It is no longer the role of leaders to hold others to account and take on responsibilities that stretch them to their limits and beyond causing derailment and burnout. Many senior executives and leaders live lives in considerable pain and anxiety whilst ‘pretending’ that – everything is OK. Is that a meaningful existence? Does your six or seven figure salary really make up for that or does it create a trap that you can’t get out of? Also what impact might you be having on yourself and those around you if you operate in this mode? I’m not saying that everyone is like this, many have worked with and through coaching and leadership consultants to find a new way, but many of us live lives where stress is a significant part of what we are trying to manage unaware of what is really motivating or pulling us along and it’s not healthy, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) statistics on mental health and wellbeing are a good indicator of that.
Yvonne’s book Creating the Accountability Culture, The Science of Life Changing Leadership is a must read for any leader who has been interested in the messages in this blog and the previous one. Change Innovators – New World Leadership™ programme is also the contemporary programme that is going to help you find the way to a sensible answer to your Quo Vadis?, enabling you to become a meaningful and human centred leader of the future. For those of us on the path, this is more than a commercial endeavour to sell coaching and leadership programmes and encourage leadership circles where we can discuss these important subjects, it is a mission to improve the next generation of leaders so that they are prepared for what comes next. Generation Z are very unlikely to put up with much of what we did, and why should they?
The ouroboros is the serpent that eats itself, it is also the symbol of infinity. Kets De Vries talks about this in relation to existential leadership practice where closed minds and cultures will only lead to endless devouring of the same old crap (my words). This is when we become trapped in an endless cycle of status quo, badged as progress – the path to meaning will break that cycle.
In truth the leadership ouroboros needs to find a radically different path. One that focuses on wellbeing and growth, powerful use of language with positivity and positive energy to create new and more meaningful realities, the creation of psychologically as well as physically safe working environments where people are able to reduce stress and increase creativity and open their learning centres across their whole human system. It is now well known, through advances in neuroscience, that learning does not just happen in the brain, it is an embodied function of living a meaningful life and being part of a connected collective. Leadership of the future is all about enabling this in self and others.
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