Being a leader in our life, our relationships, and our work

This article is written by Steve March and Julie Manga, Ph.D. and is being simultaneously published in New Ventures West's newsletter Distinctions and this blog.

This is the first in a series of articles in which we explore the practice of leadership. The publication of each article will be followed by a FREE teleseminar to discuss the topics raised. To register for the teleseminar refer to the instructions at the end of the article.

What kind of leader are you called to be in your life? Surely, there isn’t just one answer to this question. And, there is no way to answer the question once and for all. Instead, we offer this question as a way to stay present with what’s occurring in your life, as an opening for creatively and effectively responding moment-by-moment to the opportunities and challenges you face.

In addition to the many challenges we face globally – ethical and sustainable development, clean water for everyone without conflict, bringing population growth into balance with resources, meeting growing energy demands safely, improving the status of women worldwide, etc. – each of us is also challenged locally in our work and home life. The certainty of work and livelihood is eroded for many. We face an overload of information, without a sense of how to discern what is useful.  Our lives are tightly scheduled with many competing commitments. Families and communities are increasingly fragmented. And the pace of life in our society continues to accelerate.

Leadership is called for in order to face and address these challenges at all levels, but what kind of leadership? We suggest that it isn’t useful to think about leadership as a particular role or position, such as CEO, President, or Prime Minister, or as set of personal qualities like charisma or steadfastness. And leadership doesn’t require followers. The kinds of challenges we collectively and individually face and the accelerating velocity and unpredictability of our circumstances call for new leadership ways of being from us all. More of the same won’t work.

Each of us is called to lead. We are each called to respond fully to our situation moment-by-moment with everything that we are in order to bring about something that is bigger than ourselves. Each moment is an invitation to lead. Repeatedly accepting the invitation to lead requires developing ourselves – for example, our self-awareness, capacity and resilience, and professional and personal relationships – so that we have the compassion, wisdom, and courage to move things forward in the face of difficulties.

Each of us has already answered the question “How am I going to respond to the situation of the world?” This is a fundamental choice that everyone has made consciously or not.  Do we step in, sometimes quietly, sometimes audaciously, risking who we take ourselves to be, or do we step back and take care of our own world as if it were separate from everyone and everything else?

Many of us step back because we look at famous leaders – Mohandas Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Margaret Mead, Martin Luther King, Jr., Colin Powell – and say to ourselves, “I’m not like them, I can’t lead.” True, we aren’t like them. We are like us. Comparing ourselves to famous leaders is a self-defeating path that ends in resignation. We have a tendency to idealize famous leaders and to forget that they are human too. Let’s not let our imperfections stop us from courageous acts of leadership and instead bring all of ourselves into those acts.

Leading is an action that we can all take and that we are called to take. Many of us may have the experience of a junior team member stepping up and overcoming difficulties to move things forward. In this moment our colleague is leading, stepping into leadership, stepping into being a leader.

Maybe it’s time to stop waiting for someone else to declare you a leader and to declare yourself one.

We invite you to attend a FREE 60-minute teleseminar on February 26 at 9 am
Pacific time (Noon Eastern) on the topic of stepping in to your life, your relationships, and your work as a leader. In this teleseminar we will lead you through a personal inquiry about your own capacity to step into life as a leader—how you experience the call to lead, obstacles you encounter and ways of relating differently to those obstacles. Space is limited. To register, please call Julie Manga at 617-869-9638.

Integral Leadership LLC provides powerful methods for people to uncover and express leadership in their life and work. Being a leader doesn’t call for abandoning parts of ourselves. Each of us, as a leader, is called to bring all that we are, all that we have learned, and all of our skills and creativity and focus them on bringing something into existence, making something happen, and generating results. Investing ourselves in life and work this way is challenging and fulfilling. In our programs you will directly experience your ability to be a lead authentically and develop your capacity to respond in an integral fashion to situations that call for your leadership.