Podcast talking Points on The Adaptive Leader Article

     When we talk about leadership in general, we must understand there is currently too much information available now on the Internet and in bookstores. So, trying to learn it all is impossible, unnecessary and a foolish pursuit, Google the “leadership” topic and you get nearly 5 million hits!!  That would take a few lifetimes to go through.

     Leadership training is not just for executives because all people are trying to lead themselves through the challenges of life and need to develop the skills to do so.

     The only true short cuts to effective leadership are:

·         Self-development and self-management.

·         Gleaning important, transferable principles that apply to a variety of situations universally.

Adaptive leadership skills: There are three core areas to learn:

1. Cognitive flexibility—variable repertoire of thinking and learning styles (visual, auditory and kinesthetic), adaptable approaches to problem solving and conflict; open-mindedness; exercising ego-less humility which allows you to accept the reality that all that you think you know for sure isn’t necessarily so. Purging questionable, useless “certainties” makes room for learning what you need to know.

2. Wide scope of emotional intelligence:

--self-awareness:  Understanding who you are, what your strengths and weaknesses are, knowing how others perceive you, and becoming authentic (the person you start out pretending to be)

--self-regulation: Controlling your ego, moods and dark side, detaching from your personal biases; using high road ethics, forgoing short term pains for long term gains.

--motivation: Continuous desire to learn, grow and improve into your best self.

--empathy: ability to understand others’ perspectives, make the necessary emotional connections and express genuine concern from head to heart to hands in the form of compassion.

--social skills: Ease and poise in interpersonal relations, using anon-defensive communication style:

o   Equality vs. superiority

o   Acceptance vs. judgmental

o   Freedom vs. control

o   Tentativeness vs. certainty.

o   Empathy/sensitivity vs. neutrality

o   Spontaneity vs. manipulation or strategy 

3. Flexibility in perspective:  Getting to the best vantage point in seeing the best available truth, understanding what you see as the truth is always dependent upon where you are doing the looking from in time and place. Avoiding the temptation of embracing half-truths like the exhaustive, obsessive pursuit of happiness, which can’t be defined clearly or measured, doesn’t necessarily increase productivity, can damage personal relationships, and can make you selfish. With optimism all-in bandwagon, just know that most of the POW’s that lived though their torture in the wars they were captured, were realists who accepted reality as it was.  

The best ways to build these skills:

·         It all begins with better self-management and humility (increasing your self-awareness and self- control to become your real self; managing your ego; increasing your mindfulness (being aware of the present moment and what is going on now).

·         Being open to a variety of experiences, with a wait and see, tentative attitude of provisionalism.

·         Humility: Realizing how little you really know (compared to all that is knowable) regardless of how much you think you know; and being open to learning, growing and improving continuously as a perpetual student.

·         Reading a lot of good books and hanging out with good people that help you learn, grow and improve.

·         Becoming authentic (being real and genuine consistently; becoming the person you have always pretended to be) and  likeable: Being honest, real, agreeable, a good listener, humorous, genuine caring for others, attractive from inside out, having empathy and using the non-defensive, supportive style of communication discussed earlier.

·         Building your empathy capacity—cognitive understanding of another’s perspective, emotional connection with people (feeling what others feel), and having concern (sensing what others need from you). Using all this good head and heart stuff to be compassionate with others with your hands.

·         Avoiding the temptation of:

--trying to copy others’ leadership theories

--over-embracing popular half-truths (happiness and optimism examples above).

·         Finding principles that are transferable and universally applicable to a wide variety of situations—like a balanced understanding of what people have in common and how they are unique or the difference between what we want and what we need.

·         Training your brain to be resilient—bouncing back after setbacks and failures, but not over-personalizing things and looking for positive explanations of negative events (what you can learn from failure)

·         Building influence and persuasion with all these other things

A few good Leadership authors:

--John Maxwell

--James Collins

--Daniel Goleman

--Stephen Covey

--Ken Blanchard

--Warren Bennis

--John Kotter

Concluding remarks:

--Mainly work on self-management and finding useful principles for your toolbox.

--Don’t allow yourself to become too comfortable…always continue learning, growing and improving.

--Avoid accepting half-truths and diligently search for whole ones.

--Practice moving your viewpoints  on seeing things—paradigm shifting opens creativity.