Monthly Archives: March 2012

I am beginning to really enjoy this journey to leadership as I am learning more about myself and about my character than I thought. I am thinking about different aspect of leaderships than I thought possible.

We just studied leadership as defined by the situational theory and acquainted with the curve of leadership style and how you can grow and adapt your style from directing to delegating depending on the situation and on the personality type and subordinate level.

I am getting puzzled and attracted to the character of some of the people described by Bennis in chapter 3 and how they became leaders by knowing themselves, their limits and adapt to situations. To live the fullest, you have to know yourself or you will never really appreciate and be in agreement with yourself. “You become a leader, the moment you decide how to be”. Some things said in this chapter caught my attention:

• Absorb everything new and reflect on it and don’t be afraid of failure
• Reflect on everything you read, hear and see until you completely and fully understand
• Practice self awareness and reflection
• Help children to learn instead of teaching them. Teaching homogenizes, learning liberates.

Chapter 3 might discuss things we think we know, but until the day we die, we will never entirely know ourselves. So, I believe that so far, it is the most interesting chapter, one that I will go back again and again to retrieve and reinvent myself. You have to forget everything you thought you knew, go back to the basics and relearn, re-teach yourself. By doing so, you are sure to really pick what is most important to you, as it will make you stand out and surprise even yourself.

It would be foolish to believe that you know everything about yourself. If that was the case, life would be dull and would not be worth living. We are shaped and molded by our experiences. With these little surprises, we get reacquainted with everything including ourselves. Maybe we will even influence others when we’re gone. How cool is that!

“Knowing Yourself” is a great chapter! I was completely fond of reading it. A lot of interesting concepts, some of which I have already known, some of which I’ve learned from other philosophical books like Tao Te Ching, yet all of them have reaffirmed and reminded me to look back and reevaluate myself and my past experiences. I’d like to reiterate the four lessons of self-knowledge presented by Bennis:

1. You are you own best teacher.
   Emulation, Role taking, Practical accomplishment, Validation, Anticipation, Personal growth, Scientific learning
2. Accept responsibility. Blame no one
   Marty Kaplan’s drive to learn as much as possible from existing masters of the trait, take the best of it and marry it with personal desires and preferences
3. You can learn anything you want to learn.
   Full deployment of yourself to fulfill all your passions
4. True understanding comes from reflecting on your experience.
   “Reflecting on experience is a means of having a Socratic dialogue with yourself, asking the right questions at the right time, in order to discover the truth of yourself and your life.”

Finally, I’d like to quote the selfhood equation, which is

Family + School + Friends = true you
you

This chapter made me think and reflect more about myself. We do not often stop and think about ourselves.; think what we are capable of, and put those strenghts in practice to achieve our goals.  Bennis stated that on of the key factors of a leader is knowing himself/herself. In our childhood, we just a reflection of our parents, family, friends and the society around us; but after we start getting older, we make our own choices and, we decide for ourselves. That’s when we become leaders!

People may teach themselves how to be leaders, or they may learn from others. We can learn from other people’s experiences. However, something that I think we cannot learn from others is how to be ourselves. As Bennis states on the chapter, “the more we know about ourselves and our world, the freer we are to achieve everything we are capable of”.

Chapter 14 of “On Becoming Leader” focuses on a leader’s knowledge of the world and places a lot of emphasis on their knowledge of the world as a key driver of success. Something that caught my interest in this chapter was Bennis’ statement on Universities. Bennis’ states that Universities have taught people how to do and not how to be. This is ironic considering that Industry Professionals state college students do not come prepared with practical experience “how to do” needed to perform a job well. This statement is also in complete contradiction on what Bennis mentioned in the Chapter 3.

Should Universities be responsible for teaching students how to be or how to do? Is this the primary purpose of a University? In my opinion Universities do a great job teaching students how to think, which seems to be and what I believe to be their primary purpose.

In Chapter 3, Bennis talks about knowing yourself. When reading this chapter his points almost seem obvious, but not until you discover his points yourself.

Bennis says that we are often strangers to ourselves. He goes on to say that although leaders are self directed, it is in our relationships that we learn about ourselves. This is a very interesting observation.

Does he mean that we learn who we are by differentiating ourselves from other people or by discovering ourselves with them? I remember a conversation I had with someone on the way home helped me clarify who I am. This person hasn’t realized the impact they had on me and they probably never will. Nonetheless, I now know my core values which have guided me through my short life and will continue to guide me. Differentiating myself from other people has allowed me to connect with them, eventually leading to great relationships. Almost seems like a virtuous circle.

Babson College is home of a new syllabus for values-based leadership, business and entrepreneurism (http://www.givingvoicetovaluesthebook.com/). It includes an inventory (assessment) to help people think about their values.  A link to the assessment is: http://www.babson.edu/faculty/teaching-learning/gvv/Documents/Student/Personal-Professional-Profile_S.pdf

See my comment to Eugene Tasarov about Shoot, Observe, Adjust:  The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance by W. Timothy Gallwey, 1997.

Chapter 2 of Benins’ “On Becoming A Leader” is a great introduction to the essential ingredients of a leader. During the chapter, many of the famous political leaders of the 20th century are referenced in either a positive or negative way. For example former President Bill Clinton is referenced as the Comeback kid, while LBJ is said to have created a great war instead of a Great Society.

In this chapter, Bennis included quotes based on the values of a leader. According to Scientist Mathilde Krim “a value system, beliefs, are important so you know where you stand, but they must be your own value, not someone else’s”. Newspaper Executive Gloria Anderson said “I think we long for people who will stand up for what they believe, even if we don’t agree with them, because we have confidence in such people”.

Values drive a leader in the right direction, whatever that direction may be. Leadership is extremely important during challenging times, therefore values are of the up most importance during challenging times. Without values there is no certainty and challenging times cannot be escaped without having certainty.  So, perhaps it is not a crisis of leadership, but a crisis of values.

Many political leaders today don’t seem to have many values, they are simply interested in staying in power. As long as society keeps breeding political leaders without values, we will continue to have a crisis of leadership.

On Ch2 Bennis tells us that whatever the leadership style or gender, all share a “guiding vision” which allows this leader to be successful regardless any setback or failure. Leaders know exactly their direction and have such great passion that it is easy to share and communicate it to others.

Leaders are inspiration to people and their integrity and honesty are some of the major reason people are so drawn and attracted to them. When a leader believes in something, they do not get distracted or directed in an opposite way.  They earned people’s trusts and have to follow their path.

Being a leader is different from being a manager. A leader masters his context and develops it while the manager just surrenders to it.

I find inspirational that Bennis says that leaders are self made and invent themselves by developing character and vision. We often tend to associate politicians and leaders, maybe because that’s what the politician should really be about. But unless he/she reinvent him/herself, a leader will never be born.

The most useful knowledge I got from Bennis’ Chapter 2 is a comparison of leaders and managers through education and training. I copied that list to look back on in the future and reflect on myself whether I follow the leadership trends and display leadership qualities and traits. Another useful comparison was a list of short statements like “The manager administers; the leader innovates, or the manager is a copy; the leader is an original.”

Majority of these things are self intuitive but it is extremely useful to to think and talk abou them to check yourself and see where you stand.

There was only one slight disagreement that I had with in this chapter and it was a discussion of Once born Twice born.  It may be certainly true that “once borns” are given everything they need at birth and are guided by parents and environment throughout their life; where twice borns usually suffer and those grow stronger leadership qualities.  That is may be true, but is not 100% of the time. A lot of great leaders became great leaders because they have been taught and guided by great leaders.