Category: transformative leadership

Leaders of the impossible

One of the most useful lessons I learned in my lifetime is that nothing is impossible. I grew up mostly on my own, as an only child with working parents, at a time when it was not rare to see children home alone, relying on the community around them to keep an eye out for them. I often came across issues that, as a child, seemed insurmountable. But with time and persistence, I came to realize that there is always a solution; nothing stays insurmountable for long; everything passes; and nothing has to be impossible.

I discovered three steps to overcome anything in life. The first one is to remind yourself and firmly believe that nothing is impossible, if you set your mind to it. It provides the necessary courage and persistence to move through your challenge.

The second step is to believe in yourself, seek within and realize the number of ideas that can come to you. Remember that you do not need the best solution. You just need a solution to try things out. You also need to act, to choose, so as to start moving beyond what is obstructing your path.

The third step is to look around and think of others. Enlist the support of your network, friends, and family. The more people thinking in the same direction, the more solutions can be found and paths created. You can also think of people who have turned adversity into success, and thus gain a larger perspective. Others can be a source of inspiration. In our darkest hours, we can always resort to the deep knowing that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and there is no need to feel helpless. We have the resources to find our way out. We are created that way! Taking the first step is all it takes; the next ones will appear. Believing in ourselves, we will always prevail.

Celebrate our quirkyness

I have long felt self-conscious about my differences, not quite fitting in my surroundings, coming from another country with a different background, speaking with an accent most of my life. I noticed over time how some of us have an easier time sharing their differences and preferences, while most of us tend to downplay our eccentricities–whatever we deem quirky. Society from education onwards tend to favor uniformity, and we have codes about what is socially acceptable. As a result, we may not realize how much we have attuned to our surroundings and done away with our special personality traits, intentionally or not. I certainly learned to conform from an early age and was mostly unaware of it until I started paying attention to leadership.

Leaders have usually learned to live without suppressing their eccentricities or rediscovered and embraced these buried traits. They understand that their idiosyncrasies are an important part of who they are. Should you are wondering about these special characteristics of yours, let’s try to think about what it is that you would love to do or be if you knew that you would not be judged for it. What would you take up for a hobby or what would you look like, given a bit more freedom and imagination?

You may be surprised at what comes up and what you discover about your suppressed peculiarities. Ask yourself what is stopping you from expressing this part of you and bring it out in the open. Try to incorporate this side of you into your daily existence. You may be even more surprised to realize that some people will appreciate you more for it than you might have expected. Remember that being your true self frees others up. Give yourself permission!

Leadership: it is not the title it is the job

In the past decades, I have occupied many positions with various levels of professional satisfaction. I discovered that a high-status job did not necessarily mean job satisfaction, but that positions that allowed me to live in accordance with my values and contribute something of myself ensured professional satisfaction. I understood that what I did was far less important than how I did it. I could even turn a mediocre job into a fulfilling occupation by exploring how to be helpful to others. Service to others is always possible and gratifying for all.

For many of us in society, our titles – including our job titles – define who we are, even our worth. Society does not look at all jobs equally. Yet, “ordinary” jobs may be occupied by people who manage to contribute their skills and talents to the world irrespective of the tasks they accomplish at work. It is not what we do but how we do it that matters. As leaders, setting and meeting goals are important. However, the goals are everyone’s business, but how people achieve these goals, whether they enjoy the experience and thrive or become miserable in the process, is the job of leaders. Ultimately, leadership lies with who you are as a person and how you care for others, rather than what you do for a living. It is a quality of heart rather than an occupation.

So, if you are wondering how to find a fulfilling job, or perhaps how to find your job fulfilling, the key lies less in the job title or menial tasks involved, and more in being your true self as you go about it day to day. If you are a waiter, be proud of your work and enjoy the contacts. Try to contribute your talents and skills to your surroundings, whatever may be the job. It is not the kind of work you do that takes you to lead your life happily, it is the choices you make in leading the way towards your own happiness that will make a leader of you.

Leading from emotions

Today I want to talk about something controversial. When I developed my Creative Leadership Program, I had an interesting conversation with my coach about leading from a place of vulnerability. Indeed, among leaders and leadership coaches, the idea of leading through emotions is highly controversial. After all, ever since the century of Enlightenment, the mind is meant to be in the lead, not emotions. I have experienced a very different approach, which might serve the leaders of tomorrow.

Why did emotions get such a negative reputation? I wondered about this for a while and came to the conclusion that emotions, especially negative ones like anger, sadness, or frustration, can prompt us to lose control of our emotional state, hence this negative judgment. Indeed, powerful emotions can lead us to explode with little control over the consequences. Yet, have you ever observed the surge of energy that comes with anger or frustration, or the depth that surges with sadness? I would suggest tapping into this magma of energy to lead the way and saddle at the helm of our lives.

How, you might ask? Indeed, harnessing the power of our emotions at the height of their expression can prove difficult. This is where leadership skills are needed. We have that innate ability to feel the power of our emotions and transform that energy into healthy ways of expressing it. I have noticed how anger and sadness–possibly the two poles of the same energy–can be transformed into a source of inspiration towards bringing about the change we want to see in the world. It is no accident that having accumulated significant anger and sadness over decades, I came to develop a program on “Be the Change You Want to See” as a way to make a contribution to the world.

Similarly, you may be able to transform feelings of frustration and stress towards thinking outside of the box. Creative thinking and writing are often the result of frustrations about the way things are, and a way to discover solutions to what originally left us stymied. Perhaps the most challenging emotion to transform might be fear. The need to feel the fear and stay with it allows us to re-examine our circumstances rather than flee and find a different angle, likely to give us unexpected insight into our life.

Where might this transformative process lead us? I would venture to say that this type of leadership is based on the power to redirect the flood of emotions we all experience in life daily towards productive, artistic, or laborious pursuits. I might add that channeling our emotions into constructive action can also prevent us from re-creating and re-living the situation, event, or expectation that originally prompted us to feel negative. Essentially, this is the type of leadership that transforms the negative and spins it into positive by harnessing the energy of negative emotions. Could it be a way out of emotional pain? Indeed, pain is no longer fed by our intellectual and emotional energy once the energy is re-used and transformed. It quickly ebbs away. This type of leadership is neither conceptual nor intellectual. It is rooted in the practice of honestly acknowledging and honoring our feelings, leading from a place of vulnerability.