[Neurons] 2009 Meta Reflections #16

[andrew.brown at axa.com.au]

Michael,

Thanks again for your fantastic ongoing vision and self actualising it for the neurosemantic community!

The self actualising leader is a powerful model and one that resonates with me deeply. I thought it may be useful to share some experiences from a corporate setting on this journey.

My role, at AXA Australia, is head of learning and leadership development. That means my team looks after building and developing coaching frameworks, leadership development interventions (such as training programmes) and developing leadership behaviour frameworks to set a clear picture of what leadership looks like as we develop through various stages in our careers.

At the heart of every intervention we put in place is the intention to support the individuals, the teams we work with and the broader organisation in this process of self discovery and awareness and provide them a set of tools or mind sets and attitudes and beliefs to support them on their journey.

The definition of leadership that underpins what we do is "leadership is a  way of thinking, acting and relating that connects people to a common purpose and creates an environment that catalyses extraordinary performance". This can apply to leading self, to leading teams or to leading business units or businesses. 

While we don't explicitly use neurosemantics and occasionally use specific NLP processes, the processes we use either come from similar origins or are very similar. Taking multiple different perspectives, looking at "as if" scenarios, understanding how our beliefs both propel us and hold us back, understanding and applying well formed goal setting, and understanding what the process of personal change looks and feels like. And of course purpose and meaning - what gets me out of bed each and every day, when am I at my highest and best, what is the meaningful contribution I want to make to this planet? To make sense to the organisation, these must all be aligned to delivering the broader business strategy.

At the heart of many of these processes is the ego development process you described. By taking multiple perspectives, by understanding what REALLY drives us, by humbly acknowledging and truly seeing for the first time how we are in the world and how we connect with and are connected to others, we can nurture the healthy aspects of ego and heal the wounded aspects of ego - two pivotal motivations for self actualisation. And the neurosemantic distinctions of meanings, beliefs, values, frames of mind (which become mind sets and attitudes) play a key role in this process.

The hardest shift we find is not in gaining awareness or acceptance (at an intellectual level) to these concepts but in creating enough motivation for individuals to really change. The immunity to change is significant, given balance of organisational and cultural expectations to deliver a demanding schedule of work while at same time providing the space for individuals to grow and develop. While most people recognise the longer term benefits of this, the short term need to deliver results is a weight.

All the very best,

Andrew


----- Original Message -----
From: "L. Michael Hall" [meta at onlinecol.com]
Sent: 13/04/2009 06:40 AM MST
To: <Neurons at neurosemanticsegroups.com>
Subject: [Neurons] 2009 Meta Reflections #16



From: L. Michael Hall

2009 Meta Reflections #16

April 13, 2009

 

 

 

TRAPS PREVENTING BECOMING

A SELF-ACTUALIZING LEADERSHIP

 

 

I talked with a senior manager this past week about self-actualizing
leadership and he said, "Well, that sounds easy."

 

I was shocked.  Really!   My thoughts were, "How could he have heard the
presentation I made and all of the discussion that shook people up, and walk
away thinking that?!"  So we talked.  We talked for a long time, and as I
slowly got through his over-confident, over-optimistic, and impulsive
filters, he finally began to "count the cost" of what it would mean to
becoming a self-actualizing leader.  That's when he asked for a list, a
complete list of all of the traps that typically sabotage leaders and
prevent them from becoming fully a self-actualizing leader.

 

Well, I did not and still do not have a complete list.  But I have a
beginning one.  So what are the traps that catch, defeat, and undermine
leaders from becoming self-actualizing leaders?  What thought viruses infect
leaders so that they get stuck at a particular level of leadership and do
not develop fully as a self-actualizing leader?

 

The Power Trap

Self-actualization is not about getting power but using it and empowering
others as you help them find their basic personality powers and developing
them fully.  And so the goal of self-actualizing leaders is not to gain
power, but to push power and decision-making down to the touch-points of a
business.  This means giving up "power" and "control" and ceding it to
others.  (I told you self-actualizing leadership is far more radical than I
knew and that most people suspect!  Meta Reflection #14).

 

Self-actualizing "power" is not power over others, it is power with others
and power through others.  The joy of such a leader is in seeing people
grow, develop, find their gifts, express their gifts, and excel.  But of
course, that requires a grown-upness, a maturity, and a secure sense of
self.  Those who are insecure can't do that; those who's ego is ill-formed
and always in the way can't do that.  Those who are insecurely competitive
cannot do that.  It takes a mature leader who is him or herself living a
self-actualizing life.

