Power Energy Leadership

Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)

I have come to believe that giving and receiving are really the same.
Giving and receiving - not giving and taking. — Joyce Grenfell

Excellence is giving.

• Trust — people trust those who have their interests truly at the center of all they do
• Admiration — people admire those who commit their energies to advancing the common good
• Respect — people respect those who dedicate their time to helping others win
• Wisdom — when we listen deeply to what others need we learn more about ourselves and the world around us
• Humility — giving to others shines a mirror back on all that we have and helps us feel grateful
• Authenticity — giving deeply of ourselves removes the filters we keep in place when we withhold, requiring our true selves to come into focus
• Integrity — aligning our values with principles which do not change greatly simplifies the challenge of walking our talk

These are some of the qualities of a powerful leader. Truly great leaders aren’t always made. Sometimes they simply are. Allowing that to take place can be a much bigger challenge than acquiring an impressive resume or the accoutrements of success. Great leaders know how to let go and allow their best selves to brilliantly shine.

If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now. — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 AD - 180 AD)

Doubt yourself and you doubt everything you see. Judge yourself and you see judges everywhere. But if you listen to the sound of your own voice, you can rise above doubt and judgment. And you can see forever. — Nancy Kerrigan

Perfection is judgment.
Excellence is acceptance.

I encourage you to read the quotes again. The power of this post lies in the depth of our understanding of where judgment begins. As indicated by our expert panel of two, judging starts within.

As in previous examples of how perfection can begin seemingly harmlessly and grow into a block, judgment appears to be desirable and even necessary. After all, we need to know the difference between mediocre and great or perhaps awful. How else can we do this without some degree of judgment? Perhaps if we more clearly define our terms we can choose not only a better word, but a better dynamic for making distinctions. For example, what is the difference between judging and discerning, and how is the energy different around these two words?

Dr. Ellen J. Langer, of Harvard University’s Psychology Department, has done a great deal of research into the nature of mindfulness. In a recent keynote address, she delivered some of the startling results of her research:

• Hotel housekeeping staff in a test group lost weight and showed measured improvements compared to the control group in areas such as cholesterol levels, heart and respiration rates and overall physical fitness. The experiment? Each group was asked to rate their current rate of physical activity and fitness levels (average rating: low). Then the test group engaged in discussions about how they spend their day. On discovery that they spend the majority of an eight hour work day in physical labor, they experienced an attitude shift about their activity levels. After several weeks, new measurements were taken, and the results were dramatic.
• A variety of experiments report similar findings in situations where people are asked to describe a particular event or item with no further directions. When asked to describe a similar event or item, looking for subtle differences between the two, the ability of the subject to describe the second item increased dramatically. The theory? A context-driven task will produce far greater results than an arbitrary task. People need mindfulness to bring their full powers of attention and observation to the table.

What does mindfulness have to do with judgment?

Dr. Langer warns against the tyranny of evaluation. We all know what this means. Since grade school we have been sensitized and oriented to the results of a given task. How often did I hear in my teaching years, “What do I need to do to get an A in your class, Dr. Kunz?” How shocked they would be to hear me say now, “Show up and be mindful of and responsive to whatever takes place.” What they don’t understand is that a class dedicated to those principles might engage in the most lively debates on the subject at hand, increasing the possibility of a depth of knowledge unattainable through memorization of facts and figures most tests are aimed at capturing.

Judgment gone awry pushes us into a position of polarity. There is good and bad, right and wrong, my way or your way, up and down. We forget that in reality a vast number of possibilities exist along the way from left to right. They are infinite.

Judgment forces us to value results over process, and therefore we miss the infinite on the way from one pole to the other. We are either finished or not. If this is the way success if defined, we have missed great opportunities for insight, awareness and potential. We are stuck on the treadmill of grinding out activity and no longer value the experience gained along the path if we were to jump off and really walk somewhere.

Why is excellence acceptance?

Acceptance sounds admittedly passive. Why should we adopt an attitude of acceptance when we wish to become powerful leaders?

