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Making Leadership Personal
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Monday, October 23, 2006Beyond “Self-Interest” a possibility for becoming true leaders remains available ...
Good Morning,
Here I am alone in my kitchen at 5:00 AM. I'm thinking about, "how leaders make it personal" and why they do it.
What I'm really thinking about would be better phrased as, how leaders "invent" themselves. In order to lead at least two things immediately come to mind:
I've come to believe that what I want to call a true leader constantly considers these two concepts, followers and direction. Let's use some different terminology and see if it makes a difference in the messages at all.
First, a true leader considers those whom they are leading first and foremost. They hold an intention about what they are doing and what it means to those engaged with them doing it as well. This could be in a business enterprise, it could be in a research/scientific endeavor, it could be an academic/educational situation, it could be a softball team that plays during the summer on weekends ... it doesn't much matter what the situation may be, the critical considerations are that the leader is accepted as such by others and they hold an intention with regard to the group.
Next, a true leader holds an intention regarding the outcome at all times. Sometimes folks refer to this as having a "vision" - and I'm okay with that terminology. Knowing exactly what will be true when the outcome or vision becomes manifest has more significance than what anyone calls it as far as I'm concerned. To put it most simply, a leader aims themselves and those that are following towards a specific destination - literal or figurative - and they hold the course regardless of the tide at any given moment.
Now I know I've probably eliminated more than fifty percent of those calling themselves "leaders" or holding leadership positions by my criteria of true leadership as I've outlined it above. This would be especially true about the first criteria - i.e.: a true leader considers those whom they are leading first and foremost. When you look around at those called leaders and those holding leadership positions you quickly get the message that leaders and leadership seems like a privileged position from which to get one's own outcomes - wealth, power, success, fame, sex ... you name it. It surely does not seem to be about serving others.
I'm explicitly saying that leadership in the service of one's self will always be a corruption - and it most significantly corrupts the leader who uses the position of leadership for their own personal gain - especially when that gain comes at the cost of those they are leading.
What the options would be for someone who leads when they are not corrupt gives us a different filter to consider what leaders do. My take on this has to do with the second comment the intention and the direction of leadership. I believe what makes a leader revolves around the intention and direction they hold ... where they aim themselves and those that follow them. This point refers to the idea that a leader always intends an outcome held in the future that constantly informs their decisions today. They are literally not making their decisions in regard to what happens today - but instead they make decisions about how what happens today will impact the outcome they hold in mind and are heading towards.
This may mean that they will sacrifice today, themselves and even others for the outcome when they believe it to be greater than the cost of achieving it. Some of the most admired men and women in history are examples of this kind of leadership ... Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightengale, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teressa ... there are of course others, yet these are some that stand out as examples for me.
"Ahh, but what about "business leaders?" you say. I think for the most part most business leaders don't get it - they are not true leaders they and their cousins in modern times politicians, are among the most corrupt of all. Do I believe this absolutely true ... of course not! However, I do believe that for the most part they do not get it. Some like a Bill Gates or Warren Buffet will after a lifetime of pursuing personal success decide that they want to give something back. However that doesn't repair or forgive the corruption that may have ensued while they pursued they own means to the ends they achieved.
Another question would be, "Do I think it would be impossible for a business leader to be a true leader?" No I don't ...
I think business leaders can be outstanding true leaders ... exemplars of leadership ... AND I think they are in the most significant position in today's environment to make a difference - even more so than political leaders. But ... the rub continues that they'd have to want to make a difference more than they want to succeed personally ... and that may be too much to ask of anyone who doesn't wake up and get it all on their own.
One example as a possibility that I'd hold out would be Paul Hawken, an entrepreneur who founded the mail-order garden tools company "Smith and Hawken" that has since been bought and continues as a major retailer in this market segment. One of the books that he's written The Ecology of Commerce would be on my must read list, along with one of his first books Growing a Business for all budding entrepreneurs and business leaders who want to make a difference alike.
I believe that leaders can make a difference ... and to do so they'd have to start from and organize around a different position ... one other than, "self-interest." I am not confident that we are there ... either selecting or electing leaders who operate from a position other than self-interest ... yet I remain hopeful that we may be in a direction that leads closer to this ideal ...
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D. Princeton, NJ
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Moving Leadership Forward
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Thursday, October 12, 2006Beyond simple platitudes and easy “step-by-step” formulas - true leadership takes a sound philosophy and a design orientation that takes the entire system where leaders operate into account ... well beyond the personal needs and/or desires of the individual leaders themselves ... if we ever expect to see ourselves as species get beyond the raping and pillaging of the miraculous world and its people that we’ve been gifted.
