“Experience is not what happens to man, it is what he does with it.” In Aldous Huxley’s words, we recognise wisdom.
As we all know, it is not easy to choose the path of wisdom and avoid the self-serving path that we all also naturally desire.
But do we want to be wise leaders or simply leaders who might drive short-term results but leave a trail of problems for our successors? After all, it isn’t easy to ensure others follow our vision.
Whether wisdom is the ability to make good decisions or to deal effectively with people’s emotions, or how we balance our sense of self with the knowledge that we are experts in self-deception, is a topic for books and libraries.
Nevertheless, as leaders, we all aspire to some form of wisdom.
Can We Teach Wisdom?
Today’s focus for creating leaders is to teach through a list of characteristics such as active listening, having integrity, communicating well and so on. This misses several fundamental assumptions that defeat the object.
As leadership expert, Daniel Goleman, shows in his research, the adult mind is not able to learn these traits as if we were learning the ABC or equations, which is what most training programmes deliver. Furthermore, the approach completely ignores how we develop as adults.
To truly grow as leaders and adults, should we choose to, we first need to understand how we view the world and ourselves within it. Without understanding how our egos operate and both collaborate and hinder us, we cannot hope to gain the wisdom to do our part to make this world a slightly better place.
As you make the choice to embrace deep growth, you’ll discover a more harmonious way of approaching those existential questions that gradually take shape in our minds.
Research shows that the way to do this is by activating the limbic system. In other words, by connecting to our emotions, stories and the metaphors we resonate with. That’s how we make sense of our experiences in alternative ways and test out different approaches to being and operating in our ecosystems.
And we need a vertical development coach to do that with.
What About You?
If you are increasingly hearing those niggling voices telling you that there must be something else to this life, perhaps you are being called to the quest for wisdom.
Are you at that turning point where you no longer feel the invincibility of youth? You’ve made mistakes and perhaps you have some regrets but do you also find yourself aspiring to do more for those around you?
You want to be the best leader possible but you’re somehow stuck in the groundhog grind?
Whether you’re pushing to excel in your new leadership role or designing your retirement, wisdom is the most precious asset any of us can have in order to manage life gracefully whilst also leaving behind a powerful legacy.
I won’t just work with you to make sense of this change, I’ll also enable you to build the foundation so that you can keep moving forwards to find your own truth and your definition of what a good life looks like. Below you’ll get a sense of how you might experience this and hopefully, you’ll also appreciate the irony of having a list of traits.
Wiser Decision-Making Comes with Greater Leadership Maturity
With so much technology and information at our fingertips, we are both victims of the illusion of knowing everything whilst simultaneously feeling increasingly lost because we can’t know all the answers.
The good news is that as we gain leadership maturity, decisions become easier to embrace as we learn to flow with their nuances. So, it isn’t just a question of strategic versus tactical, long-term versus short-term or even task versus relationship. Instead, it’s a dynamic dance that flows in the greyness in between each end and each opposing thought.
By embracing vertical development, you’ll find it easier to enter that dance whilst also being better equipped for complexity and uncertainty. Essentially, you’ll start to:
- Adopt a both/and mindset rather than an either/or approach
- Go beyond systems thinking to truly see all the interconnecting loops
- Experience how shifting from I-leadership to we-leadership transforms yourself and your teams
Gain Personal Mastery & Influence
The lens we operate through and the worldview we attach ourselves to make a critical difference in how we practice traits such as influencing, listening and other commonly cited leadership traits. We first need to understand how we interpret these traits based on our sense of self and identity.
For example, it isn’t just about self-awareness of our thoughts and feelings. It’s also about the awareness of the perspective of the system that we have chosen that in turn influences our self-awareness and identity. This will also impact the intention behind our behaviours and how we show up as leaders within a system. Finally, it allows for greater wisdom because we can take an even bigger step back than most.
In other words, with developmental coaching, you don’t just remove the obstacles in your way but you also gain awareness of the patterns you operate in. As a result, you gain insight and mastery over them such that you can choose the ones that serve you to become a better leader.
Overall, you’ll experience:
- Letting go of the hero personality of youth and embracing new models and assumptions to move beyond the disillusionment that naturally comes before we take on the call to grow up into wisdom
- Exploring how to live a deeper, more aligned life that inspires others whilst also being more attuned to how others think and what they need from their leaders, in other words, you
The Wisdom to Embrace the Right Path and Become the Leader Future Generations will Remember
If you haven’t already felt it, at some point in our lives, those uncomfortable questions start bubbling up from our subconsciousness. They might manifest as boredom or even increasing compulsions but either way, our deeper voice starts calling us to the path to wisdom.
We can of course choose to stay in our patterns of self-destruction, and self-blindness or simply continue to follow society’s or other people’s dreams. Alternatively, we can choose to grow up and become those rare leaders people dream of who make long-lasting impact.
Work with me to reconnect with who you are and discover the changing identity that’s within you despite of or because of the many twists and turns that have brought you to this moment. Together, we’ll make sense of those experiences and how they open up new worldviews, identities and even ways of being.
You won’t just be a stronger leader, you’ll be a wiser adult who knows which path they’re on and how to leave the mark you hope to leave.