 

Nor can a fearful leader do that.  The fearful or paranoid leader who
thinks, "If you give your power away, the employees will take over!" will
not be able to support the development of another and groom others to be
leaders.

 

The Ego Trap

The distortion of toxic leadership is best seen in the so-called "leader"who
is self-absorbed, who is driven solely by self-interest, who misunderstands
and thinks that leadership is about them, their brilliance, their charm,
their charisma; who acts like a prima donna and wants to get his or her way
regardless.  But leadership is not about the leader.  It is about the
vision.  It is about the people who are enriched and benefitted by the
vision and mission.  It is about what value that the leader can give.

 

The self-focused leader thinks that leadership means having people serve
them instead of the privilege of serving people.  This leads to dictatorial
leadership, to leaders becoming little demi-gods, to leaders abusing people
and using it for their own self-aggrandizement.

 

Some of the "leaders" in AIG come to my mind as I write this.  They drove
their company to bankruptcy and they still want million-dollar bonuses??
They want a million-dollar reward?  For what?  For their business failures?
What were they thinking?  And to justify it by saying that the 160 million
is just a fraction of 700 billion- what are we talking about?  The
percentage is irrelevant.  It's not their money in the first place (but tax
payers) and if anything, perhaps they should take no bonus and a pay cut for
their poor performance.  Isn't that they way a meritocracy is supposed to
work?  Do they given outrageous bonuses to their employees?

 

The radical paradigm shift regarding a self-actualizing leader is that the
ego has to be completely out of the way.  The leader leads to a desired
outcome or experience by activating the powers of his or her people for the
purpose of a group success in creating and giving value that creates
monetary value in a society.  Again we see the importance of the leader's
own self-actualization and personal development.  Without that, the leader
is a dangerous wild-card likely to use people for his or her own agendas.

 

The Time / Speed Trap

Then there is the trap of being busy- busy, busy, busy.  Too busy.  It's an
occupational hazard for high performers, for intelligent and creative
people, and people of vision.  We take on too much.  We fill up our
calendars and desks and then prioritize between all of the good things
drives up our stress and makes us ineffective, indecisive, and incapable of
healthy reflection.

 

As a result, leaders tend to fall back on taking back the power and control
that they "say" they have given to people and in a rush to get things done
use command-and-control methods, dis-empowering those below them.  As a
result, they rush around in their busyness and fail to bring many things to
completion or closure.  As a result, they listen with half-an-ear, cut
people off, and leave conversations hanging.  As a result, their stress
rises and they have less and less time to step back to refresh the big
picture and keep the vision before themselves and their company.

 

All of that prevents self-actualization in both individuals and
organizations.  Self-actualizing leaders prioritize, make hard decisions
between good choices and great ones saying "no" to good choices so that they
can say "yes" to great ones, and control their contexts so that they can
maintain a calm reflective mind about the choices that they make.  

 

There's many other traps, but these three are some of the biggest traps to
watch for.  If you are a leader, CEO, senior manager, entrepreneur in your
own business, or if you train and coach leaders - developing
self-actualizing leaders means, in part, identifying the traps so that they
can be avoided.  And how do we do that?  By facilitating the unleashing of
potentials in people so they can self-actualize.

 

To your self-actualizing!

 

 

 

Meta-Coach Training in Colorado --- June 2009

            June 11-13 --- NLP Introduction --- Coaching Essentials.

            June 14-16 --- APG, Meta-States --- Coaching Genius

            June 18-25 --- Coaching Bootcamp --- Coaching Mastery --- ACMC
credentials

            June 26-29 --- PCMC credentials --- Coaching Professional

 

            Write and ask for a registration form --- early bird prices
still apply!

 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

International Society of Neuro-Semantics

Meta-Coach Training System

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA

1 970-523-7877

1 970-523-5790 fax

      <http://www.neurosemantics.com/> www.neurosemantics.com 

       <http://www.neuro-semantics-trainings.com/>
www.neuro-semantics-trainings.com 

       <http://www.self-actualizing.org/> www.self-actualizing.org

       <http://www.meta-coaching.org/> www.meta-coaching.org

       <http://www.ns-video.com/> www.ns-video.com 

 

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