Leadership is a state of being

Manager is the Role

Leadership is the Style

Performance Coaching is the Skill

Redefining how you think about leadership, and then taking new action, can be one of the most significant things you can do to transform your organization.

Leadership is not about position or power. Leadership is a state of Being. You can BE a leader in anything you do; and in many organizations today, faced with Matrix reporting structures, flatter hierarchies and Virtual Teams, people often have to lead others in an environment where they do not have any traditional authority.

As we move through this series we will look at the scientific basis of so-called “soft skills” and maybe offer a different understanding of how things work.

In the book, Leadership and Self Deception, the authors took a position that the root of all things going wrong in organizations has it’s root in how YOU, regardless of who you are, see and relate to others.

An interesting dilemma in life is that you cannot change anyone, except yourself. Yet when you change yourself, others change.

The answer to this lies in Sir Isaac Newton’s Laws of Motion. Law 3 states (in simple terms) that action and reaction are equal and opposite.

So when you change yourself, others must react differently to the way you are being.

We react to the way we see others. We validate ourselves and our beliefs by behaving in accordance we how we see them. This in itself perpetuates their behavior. So in relation to us, we inhibit any change in them.

Newton’s 1st law of motion says, “things keep doing what they are doing”. As Einstein put it “keep doing the same thing the same way, and expecting a different result; that’s the definition of insanity.”

So if you can only change yourself, and you want things around you to be different, what needs to change in you? What are the assumptions, judgments and beliefs you hold about those around you?

Ask yourself: “What if, I am wrong?”

How would things be then?