Because we misunderstand the true meaning of the word. Again, referring to Encarta, it is the fifth definition which conveys a sense of passivity: “without protest.” The first four definitions are more active: saying yes (as in accepting an invitation), the act of taking a gift, the willingness to believe that something is true, and finally, coming to terms with something.

Acceptance serves us better than judgment because it is related to mindfulness. When we are mindful, we are aware, context-oriented and responsive. The power of this state lies in our ability to accept situations, events, other people, and ourselves as they are in this very moment with an understanding of what we might do to effect change if we choose to do so. This is the future-oriented thinking of a great leader. Unlike judgment, whose polarity usually locks us into a position of looking at what is wrong, acceptance allows us to see things as they really are — the truth –, respond without the need to control, embrace spontaneity from ourselves and others, including mistakes which result from risks taken, and look at how the future might be different based on the entire experience.

Great leaders know how to embrace the gestalt of their experience and those of their team members in such a way that all parties feel liberated and empowered to move forward in creative, bold, mindful new directions free from the tyranny of judgment.

Analysis kills spontaneity. — Henri-Frederic Amiel

The author of genius does keep till his last breath the spontaneity, the ready sensitiveness, of a child…the ability to respond freshly and quickly…to see traits and characteristics as though each were new-minted…instead of sorting them quickly into dusty categories and pigeon-holing them without wonder or surprise… — Dorothea Brande

Perfection is control.
Excellence is spontaneous.

When we began this series we observed that many good intentions can be reshaped into obsession below the radar of our awareness, and control is another great example of this phenomenon. Some amount of control is often appropriate and perhaps even preferable, for example where highly emotional displays are concerned, but too much control can also lay the groundwork for apathy, boredom and at its worst, anger, frustration and rage.

In our last post we discussed how anger and frustration can be the natural result of the desire to be right, fueled by the resulting fear of making a mistake, which ultimately leads an individual to attempt to control aspects of life which cannot actually be controlled. This is one example of how control can be destructive.

Control can also result when an individual suffers from other types of fear (coupled with the resulting typical behavior):

• Fear of intimacy (I will not allow myself to get too close)
• Fear of embarrassment (I will control how others see me)
• Fear of failure (I will control the outcome)
• Fear of success (I will control the outcome)
• Fear of losing control (I will exert more control)
• Fear of intensity (I will shut my emotions off)
• Fear of personal flaws (I will overwork or I will not try)
• Fear of commitment — to a person or a decision (I will procrastinate)

Control taken to these levels often becomes the overarching rule by which perfectionists run their lives, and although they may suspect something is out of balance, they may be unable to see where the inequity lies or make any moves to produce a change. Relationships suffer greatly, both personally and professionally, and overall effectiveness is compromised.

Why is excellence spontaneous?

For individuals who have relied on control to govern their fears, spontaneity at first glance seems like chaos. It is dangerous, inviting all varieties of unpredictability into a life where once ruled smooth uniformity and routine. Calm, cool and collected is traded for intensely emotional displays run amok. There are far too many variables involved to even consider, and the temptation is to shut the door and return to the familiar comfort of a highly controlled environment, whether internal, external or both.

However, let’s examine the true nature of spontaneity and challenge these limiting beliefs.

According to Encarta, the first definition of spontaneous is: “arising from internal cause: resulting from internal or natural processes, with no apparent external influence.” The definition most people associate with the word — “unrestrained” — is the third definition.

What would happen if we allowed our internal system of values and beliefs, our fundamental intelligence and creativity, to speak up and inspire us to say what’s on our minds without concern for appearances, failure, negative feedback, rejection, pressure, politics, or any other perceived or real external influence?

A powerful leader knows how to be spontaneous and how to encourage it in others. It is in spontaneity that fresh ideas are born and problems solved. It is here that lively debate can occur, the lifeblood of a healthy, productive team. Why do we like brainstorming sessions? Because when done well, they are spontaneous, and fantastic schemes can be invented and explored without judgment.

Spontaneity is childlike but it is not childish. A powerful leader knows the difference and can confidently and adeptly nourish the former while keeping the latter at bay. Control has its place, but teams are hungry for spontaneity, and there is a wilderness of room available for exploration.