Good Evening (Early Morning really ...),
I flew into the UK this morning (that means I left NJ two nights ago now ... funny thing this "time travel stuff). However it happened between NJ and the UK I came down with some kind of bug ... meaning my nosed was both stuffed and runny (terrible combination) ... I was feverish and achy ... and I was generally not feeling my oats so to speak.
So here I am ... I land in the UK at 7:00 AM UK time and I have to be in a room to present a training program at 11:00 AM. I haven't sleep well (or at all ...), I'm getting worst not better as the day progress - and a room full of people are waiting for me to show up to deliver a program they've made arrangements to be at and flown in for themselves. All this not to mention I co-presesnting on this particular program with another trainer and friend who also expects me to show up ready to go (although he'd have covered for me if I'd have asked him to ...).
So you get the picture, yes? Now the question I want to pose goes like this:
Are the people in the room who have paid to be there, made arrangements to get there themselves, organized their schedule to make this happen in their lives and have now been waiting for me to arrive expected to understand that this has not been my best day?
Further do I have any right to ask them to understand my situation?
Or do these folks have the right to expect that I'll show up and perform as though it has been my best day ever?
Some of you may already see where I'm going with this ... we are most often expected to perform at our best regardless of how our personal lives are going at the moment ... and in this situation specifically I'd even argue that these folks had the right to expect me to show and deliver ... as promised.
So I'm a pro and I do ... I get to the room and put my personal situation on hold while I hold the space I've contracted and agreed to as though it has been just like any other day ... my best day in fact.
Now this does not strike me as particularly unusual. In the crowds I move in, at the level I play at, folks just show up and perform ... regardless of what may or may not be going on for them outside the room. This trainer and friend who I'm co-presenting with in fact has a personal history with me where he has definitely had some things going on outside the room that anyone would have understood had he asked them to ... but he didn't ... he delivered ... then he when and took care of himself and what was going on in his personal life.
Now anyone who has followed what I've been writing about for years may be reading this particular posting and saying, "How can Joseph be saying this stuff?" It sounds like he may be suggesting that we put on a different face for our professional roles and our personal roles. However, I can assure you it only sounds like that.
What I'm actually saying would be better put that it doesn't matter what kind of day you're having ... or not ... from my point of view living with integrity - what I might call displaying - "personal leadership" - means showing up and doing what must be done ... what you have in fact committed to do.
Let me take a slight turn with you here for a moment. One of the folks I'm regularly interacting with has been at me for a year or more now to continue to become ever more clear about who I'm writing these entries for and to. I've recently made a very specific move not only to take a significant step in aiming my writing here to a more narrow and specific audience, but I've also decided ... and I've begun ... shifting my entire business model around to reflect this as well.
I think I'm writing to folks about leadership ... I think I'm writing to leaders and "would be" leaders.
And - I intend to move the concept and definition of what I think leadership must be forward ... beyond the Plablum and feel good bullshit that has been offered to date about leadership in the popular press and as presented by many on the popular author's and speaker's circuit.
First of all, (in terms of this intention) and where I'll leave this particular posting let me say this ...
If leadership, and leaders, are to be taken seriously they must become as valid and consistent as any profession/professional endeavor ... this first and foremost requires a valid and consistent philosophy of leadership for leaders that moves well beyond the latest fad training protocol or marketing slogan.
While I know I'm not like to make many friends in the leadership training/consulting business or amongst leadership coaches I also know that if I do what I intend to do with any kind of integrity for myself I must put this stake in the ground and stand by it regardless of the cost to me personally or what other people may or may not think about it. Often the only praise that can be expected comes after the fact ... and most importantly in seeing the results being manifest in and by others.
The result of what leadership has been defined to date to be includes such giants of industry as Steven Jobs, Richard Branson and John Mackey ... folks I think "get it." However it also has produced folks like Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling of Enron, as well as Bernard Ebbers and Scott Sullivan of WorldCom and their crews. This points to how ill-defined in some cases what we expect ... AND what we'll allow from our leaders as the ply their leadership roles.
Of course I haven't even mentioned the political sectors or the social sectors ... where the lack of leadership runs rampant ... and some superstars emerge anyway despite the general lack of leadership as I've beginning to redefine it (at least for myself). What I have found to most be missing resides at the core of what I think leadership could be ... true leadership design. While this term may be mostly meaningless to you as you read this it has become for me central to my thinking on and about leadership and leaders.
Leadership Design moves leadership beyond management and leaders beyond managers - even when leaders are acting as managers! It moves leadership beyond the content that managers find themselves address to produce the outcomes they are charged with to addressing most significantly the context that they are building.
