Heart Leaders are no pushover

I believe there are two paths of leadership - the path of fear and the path of Courage and Heart. Heart Leadership where people are connected though spirit, joy and passion in their work.

To follow the path of Heart Leadership takes courage it's where we challenge old assumptions that may keep us from discovering new posibilites. We look at similar situations and explore with others how it will be different this time. We balance the quantifiable with the intuitive with vision and values, and with our belief in our ability to produce a positive result.

Let's discover more...

Resource: Courage
Limitless - Chris Hemsworth


Dream Dare Dazzle

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hi everyone, How did we get on last week? Did
we observe any of the traits of being a heart leader?
And what like to explore with you this week? Is
a suggestion leading from the hat doesn't mean being a

(00:27):
pushover for me. There's a couple of paths in life,
and there's two paths in leadership. There's a path of
the fear, which is taken by most managers in today's world,
where control and manipulation reign supreme. And there's what I

(00:50):
would call the path of courage and the heart, where
people are connected through let's call it spirit, joy, passion, zest,
and the work. At best, fear produces stagnation. It worst,
fear courts negativity and paralyzes an organization's ability to compete effectively.

(01:15):
Ours may suggest traditional analytical, control driven systems of management
have so indoctrinated most of us to fear driven reality
that many of us have lost touch with the courage
that is by nature part of every one of us.

(01:38):
When we take the path of fear, we inevitably create
what we fear. The most explosive creative energy is unpredictable
and uncontrollable and frightening to many, if not most people
may say that creativity involvement are what they want. Most

(02:00):
leaders afraid of losing control, fear of uncertainty, potential loss
of market position often finds the desire for control. When
we try to harm the spirit that is by nature
wild and free, we cripple it and invite fear where

(02:20):
none need exist. Controlling measures and fear that are their
source and byproduct, damping creativity crob a company of its
nge and make it vulnerable to competition, exactly what the
controlling manages fear when they began trying to control workplace spirit.

(02:45):
Demonstrating the leadership that creates and sustain and environment for
untapped and unlimited sources of energy takes messages tremendous courage leaders,
Heart leaders and the Path of courage know that in
this century we need responsors of demands, all of a

(03:09):
company that's resources the body, mind, and spirit of every person.
Our ability to survive and thrive and perpetual cares lies
in the ability to live with ambiguity, to challenge perceptions
of reality, and constantly to reassess and create new options

(03:36):
for responding to change. May suggest that and the Path
of courage leaders create an environment that respects people and
the processes of involving people. They know it's more important
to listen than to talk, more important to ask questions

(04:00):
that increases awareness and consciousness, and to have all the answers.
Leaders leaders zest leaders heart. Leaders in the path of
courage ah intentional about outcomes, but open and flexible. But
how to get there? On the path of courage, leadership

(04:24):
doesn't depend on all the assumptions about events, outcomes of
people for an easy but reactive answer. Such leadership cannot
depend only upon what is quantifiable, because the act of
measurement creates distortion sold story. What's measured is done? What's

(04:48):
the most appropriate thing to measure all these matrices? And
what's slipping through all the little holes there? I often
have we seen that we're chasing them numbers? Chasing numbers,
I find out, particularly in behavioral safety leadership, it's about
hitting the numbers. What is it? What have we seen?

(05:11):
And we're focusing on unsafe acts and conditions focusing focusing
on are very small, but we miss the wider culture
of the human behaviors, the team dynamics as well. It's
not all about the little things, observable things that we

(05:33):
actually see the slips and lapses that happen. It's what's
the influencing factors that causes the events, these unwanted events
to happen. On the Path of Courage, we challenge all
the assumptions that makekeepers from finding out new possibilities. We

(05:58):
look at similar situ and explored with others how it
will be different this time? What can be different? What
can we do differently? What have we learned? What are
the opportunities with visions and values that was suggesting there?
The culture, the way we do things here and with

