drive towards – or the flight away from – the pair of opposites. There may be occasional exceptions, like the death of someone close to you, but they’ll be temporary.
So when you practise detachment on the way to self-mastery it leads to joy, flow and a sense of emotional freedom… not the absence of feelings.”
The author of this blog is James Scouller, an executive coach. His book, The Three Levels of Leadership: How to Develop Your Leadership Presence, Knowhow and Skill, was published by Management Books 2000 in May 2011. You can learn more about it at www.three-levels-of-leadership.com. If you want to see its reviews, click here: leadership book reviews. If you want to know where to buy it, click HERE.
April 7, 2013
Leadership Qualities & Traits
Many people believe that leaders are born not made and think all leaders share certain leadership qualities. Thus, they believe, the key to having good leaders is to find people with the right leadership traits… and perhaps give them some training.
The Problem
Now leaving aside the question of whether leaders are born or made, which I’ve addressed in this blog article – “Are Leaders Born or Made?” – there’s a problem with this line of thinking on leadership traits: research shows there is no universal, common set of leadership qualities.
Ralph Stogdill’s Work
The idea of researching leadership traits has been around for at least 150 years. However it was after Ralph Stogdill wrote his 1948 paper, “Personal Factors Associated with Leadership: a Survey of the Literature”, that people began to doubt the leadership traits theory.
He looked at the data from more than 100 studies and analysed their conclusions across 27 groups of factors. They included leadership qualities like: dominance, responsibility, integrity, self-confidence, intelligence, adaptability, social mobility, popularity and many more.
What did he find? That there wasn’t much agreement on the key qualities of a leader.
Indeed, it’s now clear that if you combine everyone’s findings over the decades, the list of leadership qualities has become so long it’s unusable as a guide to selecting future leaders.
Leadership Qualities & The Leader’s Context
Interestingly, Stogdill was one of the first to point out that a person doesn’t become an effective leader just because he or she has certain leadership qualities.
He argued that the qualities of successful leaders must be relevant to the circumstances they are in. That is, to the specific challenges they face and the abilities, hopes, values and concerns of their followers.
This, of course, paved the way for what became known as situational theories of leadership.
Leadership Qualities & Leadership Presence
Despite the leadership traits-based approach falling out of favour among academics, it’s still around today in popular literature. Why? Perhaps because it’s still true to say that the best leaders do have distinct leadership qualities that enable them to lead well.
After all, if you consider the best leaders you’ve worked with, did they not have a certain intangible “something” about them that was crucial to their leadership – what many people call leadership presence? I’ve found that for most of us the answer is, “Yes.”
So perhaps although distinctive leadership qualities are indeed part of the best leaders’ make up, there’s no one set of winning leadership traits underlying leadership presence.
Thus, every successful leader has his or her own unique combination of leadership qualities. Which would explain why researchers have found so many leadership traits.
So perhaps we should be focusing on the keys to leadership presence rather than hunting for common traits.
April 2, 2013
Leadership: Is It Lonely At The Top?
Most of us have heard people say things like “it’s lonely at the top” or “the leader’s role is a lonely one”. But people rarely question this conventional wisdom. Yet from my experience as an executive coach I believe it’s an idea we should question.
So is it really lonely at the top? No, I don’t think it is. In my view, the leader doesn’t have to be lonely.
Loneliness versus Aloneness
About 15 years ago, when I was a managing director, someone said to me, “Of course, it’s lonely being MD isn’t it?” I replied, “No, it’s not. Sometimes it’s true, I do feel alone in my responsibilities, but I never feel lonely.”
Let me explain why I said that…
The Leader’s Unique Responsibility
In chapter 1 of The Three Levels of Leadership I pointed out that there’s a difference between “leadership” and the role of “leader”.
I described “leadership” as a process of paying attention to four dimensions simultaneously:
Motivating Purpose: agreeing a purpose or vision or goal that everyone in the group cares about and wants to achieve.
Task, Progress & Results: paying attention to the steps needed to making the motivating purpose happen (planning, solving problems, following up, delegating responsibilities and so on).
Group Unity: making sure everyone feels a sense of togetherness, a team spirit, where they are ready to subordinate their selfish interests for the sake of the group’s goal.
Individuals: recognising that although no individual is more important than the group, every group comprises individuals and they differ in their confidence, motivation and ability to do their jobs. So the fourth part of leadership is paying attention to individuals to make sure they feel included, recognised, ready, able and eager to play their part.
I made the point too that leadership is shared in every successful group or organisation. In other words, members of every successful group each contribute to the behaviours needed to achieve the common purpose. For example, think of a football team, where several players will usually play their part in scoring a goal.
Now this of course raises the question: if leadership is shared, what’s the leader’s purpose? My answer was that the purpose of the leader is to make sure there is leadership. In other words, to make sure all four dimensions of leadership are being addressed.
Thus, the leader can ask colleagues to take the lead on certain challenges facing the group if they are better qualified to lead in those circumstances, but he or she cannot delegate the responsibility to make sure there is leadership.
This, in my view, is where the buck stops with the leader. It’s where the leader has a unique responsibility and, therefore, may occasionally feel alone.
But this doesn’t mean the leader has to feel lonely. As leaders we may sometimes feel alone in our unique responsibility, but that doesn’t mean we have to feel isolated from our colleagues.
In my view, this difference between a leader sometimes feeling alone and feeling lonely is like the difference between pain and suffering.
Pain versus Suffering
You see, it’s possible for us to have a pain in our body without experiencing it as suffering.
That’s because suffering is the mental and emotional evaluation we place on the physical experience of pain. In other words, it’s the meaning we give to it.
My point is that whereas pain is something produced by the body, suffering is a psychological overlay created by us.
So it doesn’t automatically follow that if we experience pain, we’ll feel we’re suffering. It might follow, but it doesn’t automatically follow.
So What?
As an executive coach, if a Managing Director or CEO client says, “My leadership role is lonely”, my ears prick up.
That’s often when I help the client surface, question and let go of the limiting beliefs causing them to experience loneliness rather than the occasional aloneness that can come with holding the unique responsibility of being the overall leader.
When we work on these limiting beliefs, clients don’t just become more resilient, they can feel more connected with those around them and enjoy their job more.
