We’ve understood why we need a new approach to leadership, to take us through this time of change.
Now, to find out what that looks like, we need to ask ourselves a question:
What do we mean by ‘Leadership’?
At The Churning, we believe that the essence of good leadership is the ability to create just two things: inspiration and results. The best leaders are the ones who most inspire us. The best leaders are the ones who create the best results. And the truly great leaders are the ones who create both inspiration and results.
This means that if we want to find a new approach to leadership in times of change, we need to find new ways of creating inspiration and results in a changing world.
Which comes first?
At first glance it might seem to make sense to start with results — after all, there are so many urgent issues to deal with that we don’t really have time to think about inspiration.
But there will always be another crisis. And crisis creates stress. And stressed-out people don’t see the situation clearly, which leads to poor decisions, which get implemented badly, so the situation doesn’t get resolved, and the churning just gets worse — both the outer churning in the world and our inner emotional churning.
This means that if we truly want a new kind of leadership — one that creates lasting solutions in a changing world — then we have to start by finding new ways of creating inspiration and emotional engagement.
When we do this, several things will happen:
- We will see our situations more calmly and more clearly
- We will connect more strongly with who we are at our best
- We will become clearer and more certain about the outcomes we most want to create
- We will find more options for moving forward
- We will get better at choosing the way forward that aligns best with what we want most in the world, even when the situation is unclear and the outcome is uncertain
- We will become more inspired to make that choice happen
- And when we come to implementation we will be more focused and effective, more enthusiastic and efficient, more adaptable to a changing world
And all of this will help us to create results that last.
If we want to lead ourselves, and other people, better through this time of change we need new skills and abilities, compared with leading ourselves when times are stable. These new skills and abilities have to start with finding new ways to create inspiration. Because only then can our implementation become more effective. Because without a clearer sense of inspiration we will remain stuck as stressed-out people taking poor decisions which we implement badly so the churning just gets worse. And with a clearer sense of inspiration we will know what we most want, why we want it, and how to make it happen.
We call this new set of skills and abilities, Inner Leadership. This is the way we become antifragile: able to use change to become stronger and more inspired.
On a scale of 0–10, how do you rate your current ability to inspire yourself and others to move with purpose through this time of change? Do you want to improve that?
Adapted from The Churning, Inner Leadership: a framework and a set of tools for building inspiration in a time of change.
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Photo By Scott Robinson via StockPholio.net