Know thy leadership...

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Know thy leadership...

 What is the source of your power and fulfilment as a leader? 

“Know Thyself before you attempt to know anything else”
Socrates in Phaedrus (paraphrased)

This is as true today as it was 3,000 tears ago. Here are the four levels that define what there is to know!

While we focus on the shallowest levels of leadership, the deeper levels escape us.

Like the resonance of a tuning fork, the deeper levels are harder to hear but reach far deeper into the body and the mind. Take a few moments going into the break to understand where the source of your power lies, and what to think about learning next year.
 

The average leader: the strong personality

Have you known a leader who leveraged a strong personality to get people into action?

From forceful to charming, this approach can certainly produce results, but everyone knows it’s hollow. Somehow there’s nothing ‘real’ there.

By contrast, you've probably also known people whose personality seemed to be secondary to their ability to influence and inspire people?

If it is this second kind of person who inspires you, read on....

"Personality is unique but only scrapes the surface of what it means to be a human being. The deeper we go the more real it becomes, but the unique it is."

Temperament
Temperaments describe how people ‘meet the world’, and there are only four of them!

As long ago as 800 BC Hippocrates, the ‘father’ of modern medicine, outlined the characteristics of the four human temperaments. These four temperaments have been helping us understand how people interact with the world around them, and with each other, ever since.

Choleric - The General

Phlegmatic - The Watcher

Sanguine - The Lover

Melancholic - The Thinker

There is an immense knowledge (and power) to be gained in these insights that influence not only your external effectiveness as a leader but more importantly, your sense of satisfaction and fulfilment as a person.

One example will have to suffice: my eight-year-old son is primarily choleric. Full of love, he meets the world with fire and fury, quick to anger, quick to cool. As a parent, his anger and upset can be hard to manage, however, if he ever stopped meeting the world that way I’d get worried.

That is his temperament. I love him for it, but you do have to know how to work with it and, perhaps more importantly, how it interacts with my own (very sanguine: creative, flighty, hard to focus...)

Each temperament should be supported and managed in a different way. Understand this and you understand what makes a person tick – and what makes a team work!

"In my work with teams, this is probably the most powerful, insightful and sustainable piece of work I get to do.

But there is an even deeper and more profound level that is so obvious we miss it all the time

Unlike the previous two levels, the phases of a human life are archetypal – there is only one progression available. Understand where you are at in that progression and you will gain a deep understanding of what is actually happening with you, and what you have to truly give back in this lifetime.

Click HERE for more on Life Phases.

The ultimate source of power and fulfilment in life: Your Leitmotif

While we have been progressing from unique to archetypal down the leadership levels, the last level takes us back to unique and is the most important of them all.

Just like you were born with a body, you were born with a biography. Both are influenced by your choices and actions, but both come into the world with you and you have to work with the material you’ve been given. Not everything you do is a matter of free-will - writing your life’s-story on a vast blank page – there is much there to discover about your purpose and gifts. In this journey of discovery lies the ultimate source of power as a leader, and fulfilment in your life. For more on the Leitmotif, click HERE.

The Leitmotif lies under the Life Phase because, a bit like laying a pattern over a complicated lace doily, it takes an understanding of the archetypal pattern of the human life before you can start to see which bits are uniquely yours. You need to know what is not unique about your life in order to know what is.

Go HERE FOR A VIDEO - A fuller explanation and subscribe to the channel if you like this stuff…

Our latest program is designed to support younger leaders, generally under 40. A program for heart-centred young professionals”, find the link HERE

  
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P.S. Whenever you’re ready to look at new ways to take charge of the second half …. here are here are four ways we can help:

1. Request some articles on how to take charge of the second half of life by discovering you Leitmotif (the recurring theme of your life) email me

2. Join our private group on Facebook: a great place to share and learn from other’s sharing, get ideas, ask questions and hangout with others the same place you’re at

3. Get a free pre-order of our book (just pay shipping). It’s called “Midlife Creation: how to take charge of the second half of your life. Just email “BOOK PLEASE” and I’ll send you a copy when it is published (around December).

4. If you want to ask some questions or get a sense of how to start looking for your own Leitmotif you can book a quick private chat with me HERE(pls note you can't register into a program this way, but you can check me out and see if we click)