Creative Leaders Need Not Apply

A friend of mine and Arch of Leadership mentor sent me an article (from the Boston Globe, by Kevin Lewis, January 16, 2011) that summarized the findings from a study about to be published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology: (Go to: Creative Leaders Need Not Apply -- my title) "Those who were perceived to be more creative were perceive to have lower leadership potential.... Organizations may face a bias agains selecting the most creative individuals as leaders in favor of selecting leaders who would preserve the status quo by sticking with feasible but relatively unoriginal solutions."
Does that surprise you?  It doesn't surprise me.
Why do we mentor leaders?  To many it may seem that these people are blessed, the fortunate ones, the ones who made it.  Aren't we just picking out and skimming off the cream for our attentions?  Our answer is emphatically NO.
Leaders worthy of the name risk their careers and positions every day in order to transform visions of what is possible into real products, services and organizations that offer more expansive and more encompassing possibilities for others.  They are often shot down, as this article makes clear;  they often fail, as I have said in other articles (See, for instance: "Sincere Failures").   These creative leaders aren't often the "stars" who are hand-picked for succession. These are the people who are driven by their excitement for a new way, by their disturbing concerns that demand new approaches, and in order to act on these, make themselves vulnerable to the whims and judgments of others, most of whom have the status quo and shareholder dividends in mind.
The people we mentor are those who have tasted exactly what this article describes and instead of knuckling under have decided to lead others in order to make their living worthwhile and their efforts a matter of giving something and contributing something to the larger world.
My heart breaks to hear my own perceptions validated on such a large scale that it warrants publication in a major research journal.  I feel for the way these creative people's spirits are wounded;  I feel for the loss of initiative and vision that organizations perpetuate.
Our mentoring is intended to support the creative spirit in our leaders. By helping them discover the roots of their self-trust (see the blog post, "The King's Speech," for instance), we want to help these people find their voice.  Our mentoring helps these people to see that their resolve to lead is important and does mean something to those around them. We help these aspiring souls crystalize a leader brand that inspires others take on something great -- whatever the risks.
So despite the discouraging scene this study validates,  I am eternally grateful and personally and professionally enriched every day that I meet with those leaders who refuse rejection and take up that sacred mission of making the world more expansive, more encompassing, more alive, for us, for others, for the earth.

A Conversation on Self-Trust

      Welcome to the New Year.
      One of the joys of the holidays is receiving cards sent by friends from far away, from
parts of life left long ago. One of those missives came to me from Jane Kane (her real name
withheld on request). I have known her and her husband for more than thirty years.
Following up with each other on the states of our lives, she responded to my work on leader
mentoring with a thoughtful reflection.
      Her comments demonstrate what I saw as “self-trust” in action, and I thought the
readers of Leader Pathways might enjoy our exchange:
      Jane: “For the past eight years I’ve been a boss, a nurse manager, a director of a 25-
bed inpatient psych unit. I work my tail off, but not in managing so much as leading I like to
think. Here’s one of the quotes I just harvested that rings true for me for the work I do:
       ‘All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: It was the
willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This,
and not much else, is the essence of leadership.’ — John Kenneth Galbraith
      “Which is to say that people want somebody to be in it with them [my italics – MS],
and take the lead facing the hard stuff, the unknowns. It’s not so much the content of my
answers to the questions I get asked, but that I am willing to give answers. Daily I am
approached:  Jane, I have a question. I got answers, I say with humor, but even so, just that,
and the anxiety goes down.
      “The usual answer is that yes, what you were thinking is spot on. Good job. I have a
phenomenal staff and we have a norm of respect and support for each other. There
supposedly is this thing in nursing called lateral violence. It’s a hot topic, with articles and
conferences. I have no patience with it. I think it is ridiculous and exaggerated because I do
not see it here where I work, but folks from other systems tell me, ‘Oh it's real.’ Co-workers
stressed and unsupported, screwing each other with competition, rage, etc. That’s so sad to
me.”
      Michael: “I think your humor opens the way for people. You really get it: You lead
because you are able to make that next, difficult step seem to be what is exciting and joyful
to do. You and Gerry [a name I am using for her husband] always did that for me, always
uplifted my life with that sense that ahead something sparkling awaits.
       “Thus, I see the Galbraith quote, which is right on the mark, from the other side:  A
leader is only needed when people are in a state where change is upon them. When that is the
situation, anxiety is the primary and dominant state that they are in – along with excitement
and curiosity, for some. When you offer your humor, they see a leader who exhibits ‘self-
trust,’ a state in which she has just as much anxiety as everyone else, but takes a different
approach to it. She proceeds with resolve, trusting that each step will be worthy and will offer
up something from which everyone learns, and so improves on the next step.
      “Some people retire from jobs, but ‘Arch Three Leaders’ like you and Gerry never
retire from life. Whatever form that leading takes, wherever you and Gerry go, leading
happens.”
    
