I am coming to a stage in my life where I discover that most if not all of the knowledge, models, methods, and principles I learned at school and the last 30 years of my career are completely outdated and irrelevant for the new reality we live in.
That also applies to the concept of leadership. We’ve all learned about heroic and charismatic leaders. That leaders are leaders when they have followers and when they can create the conditions to engage her followers in a new direction, a place where no one has ever been before, to make 1,000 flowers blossom, etc, etc
With some notable dropout exceptions (Jobs, Gates, Bezos, etc), “leaders” all have the “right” attitude and have MBAs or other impressive certificates. They have the right profile. They went to right schools and the top universities like Harvard, Stanford, INSEAD, etc. Career progress and evolution is systematically reserved to this elite. Even upon today, I see companies that reserve certain professional or personal development programs to those who have the right certificates. How sad.
Most of these “leaders” fit a certain “style”, and most have been moulded in the same factories. Well-dressed, always smiling, ready to help, forthcoming, making it in every aspect of the professional and private lives, always reserved, never angry or upset, in control of their emotions, etc. They make impressive careers, mainly by pleasing their hierarchies, by staying in the blueprint and taking no risks.
But over time, I have become suspicious and bitter about these perfectly casted people. In many organisations I have seen how cheer-“leaders” joyfully smile in the face of their subordinates and at the same time put a knife in the back of the same human beings.
Some “leaders” have even “developed” an almost sadistic pleasure in ignoring and destroying well-crafted pieces of work. I would like to illustrate this with a story from during my studies as architect.
We got an assignment to build an exposition hall and the creation of the space had to be based on some repeating element of construction. As part of the coming-out we had to make artistic sketches, draw the precise floor plans and construction details, and work out the whole thing as a model on scale, including the repeating construction element. I think a worked 3 weeks day and night to make the deadline, and I was quite proud of the result. The model was made out of fine balsa wood. During the review session, my “leader” – the professor and coach, I still remember his name – found an immense pleasure in shooting apart with his fingers the fragile construction. I was not amused; in fact I felt deeply hurt and humiliated.
This is of course quite extreme and even psychopathic behaviour but I am sure each of us can find one or more examples in their career where their project-of-a-lifetime was shot in pieces apart. If it would happen again, I would probably kick and scream, or no, be subtler and present a glass of purifying water, as in this great advertisement from Spa Reine.
Some of the perfectly trained leaders also never take the pain to reach out to those who are more introverts who hunger for depth and they only listen to the extroverts who are most vocal that reach out to them. Decisions about subordinates are made in secrecy.
But the secrecy-trick does no longer work out in this hyper-connected environment, and news that is supposed to be kept confidential in the catacombs of the power hierarchies is dripping through the more and more porous walls of our organisations.
This new self-emerging transparency leads of course to a huge credibility crisis for the leader, as she does not know that you already know, and her “in-control” pose becomes painfully revealing of the true nature of those so called leaders.
Of course, Pepsodent, Spa Reine and the external look-and-feel vestimentary attributes are only metaphors for something deeper going on.
The problem with this sort of leadership is that it is leadership based on what you are (your power position in a hierarchy) versus who you are, your true internal power as a human.
A monkey in a suit remains a monkey in a suit.
We need a more humanistic approach, inspired by meaning and purpose; an “eudaimonic” economy as so well described by Umair Hague in “Is a Well Lived Life Worth Anything?”
That’s an alternate vision, one I call eudaimonic prosperity, and it’s about living meaningfully well. Its purpose is not merely passive, slack-jawed “consuming” but living: doing, achieving, fulfilling, becoming, inspiring, transcending, creating, accomplishing – all the stuff that matters the most. See the difference? Opulence is Donald Trump. Eudaimonia is the Declaration of Independence.
We have too many Donald Trumps in our organisations We need a culture that is based on deep respect and dignity for the human being. In this context, I recently had a conversation with a very senior businessperson of a multi-billion-technology company, who told me the parable of the Indian King.
The king had hired a consultant to advice him on the performance of the kingdom. The expert told the king to fire ½ of his workforce, as they did not have the same performance and added value to the kingdom as the top performers. The king responded “And what will those people do, once they get fired?”. The consultant answered, “Is that our/your problem? Your kingdom will be more efficient, that’s what you hired me for, no?”. The king did not follow the advice of the consultant, as he deliberately chose for a societal role in giving his citizens an job, a meaning, and a future, even if that meant a little bit of overhead. His choice was driven by people’s dignity.
The leadership that we all learned about starts smelling like a myth: the myth of charismatic leadership. But don’t blame them. That’s how they have been trained and educated. And the “training” or “brainwash” already started at those business schools, provided that you were lucky enough to be born in a family with wealthy parents that could pay the bill, or you were prepared to put yourselves in life-long debts as slaves to the financial institutions of this world.
The first thing I notice about the Harvard Business School campus is the way people walk. No one ambles, strolls, or lingers. They stride, full of forward momentum. The students are even better turned out than their surroundings, if such a thing is possible.