The leaders I am speaking to are cognizant of the impact they have on the system at large ... and willingly assume the responsibilities and obligations that go alone with being in such a role. They transcend reporting to the board or simply carrying out the directives they are given if they perceive that they are not in the best interests of the entire system. They are willing to take the risks of retaining their personal positions and their integrity despite the cost to them when they know something needs to be done ... or something must not be done as well!
If what you think leadership should be all about or what leaders should be doing has to do with getting the best results than this blog and my writing probably won't be for you for long. However, if instead you think that what leadership should be all about, and what leaders should be doing, has to do with establishing a legacy position that transcends them and their personal goals ... in favor of the system they are charged to lead ... then you may find that we share a common interest.
For those of you for whom this fits I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you ... and hearing about them or some of your own from you as well.
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Surrey, England
PS - The October edition of the Unconventional Advice Audio Newsletter focuses on the Trajectory of INTENT model ... and ... you can still subscribe to my Uncoventional Advice Audio Newsletter RISK FREE for 90 DAYS! for a few days more.
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Becoming a Leader … Part One
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Tuesday, October 10, 2006Are we truly “over-managed and under-led” ... and if so what does that mean?
Maybe leaders at every level need to become more familiar with chaos ... giving up all desire for the perception of comfort that comes with the sense of being in control.
Good Evening,
I spent a long day teaching today in NY. As an adjunct professor in the Design & Management program at of Parson's, part of the New School University, I get to meet other professors in the department. Now this department has some unique characteristics. Parson's has just been ranked one of the top design schools in the world in Business Week's “first-ever survey of design schools and design programs in the U.S., Europe, and Asia that are graduating the innovators companies hunger for.” There are literally world-class scholars, designers and artists wandering the halls (and sometimes teaching) that I'm interacting with regularly.
One of the most interesting things about the program I'm teaching in has to be the nature of the intersection between design and business that resides at the core of this program. The program offers a BBA (Bachelor's of Business Administration) so officially I teach in a business program within a design school. That alone makes the program unusual, if not unique. After each long day of teaching in this program I wonder, "Who has learned more this day ... me or my students?"
I find that many of the skills I bring to the classroom come from my many years working with business leaders and organizations internationally. Essentially these skills include:
This will give you some sense of what it takes to run a class effectively. As I said skills similar to what it takes to run a successful department or business. Of course in a "real business" there are other skills what would have to be present as well, including:
Again, I'm guessing you get the picture. These skills are actually present as well, just provided for by others within the university setting. The more I look closely in fact the more I recognize just how much a a "business" academia actually must be to survive.
Amid this activity I have found myself recruited to sit on a committee to plan a Master's degree program. I'm quite "chuffed" at this request and opportunity. The process of working with full-time academics has been most enlightening so far. However, none of this forms the reason for today's posting.
Within this mix one of the other professors on the Master's program committee has used the phrase, "We are over-managed and under-led" repeatedly. This phrase strikes me deeply in some way. First of all, what does it mean to be over-managed and under-led?
As an old (Peter) Drucker fan I read often from his writing about "management" and his lack of distinction between management and leadership. It seems that for this famous professor of business, management and leadership were considered two sides of the same coin. Yet I do understand the comment coming from my colleague about being "under-led." I understand for instance the difference between managing a project or process and leading people.
In my opinion at the heart of management resides a quantitative, linear process vs. a qualitative, non-linear process for leadership. Management seems to me to be all about "outcomes" whereas leadership seems to me to be all "vision." This distinction may be best summed up best by saying that, management attends to what must get done in the present - while leadership attends to where a group, organization or business wants to be going in the future.
Now in order to succeed at leading the leader must be aware of the present conditions just like the manager. However, they must not become trapped by these conditions or the present. Leaders must free themselves from the constraints of the present to focus on the future possibility that they are responsible for making happen through their leadership. Primarily, leaders must create the contexts where the outcomes they intend become manifest. This differs from management as I have defined it greatly - where the leader creates the context where the intended outcomes become manifest, managers are directly responsible for producing the intended outcomes.
It might appear that the difference I am suggesting may be subtle, yet I do not think this so. The distinction between creating a context where the outcomes that are intended can be produced and producing those outcomes are in fact radically different in terms of attitude and action. When the leader shifts their attention to the creating of contexts their vision widens dramatically. Instead of fixing their attention on the more narrow aspect of producing the outcomes at hand, leaders must attend to the much larger system within which the outcomes will be produced.