      Thinking of Jane and her constant, irrepressible humor, I am reminded that great
leading is not a matter of grave pronouncements on the one hand or prosaic motivators on the
other. Great leading exhibits steady, modest resolve that is ready and willing to take the next
step and accept that it is worthy. A worthy step is one that may be imperfect, but enables
people to learn and see forward to the next step.
      Great leaders often exhibit exquisite humor. I think of Lincoln, who used stories to
ease people to the next step. Of course, with speeches like the Gettysburg Address and his
second inaugural, he rose to transcendent levels of eloquence. But it is his self-trust, lived
lightly with humor from day to day in his endlessly dire decision-making, which kept his way
clear and open to a grander vision. (To appreciate this, I recommend strongly that you read
Eric Foner, Fiery Trial, as well as William Lee Miller’s Lincoln’s Virtues and President
Lincoln:  The Duty of a Statesman).
      Self-trust comes first, before the vision. It is a matter of living close to and at ease
with minutiae, answering one question at a time, so that a real concern, a real sense of what is
at stake, can mold the heart and soul to the terrain ahead. It is that resolve that keeps one’s
feet on the ground even as one’s hopes are given wings.
      And so I wish the readers’ of Leader Pathways good humor, self-trust and great
leading in 2011.

Aspiration and Mentoring: The Child's Wonder

There are many services out there these days that leaders can use to advance their careers. But we believe that only “leader mentoring” directs its attention to your aspirations. As you consider how to invest in advancing your leading, consider this: how do you align your leading with your aspirations? Leader mentoring as offered by the Arch of Leadership can help you do that.

Aspiration

What a strange thing aspiration is. Here is a longing and a yearning that burns so forcefully as to take command of one’s life, and yet with no promise of an assured outcome. Sometimes in fact an aspiration will be so diffuse that it does not even specify a goal; all it offers is the urge to sustain itself, a life of aspiring.
We can think of aspiration as flowing from the difference between the child and the adult. Seen in this light, aspiration has three sources: childhood and family dynamics; genetic formations of the psyche; and adult trauma. None of these factors necessarily give rise to the inception of aspiration. Instead, aspiration arises when those events are seen asopportunities.
As a child grows, what was once a fluid and open psyche, full of wonder, concentrates into an ego, dominated by customs and rules. The great and flowing expanse of the child’s psychecontracts and concentrates into “smaller” but more “effective and productive” concepts, categories directed toward specified interests and ambitions. The ego of the adult thus leaves behind a vacated “space.” Where once there was a realm filled with energy and activity, there remains only memories and diminished energy.
For most, that realm is so diminished that it exerts no force at all on the dominated, adult psyche. However, for some, the memory is kept in circulation by a reserve of energy that does not so easily dissipate. So, for these people, there remains in effect an “aural” realm that surrounds the functioning ego (and super-ego) that still exerts a pull and affects the functionally focused ego state of the adult.
Aspiration arises when this aura is allowed some leeway to affect the adult, making transformation possible and even desirable. When the aura is allowed such sway, all the events that promote aspiration take shape. One’s biography of a troubled or challenging childhood (and difficult parental influences) can become a story of the simple joys of daydreams, wanderings, experimenting excursions and burgeoning interests. One’s supposed weaknesses and confusions and difficulties at resolving seemingly impenetrable ambiguities can become gateways to one’s creative powers. Traumas have a way of loosening the grip of generalized convention and send a person into a deep self-examination for different sources of strength, into a resolute search for new pathways.

The Mentoring Moment

Here’s where leader mentoring comes in. The aspiring adult feels the pull of a great conflict. On the one hand, lurking in this person’s being is a call to something more expansive and more encompassing in his or her life. Yet, as an adult, this person is no longer amenable to the naively open wonder of the child, demanding instead competence and effectiveness in his/her functioning social, economic and historical world. The conflict stops movement in both directions: no longing, but no advancing of competence either. The person is stuck, in a quandary. To leave the aspiration behind seems to be a deep personal betrayal. But to act naively and precipitously seems irresponsible, if not downright idiotic.
The leader mentor forms a bridge between the two demands so that a person can commit to aspiration in a way that’s both competent and effective. How does the leader mentor do this? Simple: The mentor truly listens. The mentor takes the time to hear the yearnings that call out from that aura and validates them for the mentee. Then this mentor helps the mentee to envision a way of living that can viably answer the call. By listening, and in a lively and engaged silence, the leader mentor helps the mentee appreciate her aspiration and figure out a way to take it into her leading.
Note that it is not “strengths” and talents that are emphasized by a mentor. Paradoxically, it may seem, yet those very places, ways and states of being that are often decried asweaknesses or distractions from attaining one’s goals and ambitions become the places where aspirations can take hold. In the leader mentor’s eyes, what others might call “weakness” is, instead, the pulsing of those aspirations from this great aural realm. They areyearnings that have not yet hardened into imperatives. The leader mentor helps the aspirant firm up his or her “soft spots” into a vision so that they can become robust and resolute, and then become a project worthy of attracting followers.