No one is more than five pounds overweight or has bad skin or wears odd accessories. The women are a cross between Head Cheerleader and Most Likely to Succeed. They wear fitted jeans, filmy blouses, and high-heeled peekaboo-toed shoes that make a pleasing clickety–clack on Spangler’s polished wood floors.
Some parade like fashion models, except that they’re social and beaming instead of aloof and impassive. The men are clean-cut and athletic; they look like people who expect to be in charge, but in a friendly, Eagle Scout sort of way.
I have the feeling that if you asked one of them for driving directions, he’d greet you with a can-do smile and throw himself into the task of helping you to your destination—whether or not he knew the way.
“This school is predicated on extroversion,” and “Your grades and social status depend on it. It’s just the norm here. Everyone around you is speaking up and being social and going out.” “Isn’t there anyone on the quieter side?” I ask. They look at me curiously. “I couldn’t tell you,” says the first student dismissively.
These are extracts from “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking” a fantastic book by Susan Chain. The book is an eye-opener in itself about the lost and untapped energy/potential of introverts in organisations.
The essence of the HBS education is that leaders have to act confidently and make decisions in the face of incomplete information. HBS was once called the “Spiritual Capital of Extroversion” where Top of Form “Socializing here is an extreme sport” and where verbal fluency and sociability are the two most important predictors of success.” writes Susan Chain, and goes on: “It’s so easy to confuse schmoozing ability with talent. Someone seems like a good presenter, easy to get along with, and those traits are rewarded. Exceptional CEOs are known not for their flash or charisma but for extreme humility coupled with intense professional will: quiet, humble, modest, reserved, shy, gracious, mild-mannered, self-effacing, understated. We don’t need giant personalities to transform companies. We need leaders who build not their own egos but the institutions they run.”
Leadership as we know it does not work anymore. We need something else. We also need a language to articulate what this new “thing” is. Some are starting to look into that.
The MIX http://www.managementexchange.com/ was co-founded by Gary Hamel and Michael Zannini (ex-McKinsey). They have set up a platform to share best practices on innovation, management and leadership. “It’s time to re-invent management” is their tag line, and Gary Hamel has written several books and rants on the subject. And as part of the M-Prize competition series, they just launched a new challenge on “Innovating Innovation”. I will write more about this and the related M-Prize where both Innotribe and Corporate Rebels United will make a submission before the end of the year.
But if you look carefully, many of the contributors are from mainly male-driven organisations with very extrovert people. They fit the HBS mould. We seem to keep on tapping into the same high-testosterone pool of resources.
That becomes very challenging for those who do not fit that mould: the ones who are introvert, and who are rarely listened too (if they ever get the chance to be heard); the ones who don’t have the right MBA or certificate; the ones who have a more feminine rather than masculine energy (some man have lots of feminine energy, like some women hive high doses of testosterone); the ones of the other gender, race, religion, age, education, etc
Nilofer Merchant, author of “11 Rules for Creating Value in the #SocialEra” (Amazon Associates link) rightly pointed out to me:
I hope our future economy is also about including the people who are unseen today. Those who are right in front of us, creating value but then ignored when it comes to be included as leaders, or thinkers to shape the future. No one does this out of bad intent, but out of blindness. Few people will realize that while Hagel and Kelly and Gray etc are mentioned, many well-respected best-selling women management thinkers were not. Our thriving systems HAVE to be open enough to include those that are currently blocked out. Blindness shifts when we start to be more conscious. Instead of perpetuating talking about the change, we have to embodying the change.
Indeed, something deeper is going on….
Bob Marshall (aka @FlowchainSensei) is addressing a somewhat similar dimension of “leadership” in his post “Leadership of Fellowship” and especially the section about dysfunctions of leadership.
The concept of leadership introduces a number of dysfunctions. Rarely are these discussable or discussed in our romanticized conception of the mythological leader:
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Leadership inevitably produces implicit (or even explicit) Parent-Child relationships. “Just one of many examples of this type of parent/child exchange is the unwritten pact that if employees do whatever their bosses ask of them (regardless of whether it makes good business sense) the boss will take care of their next promotion/career move.”
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Leadership validates “followership” and thus increased risk of “social loafing“
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Leadership cultivates “learned helplessness”
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Leadership can increases alienation, tribalism and the formation of in-groups
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Leadership often encourages favoritism, patriarchy, deference, sycophancy and obsequiousness, with a consequent reduction in both the quality and quantity of meaningful dialogue.
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Leadership compounds and perpetuates the Analytic mindset
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Leadership subtly undermines systems thinking, by breaking the social body into discrete parts (leaders, followers), and focusing attention on those parts rather than on e.g. the relationships between them, and the whole itself.