Leadership coaching and/or consulting must therefore shift focus to the construction of context vs. the attention on outcome that management consulting fixates upon. One of the significant aspects of this shift of focus will be the shift from a quantitative, linear process oriented methodology, to a broader qualitative, non-linear methodology. From my perspective this may be addressed by shifting the intention held from managing or controlling chaos to an intention to generative familiarity and appreciation for chaos.
All opportunity resides in chaos ... not in the "management" of chaos but in the willingness to play within the chaos without attempting to control or conquer it in any way ... in fact the greater the chaos often the greater the opportunity.
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
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Reinventing the System
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Monday, October 09, 2006Moving beyond the limitations of “self” requires at least one thing in the most absolute terms ... COURAGE. When the courage to evolve becomes present the system expands to make room for the newly emergent form that the “self” has become.
This new form has become more than “self” and yet rather than denying the self, includes the self - this new form has become social and from it the individual can relate to the system as a whole in its entirety - including both self and other without exclusion or preference.
“Myth is the Dream Depersonalized” - Joseph Campbell
The vast majority of material that has been released in regard to "coaching" has been in relation to three typical aspects of what to expect from coaching vs. other modalities, e.g.: therapy, consulting ...
By no means am I suggesting that these three things define coaching in it's entirety. For instance other distinctions between coaching and therapy might be the tendency for therapy to focus on the individual's past and their psychological health/wellbeing, while coaching tends to focus on the future and the individual's functional and skills development capacity.
So we could then add these two aspects to the list of the aspects of coaching listed above:
These aspects aren't unique to coaching per se, however in combination this list of aspects begins to create a sense of what defines and separates coaching from other helping or service disciplines.
I have to say up-front I'm somewhat "conflicted" (notice the quotes) about coaching. Generally I don't like coaching personally - either as a methodology to employ for myself, i.e.: hiring a coach, or employing the methodology as I understand it with my clients, i.e.: acting as a coach. At the same time I respect the value of this methodology in the right context, for the right application. In my personal opinion the "right context" for coaching would include entry-level to mid-level employees, and the "right application" would include specifically performance related issues.
Where I'm less excited about "coaching" as I've seen it most typically presented and practiced includes virtually all senior-level/executive applications, and especially those that are strategic in nature. These individuals in my opinion require a much more "advice" oriented interaction than most coaches can offer given the experience they bring into the coaching assignment. I've found this constituent group to be best served by a combination of expert advice and highly effective dialogue about decisions that are in consideration.
So what I'm advocating for senior-level/executive applications would be a Coach-Consultant Practitioner - an individual who brings both the specific expertise and the precise process skill-set to assist these high-level individuals. This has sometimes been referred to as Executive Coaching (vs. Business Coaching or Life Coaching), yet I still advocate for a further distinction from coaching in general. The professional I envision providing this service possesses the knowledge-base of the expert advisor and the experience-base of the process consultant.
The Coach-Consultant would be well suited to acting as a trusted advisor/confidant to a senior-level executive, e.g.: Chairman, CEO, President, Partner, Owner, etc. These individuals are responsible for leading their respective organizations and are expected to provide the vision and presence necessary in leadership roles. Working from a protocol-driven model with such individuals diminishes and degrades the roles they provide in the organization in both my opinion and experience.
The critical distinction I'm advocating here revolves around moving from personal/individual/subjective orientation to a societal-organizational/group/inter-subjective orientation - instead of assisting the individual to perform well within the system the role I'm advocating for assists the individual to build highly functional systems.
The coach-consultant engagement organizes around moving from a "subjective approach" and building individual skills to perform well within the existing system to an "inter-subjective approach" where the system itself becomes the "client" as perceived through the eyes of the senior-level executive - de-personalizing the process.
Of course operating this way provides exactly the input the senior-level executive requires to achieve their intended outcomes in meeting the expectation held as the leader of the system. Creating a successful system ensures the success of the senior-level executive - what may be more significant could be the impact of creating the successful system on the executive personally. Essentially I'm suggesting that by attending to the system's well-being first and foremost the executive will be generating a more profound and satisfying success, systemically and personally, than would have been possible by simply attending to fulfilling their personal intentions - whatever they might be.
In the following days and weeks I'll be offering some of the ideas about how to construct highly-successful coach-consultant engagements that produce systemic successes. Among the propositions I'll be presenting will be that the coach-consultant as I've defined this role will bring a much more embodied approach, as well as a more comprehensive social approach, to the work they do. I envision that these individuals will be working towards designing more sustainable social systems that pervade the entire system through space (i.e.: where ever they may be located) and provide much greater continuity through time (a long view in regard to the impact and consequences of the actions under consideration).