The Companion to Aspiration’s Call

The result of a mentoring engagement is thus commitment. The silence of the mentor offers a safe place where the leader’s aspiration can be heard and then cultivated. With her mentor’s help, the mentee once again takes possession of a great spirit of aspiration and wonder that can then set out firmly, with self-trust and attentive responsibility, through the arches, and out into the life of leading,
At the Arch of Leadership, we are ready to be your leader mentor.

How Will You Decide to Invest in Your Leading?

Go to the Leader Mentoring Website

Our on-line program is up and running with our first class.  It is exciting to be able to offer our mentoring expertise in a way that eliminates barriers of price, geography and finding bosses willing to organize a custom, in-house program.  If our on-line prospects want to take leading to a new level, they sign up, and run with it.

So, as the producer of this program, I am also faced with a new question:  what will attract individuals to our program?

The question arises because in the on-line program, we are asking you, sitting alone and in the privacy of your thoughts and aspirations to make a decision to invest in yourself.  Even if you convince your employer to pay the tuition or chip in, the decision still starts with you to sign up for our program.

So,  what would we have to say or do or offer to get you to decide, “I want to lead at a different level, accomplish something I had never thought I could, have more impact on more people than I do now.  I’ll do this program. ” 

It’s not just a matter of sales.  The question goes to the heart of aspiration itself, and that is our main concern.  We are in the aspiration business, first and foremost.

Some think aspiration is innate, that there are just some people who have that additional quotient of energy that propels them onto new horizons.  Others think aspiration can be triggered when something new and exciting comes up and it ignites that extra burst of energy. 

But in the quiet of your room, in the sanctuary of your rest, reflection and relaxation, what would trigger a desire to make an investment – real money and time – in your leading?  How would you, all by yourself, recognize, acknowledge and take action on that aspiration within you?

Do you think of yourself as a leader?  You must, at some level, or you wouldn’t be reading this newsletter every month (or so).  So maybe there are good reasons for not taking the step to enroll.  Maybe it’s a matter of finances, or an already busy and harried life juggling work and family.  

Or maybe you just don’t need something like this in your life right now.  Maybe you are satisfied with your leading and your ability to create followers.  Maybe you are satisfied with gaining confirmation and affirmation of what you already believe about your leading, or maybe you have ample opportunities at work to enhance your leading. 

But how do we reach those of you who don’t feel that way and trigger your decision to enroll?

Let me offer this:  put mentors in your life or your leading languishes.  Elsewhere, in many different settings I have expressed this idea this way:  no mentors, no leaders.  I know of no leader who hasn’t expressed profound gratitude to that person who recognized their aspirations to lead. Our mentor-guided program does that and more:  our program puts you in the heart of a community of people who share your aspirations.  They all recognize your aspirations and want nothing else but to bring them to fruition.  And then the mentor assigned to your class helps you articulate who you are as a leader. 

You may have many roles in life – parent, worker, manager, sibling, son or daughter; but in none of those roles will you fully discover who you are as leader.  Still, no one but a mentor will help you realize why you and your life experiences can create followers.  In none of those other roles are your aspirations to become the best leader you can be cared for and cultivated.

We know that leading isn’t just about ambition and getting ahead. It’s about putting what truly matters to you into the world for others to enjoy and value.  And we also know that your healthy self-doubt might prevent you from stepping into the leader role.  So we ask a few guiding questions to help you shift your aspiration into high gear:

Do you think that your idea is worthy of following?  We’ll help you get that idea in shape so you can set out with resolve, with all your might, to accomplish it. 

Do you think you have the experience to lead?  We’ll help you see where your strengths are already fully engaged, and how other strengths you already have can be raised to a new level. 

Do you wonder what it is that others see in you such that they want to follow you?  We’ll help you see just that, so you can offer it to your followers with constancy and self-trust.

So what might move you to take the next step and at least talk to Billie or me about the course?

It is nothing short of realizing that your heart beats with the aspiration to lead and that a resource to make that aspiration blossom into more expansive and encompassing realities for those whose lives you want to affect is right at your fingertips

Go to www.leadermentoring.com and check out what we have to offer.  Contact us and let’s talk about it.

We’re mentors.  We’re there to care about you becoming the leader you aspire to be.