Leadership
This year I co-founded the Global Leaders Academy, www.globalleadersacademy.com, a worldwide network for leadership development. GLA designs and delivers leadership programs. Besides GLA I am involved as a coach within the European and Worldwide leadership development programs for PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
Effective leadership creates communities of action.
- Communities based upon mutual trust and respect;
- Communities within which everyone is connected with their unique talent, with each other and with the purpose of the collective;
- Communities that align the interest of the individual with that of the collective.
Today’s increasingly complex and interconnected world is packed with dilemmas. The challenge for Leadership is to manage them.
| Short term | vs. | Long term |
| Head | vs. | Heart |
| Control | vs. | Letting go |
| Consistency | vs. | Flexibility |
| The individual | vs. | The Whole |
| Private life | vs. | Work life |
| Express emotions | vs. | Stay neutral |
| (be affective) | (be strong) |
More and more businesses today realize that, in order to be sustainable, they need to act as part of the larger society; and that they have a purpose to fulfil that goes beyond profitability.
Humanity is in need of leadership by people who care about people. Leadership that is morally conscious and responsive to stakeholder demands, inside and outside the organization. Leadership that feels and acts beyond the financial bottom line and that includes social and ecological value creation.
This calls for inspired, authentic leadership. Leaders guided by their inner compass, out of their deeper inspiration and inner values. Leaders who, out off a well-balanced interior world, express a responsible vision on the exterior world.
Exploring your own unique leadership style is a life long quest. There are no quick fixes!
Leading can be both confronting and fascinating, it can be lonely sometimes and it can bring you warm company.
Coaching
Coaching means unleashing potential. A coach is a mirror who enables the coachee to generate awareness and responsibility. He values and stimulates authenticity by asking questions and giving insights. In that order, because the coach knows that potential comes from within.
In 1992 I started coaching Leaders. Coaching is fascinating; it’s an art.
15 years of leadership coaching taught me that it all comes down to three core questions:
- What’s my present identity as a leader?
- What identity wants to be born?
- What are the key conflicts and hard truths I will have to face?
Exploring these questions result in a creative tension between present and evolving future. And managing that tension effectively is what makes a distinctive leader!