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D., Social Ontology
Princeton, NJ
PS - For a very specific presentation of the model I'm suggesting in terms of embodiment I recommend "Beyond The Obvious" and introduction to the EPC2(tm) - Exquisite Performance Coaching model. This single CD overviews the entire concept of building a teleological position and using that position to inform the present in terms of the decision-making considerations, as well as presenting the application of a highly somatically driven coaching process. The overall effect generates the embodied sense performance that transcends the limitation of purely cognitive, linear decision-making models.
Go to: "Beyond The Obvious"
PPS - For a more complete presentation of the entire EPC2 - Exquisite Performance Coaching consider the "EPC Series One - Exquisite Performance Coaching" four-CD audio program. In this set I begin with the idea of teleological model - creating a future-pull in the system, through eliminating the limitations in the system from the past, generating a profoundly powerful and singular system, to going beyond the existing constraints in the system as they are known to be today.
Read more about this set at: "EPC Series One - Exquisite Performance Coaching"
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Resetting the Bar
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Sunday, October 08, 2006Knowing where you are will always be just as important as knowing where you are going in terms of getting to where you want to be ...
Howdy everyone,
I've intentionally stepped away from posting for a couple of weeks. Both here on BlogNostra and also I've resisted putting out an edition of Authentically Living(tm) my newsletter as well. There are a couple of reasons for this and I'll share just a few ...
Years ago I was listening to Richard Bandler, developer of Neurolinguistic Programming/NLP speaking. There was an audience question about something Richard had been doing and teaching years before that he was no longer doing. In fact not only wasn't he doing it or teaching it ... he was actively refuting it! This was something I had been on about myself for a few years at the time ... the infamous NLP Parts Model - most notably represented by the Six-Step Reframing technique.
Just so there we're clear ... I HATE SIX-STEP REFRAMING! ... it represents what I least like about the NLP model in every way. However, at the time Richard was also on about it in this particular workshop ... "OLD TECHNOLOGY ... blah, blah, blah ..." ... tearing into pieces that would remain rent and unrepairable. This was after writing a book years before (Reframing with John Grinder) that positioned this technology at the center of the work he was doing at the time.
Anyway updating to the moment in the program where all this happened, this participant asks Richard how he could speak this way about this process, the Six-Step Reframe using the parts model, after having written a book that touted the very same process. Richard's response was absolutely classic Richard ... "I call that changing my mind." Now if you "grok" the NLP experience at all you'll get the marvelous double entendre built into that comment.
So I've been working though my own updating ... some of which I've been sharing with you all right here in BlogNostra. Without making it painful (for you or me ...) what's been going on has been what I began to refer to years ago as "a seismic shift" in the way I'm approaching what I've been calling the Mythogenic Self Process work for years.
Way back when (in the early 1990's ... over ten years ago now ...) while I was studying the Generative Imprint(tm) Model with Roye I designed the first presentation of the Mythogenic Self Process for an NLP conference where I was speaking ... and the name stuck. Initially what I presented could be called "an application of the Generative Imprint Model." Literally what I did was design six exercises to be delivered over a few days in a program that allowed participants to experience Roye's Generative Imprint Model. Later I added a seventh exercise based on an extrapolation of Robert Dilt's "S.C.O.R.E. Model" that I call the "Soma-Swish(tm)". Eventually these seven exercises became the Mythogenic Self Experience(tm), a program that only Licensed MythoSelf Facilitators and Trainers are certified to present internationally.
Well ... that was then and it has become very, very clear to me that the time has come for me to update ... both the models I'm working out of and on and myself as well. I can assure you that updating the models is much, much easier to do! So I've been at this task for a while now and really turning the corner especially over the last few weeks. This will begin coming through in the work I'm presenting in a number of ways ...
This last point will be the bastion of virtually all my intended work in the near future ... re-defining coaching as it has come to know today. And, as I've stated this will include a massive overhaul and updating of the NLP Model and my own MythoSelf Process Model as well.
I wanted to share this with you as my readers so that you have some sense of what's been going on with this blog and why I've been away from it for the last couple of weeks. So now you know where I've been and what's been going on ... as well as where I'll be going. I hope you have the information you need to decide if you want to take this ride ... and that I've made it interesting enough for you at least to jump aboard for the time being ...
Best regardss,
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
To catch up and take advantage of my offer take a look at the EPC Series One - Exquisite Performance Coaching four CD audio training program ... you can still purchase it at the early release pricing (until 31 October 2006) and you'll have a full thirty-days to decide if you want to keep it or return it for a full refund.
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