(06:22):
her belief and her abilities to produced positive results in
a world of rapid change. Secure and flexible leaderships gives
us resilience gives us resilience to thrive when others locked
in the old ways of seeing and doing struggled to

(06:42):
make things happen the way they did in the world,
it's no longer there. We're moving so rapidly and speedily
just now. The whole way of working is changing or
has changed. Post COVID and the Path of Courage, we
defined our purpose and how we'll operate. Our values are

(07:05):
operating principal standards of excellence and accountability, taking responsibility, and
at times we can't know where were going. We no
longer limit our tomorrow with goals and action plans and

(07:25):
edificably based on yesterday's or today's reality. We have the
courage to set the course for greatness. We know we'll
never know exactly how things turn out, and we know
we'll find meaning and growth from whatever emerges, whatever comes

(07:49):
over the hill. As long as we consciously learn and
focus on our purpose and our values, what do we
stand for? Fear? Legions of executives have built careers based
upon delivering predictability, yet in order to guarantee a predicted outcome,

(08:17):
those same executives have had to severely restrict their company's
potential peerings. The manager's actions are driven by fear, fear
to risk being great. The restrict input to what agrees
with their thinking, hiring and socializing newcomers into how we

(08:42):
think and what we say within that organization. Occasionally, someone
suggests some new thinking may be useful, and someone from
a different background or with a different personality type is hired.
That person is very soon urged become like us. The

(09:08):
newcomer eventually gives up and either quits or becomes part
of the organization's group think. I. I was brought into
an organization after study that showed that people at all
levels were so locked into dysfunctional relationships that they are

(09:30):
unable to respond to significant changes in their organizational environment
and our a third multi day session, one of the
longer term workers observed that the study in subsequent report
that resulted in my work, it was quite similar to

(09:51):
one that was done You've got It five years earlier,
and another done ten years later, and another You've got
to It done fifteen years What was interesting, he said
that few of the people who were in the organization
fifteen years ago were still working, but we continue to

(10:16):
behave in the same way. It's almost as if it's contagious,
he said. People catch it when they come to work
by newcomers nodding their heads. They seem to notice it immediately,
just before they were sucking to the culture. I have

(10:37):
got it. As the case with this the organization, people
may suggest when a path of fear, may say that
they want other opinions or increased participation or commitment or
committed action, but they just wanted things only within a

(11:01):
limited range and based upon the organization's accepted view of reality.
When I sort of have been with groups of people
both within UK Middle East, we do organizations that I
was working with, we've frequently done the multi day process.

(11:25):
Part of it was called focus Intent with groups of
executives the c suite. This process helped leaders learn the
intricate details and linkages required for the success of a project,
a business unit, or of a whole organization, of which

(11:50):
we discussed on our previous set of podcasts on transformational change.
One of the most important things that I do as
a facilitator is guide the group quest to ask questions,

(12:10):
the challenge the current view of reality. It's rare in
any group at least one individual doesn't desperately cling on
to hang on to the path of fear. A person
that is almost anything to keep the rest of the

(12:31):
group from discovering the reality that may be different what
they've assumed in the past for all these many years.
Aye it takes courage to leave what we believe to
be true. To venture down to many is an unknown path.

(12:53):
But only by taking new paths, leaving the safe harbor
of the non can we really come to learn what
the potential of ourselves or our organizations really is courage?
Isn't courage if we don't continue to look fear in
the phase to accept that fear is with us to

(13:15):
move forward. As watching a very used to day of
an explorer, a chap who was exploring courage and he
was using our The lady that was working with him
was using virtual reality. He was across in Australia and

(13:36):
his task of facing fear was going up a very
very tall building and walking out over the space. Initially
to try and control and confront the fear, he uses
virtual reality. We've got all sorts of tools nowadays, but

(13:56):
the premise of that the only way to overcome fear
is to face it, face it and then move forward.
When we try to circumvent fear overpower, run away from it,
deny it, or hide behind reactive courses of action, born
cow We call it, of course cowardice. Our responses are

