Leadership lies within your story

Many of us enjoy reading a good biography. From Alexander the Great to the Great Catherine, I remember learning about a country through these voluminous biographies. Beyond historical figures, from people often in the news to complete strangers, everyone has a story. I recall my friend telling me how she loves taking the bus and engaging in conversations daily about where people are from. Indeed, we all have different paths and a fascinating story to share, if we take the time to listen, stay curious, and care to reach out to others.

Curiously, the story we least listen to is our own.  We do hear from family members and friends about episodes in our lives, but we rarely have this overall picture through our own biography.  Yet our path, the lessons learned, the choices made, the achievements, and even more the failures contributed to the unique perspective we have developed in life. It is a treasure trove waiting to be explored. 

In fact, your life may be your workshop to give – the path you developed to get through trials and tribulations, to enjoy different points of view (all yours!) from different periods of life. It leads you to greater awareness of who you are as a person. It also allows you to share because, in the end, your life is not only yours. It is your story to tell. It may help others, either through resonance or because of its contrast, comforting those who chose a different path. We each have something to contribute from the way we lead our lives.

Today’s adversarial leadership

There are many styles of leadership. While I have been advocating positive leadership or service leadership, offering insights through my blog, it is clear that we are witnessing a surge of adversarial leadership on the international scene. High-conflict leaders have recently been leading from a place of drama, resorting to false heroic postures rather than working on solving current challenges. This has provided fertile ground for the rise of authoritarian political leaders. This phenomenon is not happening in vacuum. Our current social and political environment is attracting this type of leadership.

What are the main characteristics of today’s adversarial leadership and why is it happening now? Current adversarial leaders in politics and business around the world harbor high-conflict personalities, often bordering on a psychological or social disorder, either through impaired interpersonal relationships, lack of self-reflection, or an inability to change in the face of an obvious need to redirect. They are commonly referred to as narcissists, antisocial, or paranoid. 

The four key characteristics of this leadership style today are:

  • A tendency to blame others who become targets of personal attacks;
  • An all-or-nothing approach to solving problems;
  • A show of intense emotions, impairing problem solving and conflict resolution; and,
  • A tendency to resort to extreme behaviors from which most people would refrain.

As sociopaths of narcissists, they can also be seductive and highly attractive leaders, as many high-conflict leaders from the past were known to be.

What is it in our world today that attracts such leaders? Let us look at three key factors to start with. First, the media competition and highly emotional tendencies which have monopolized viewers’ attention these past decades, glorifying extreme behaviors, normalizing conflict behaviors through antagonistic debate shows, and fear-based coverage which happen to sell best. Second, a tendency to simplify highly complex challenges such as climate change through evil scaremongers and superheroes offering fantasy solutions, yet displaying no leadership skills and no results. Third, adversarial systems offering “either/or” solutions, which play well in debates, panels and combative politics, but rely on no community-based real life progress ensuring sustainability and thrivability.

This leadership style will continue to grow until we in society recognize our personality patterns and take responsibility through our voting power and decision-making communities, from boards of directors to school councils, as well as changing ourselves. It takes a community to raise a leader!

Welcome to my blog!

You just landed on a site focused on Healing International Relations, but you will read little about what goes on in the world or about international relations as we study it in university or practice it internationally as diplomats, military, grass root activists, or aid workers. Should you wish to register (see left column below) you will read every other week a post about the individual behind these roles.

As the world faces man made challenges on a scale beyond recognition, as international organizations and well-known institutions crumble all around, the level of disruption is calling for a different approach, a new system. We are collectively seeking answers through innovation, artificial intelligence, sciences. We are seeking answers in history, philosophy, religion, stuck at the crossroads, still unable to integrate all these fields. The task, however, is well beyond a new school of thought or even a new world order. At the same time, it may well be much closer to home, within our own personal power to change for ourselves and by ourselves, going back to basics and focusing on how we relate to life and thrive as an individual.

This blog stems from the premise that the time has come to disrupt ourselves – to reinvent ourselves individually with the help of each other to weave a new way of life. Disruption is commonly understood as an act of forcible separation, division into parts, break-up, dislocation that interrupts the flow momentarily or upends an industry. It typically offers also an opportunity to reconnect, re-assemble, and start anew, imagining a future catalyzing our own evolution as a species. While we tend to focus typically on the disruption around us, I have found that the rules of disruption apply to the individual as well, and I believe that innovation ultimately begins within ourselves. It takes courage to disrupt ourselves, stepping beyond our zone of comfort, beyond our doubts and embracing the scary and lonely path into the unknown. It is especially challenging as it calls for discovery rather than conventional planning and strategy. It requires searching where no one else has gone, switching to different performance criteria – an inside-out job – redefining the attributes of success. Albeit an individual path, we do not have to go it alone. You may resonate with others on the way to affirm yourself, tell your own story. I hereby offer my lessons learned from a personal disruptive trajectory, along with tips and insights on how to cope with the level of disruption within, which I believe to be necessary for healing our relations at the international level, and usher a different world one person at a time for everyone to thrive. Healing ourselves is the path to a new international environment.

Feeling stuck: time for leadership!

You may experience feeling stuck at home with the same old experiences, a relationship that is not going anywhere, a job that is not rewarding, a city that is no longer meeting your needs. It has not felt right for some time but you have not been able to shift it in the direction you want to go. I have felt like this about my job going through cycles, investing in other things to realize that I am still limited by the job, trying something else in this work environment to hit the wall, even considering new openings to realize that the place is just not in line with my values. At the same time, and while doing many other things to the point where the job is only a sideshow, I am still wasting energy in an environment that is not aligned with who I am.

At times like this, it may be useful to declare our intentions clearly to the world and to ourselves that we are ready for a change, seeking assistance from wherever it may come to move to the next phase in our life. It may come from various corners and at a time we do not control, but assume that it is on its way! The starting point lies with clarity in our minds as to what we want to change and what we are willing to let go. Something needs to die before something else comes in. We may not wish to throw out the baby with the bath water… and want to retain some aspects of what is up for change. We need to be specific with the essence of the change we are seeking to birth.

Do you recognize your situation? Are you able to say clearly what it is that you wish to experience to replace the feeling stuck place? What are you willing to let go? Write it down and revisit the statement daily, like a mantra. Be aware that your statement needs to be clear, as you may get what you write down to later realize that it was not exactly what you aspired to. Refine the feeling, the essence of what it would feel like if you had what you want and stay open to the many different ways this could be delivered to you. For instance, I want to make a direct contribution in the world, and let go of invisibility. There are so many ways this can come to you. It is not specific enough. Enquire: why? what does that mean? For instance: I want to feel rewarded by what I do (in my own eyes) and not only in support of others. Make sure to engage a conversation with the universe to ensure you express yourself clearly and openly. Leadership requires a conversation. It is not a solo experience, even if you feel alone!