(14:19):
always crippled. It takes incredible courage to put aside judgment,
to look at each situation and greet it a you.
Some may be intimidated and fear. They won't have the
stamina for courageous leadership. That's it now, that intimidated, they

(14:45):
just won't follow through such leadership does demand more of
us than traditional management, and many of us may already
fuel we're giving too much. When we talk about the
time and energy we're giving to our jobs, just now,
we neglect to look at all the energy we spend

(15:07):
running fear based strategies. Fast amounts of energy can be
expended trying to control actions and outcomes, trying to force
what can't be forced. More important, we overlook the invigoration
that comes from renewing ourselves daily and rewarding work of

(15:29):
really leading people and organizations to higher and higher levels
of achievement and meaning. I really believe that everyone has
the potential to develop the courage to lead from the heart. Willingness, desire,
and express intention to be leader important tremendous important ingredients.

(15:53):
But there's more. If we're going to lead from the heart, Aye,
we get to need to know our heart. We must
listen to them and except what they provide. We must
have the courage to do our personal work first, as
we said previously, to become aware of our fears, frustrations, hopes,

(16:18):
and dreams what drives them. That work prepares us to
begin to live and lead consciously. Then only then can
we ask others in our organizations to work and lead
in a conscious way, authentic way. When we're all connected

(16:40):
with the person we are beneath all the layers and
insulation that protects and separates us from others, Courage comes
easily heard. Courage is rewarded with better results and a
spirated workplace, a workplace in which people look forward to
actively taking part and everything now for next week. A

(17:04):
cover of wee things to consider if you begin watching.
For instance, where you generalize by using cutterners or labels.
Generalization may be cultural, ethnic, ethnic, and nature are made
by professional groups, labels like being counters of the touch

(17:30):
of feelies in human resources. The generalization may refer to
political groups, or to government regulation or interventions, maybe about
your client's customers, workers, or a bit situations rather than people.

(17:50):
At the end of the day, take a few minutes
make notes after each generalization about the specifics you missed
as you shielded yourself from your heart by using generalization. Next,
after you've identified incense where you generalize, begin listing the

(18:12):
assumptions you bring to interactions because of the generalizations. Challenge
these assumption by asking yourself for the classic what if
the opposite was true. Then select from one of your
generalized categories one person who you'll you'll chat to interact

(18:38):
with tomorrow. Challenge the assumptions that you bring to your
generalizations about that person by asking what if the opposite
were true? List for yourself the ways the relationship or
interaction can be changed by removing your old assumptions, assuming

(18:59):
instead and I the opposite is true. Listen for yourself
the possibilities any new outcomes for yourself the organization when
you get into each of the interactions with the person
without let's call it the insulations or generalization that separate

(19:24):
you before you meet that person. Can you can you
replace all negative assumptions with new positive ones? Ah? He
said that person is just a waste of time to
ramble and ramble whether that person is something serious and

(19:46):
really detail that they're bursting to tell you an other
way of doing things would have found over the years,
particularly workers at the sharp end, they've seen maybe smarter
way of doing things, but the culture and organization has
limited them. This's handcuffed them. If you just ask the

(20:08):
open questions as there's a classic acts in them. Teds, tell, explain, demonstrate,
and show it's really great to open up people to
new possibilities. At the end of your chat, make some
notes about how that meeting, that conversation was different from

(20:33):
other chats or meetings you've had with that person. And finally,
let's think about this. If someone had came to sess
your organization every five years for the last fifteen to
twenty years, what commonalities would they have found? What qualities

(20:55):
shall we say class them? Is contagious to newcomers? What
ideas or sort of what are the limits or accepted
views of reality that confines the input? What the opposite
or true? I like to ponder over and think about

(21:17):
next week, I'd like to move on and explore or
chat with you, but finding the fire, finding the zest
within people within anization. Until then, Ay, you've got it,
Live life with Russian. Goodbye,