But the master of language and insight is for sure Rune Kvist Olsen from Norway. Checkout this excellent article “Leading-Ship: reshaping relationships at work”. Rune’s work is inspired by Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933), a visionary in the field of human relations, democratic organization, and management. The tagline of the Mary Parker Follet Network is:
Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim
Rune’s s elaborated thinking blew me away: he is rethinking “leadership” into “leadingship”. It cuts deep in what motivates people. Rune challenges big time all our preconceptions about leaders and followers. I felt deeply inspired by it. So, I got into a conversation with Rune.
During this post-Sibos period of the year, I take off every Friday of the week to create some space for myself to reflect, to catch up on some reading, at times just being there and sitting in silence and trying to make contact with myself again, and then – in that moment of awareness – getting inspired by books and art. One could call it a personal retreat in silence and/or reflection and/or depth.
It was during one of those Fridays that I had scheduled a very long Skype call with Rune so that I could give him my full attention and listen in full presence to the rich language and set of concepts Rune had developed over the years. Since then Rune keeps on sending me wonderful essays and manifestos: describing what is really going on under the hood of human beings in leadership context. It’s very fascinating, and I all encourage you to dive in and discover Rune’s work.
The biggest outcome of Rune’s work is in my opinion that he has developed a language to express this new type of being as a leader in your organisations. It is so new and refreshing, that it needs its own language and vocabulary. Only then you can engage in a conversation trying to understand each other.
A good example of this language is in the following slide (a small extract of a very long presentation)
That language is further elaborated in an essay called “Extracts from Humanistic Management Responsibility in the workplace”. It is about Imposed Responsibility (forced upon from outside) versus Chosen Responsibility:
The practice of “taking control” is a significant way in stimulating and inspiring self-esteem and self-confidence in the art of becoming a responsible and independent person.
Receiving and getting control from managers above implies that the person who is giving, still has control and can withdraw it at any suitable time.
Giving or delegating authority creates and sustain a superior/inferior relationship between the people involved.
This practice of giving as a form of domination is easily encumbered with the feeling of humiliation from the receiver’s point of view. The receiver could suffer the humiliation of not having personal control and not being able to take personal responsibility for the specific action at hand.
By granting power to people in gaining personal control and in becoming personally responsible for their actions, we are at the same time granting them real freedom to become true equals and fully human beings.
It is not difficult to understand that being an object of delegation and a recipient of giving (as a token of shared power), a person can naturally feel the humiliating bitterness engendered by being a powerless and subservient receiver and not having the authority in exercising personal freedom.
The result of this type of submissive role-behaviour, would possible entail the undermining of self- esteem, self-worth, and self-respect.
The most obvious flaw in the context of power concentration in the hands of persons in charge of others is the assumption that delegated responsibility is analogous to a commodity that can be shared among individuals or groups.
Giving or delegating responsibility can be conceived as a disguised way of pretending that people below will be empowered by the person above when this person is handling out some responsibility occasionally.
This is a deception in the sense that managers of other people are not actually entitled to give away any power because their power is connected to the managers’
Rune also signed up for Corporate Rebels United. We are btw now a worldwide group of about 200 people now and counting. And several pods being started up worldwide. More about that later.
As his contribution to the rebels’ story, Rune produced the following essay “The Story of a Corporate Heresy”.
The full version in PDF is here The Story of a Corporate Heresy, but to whet your appetite here are already some salient extracts:
These types of corporate activist movements emerges as a result of profound crisis in the way corporate communities are organizing, managing and leading their organizations. Corporate Rebel United is pointing out the problem:
“Our companies no longer serve our needs. They cannot keep pace with a high- velocity, hyper-connected world. They no longer can do what we need them to do. Change is required.” Corporate Rebel Manifesto 2012.
Why, what and how can offensive, progressive and constructive actions be a part of the solution and not the problem?
“You never change things
by fighting the existing reality.
To change something,
build a new model
that makes the existing model obsolete.”
The next and last question of the solution in reinforcing engagement and passion amongst everyone in the corporation is: “How can we unblock and reopen the free flow of creativity and innovation for everyone, and create engagement, enthusiasm and passion amongst one and all?”
The resolving answer could be lying in removing the factors that institutionalize the system of vertical power, and in replacing this system with a model that are granting everyone personal authority in exercising power through individual competence, ability and capacity.
All the above are useful reflections about our future leadingship models. But how do we get to that ideal model of leadingship?
As Einstein once said:
“A problem can not be solved
with the same methods
that created the problem”.
Rune – and Bucky, and Einstein – indeed indicated, that part of the solution is to get rid of the leadership that has brought us where we are today. But this is dangerous territory, as those are the leaders who still are in the hierarchical power position to eradicate the subordinates that do not fit the HBS blueprint, and try to challenge the existing system. It makes me think of recursive loops, or the drawings of M.C. Esher. At what point does the transition between night and day really happen?
“Day and Night” by M.C. Escher
Rune started sticking out his neck many years ago, in a period where he could not yet amplify his message through social media. Because he attacked the powers and hierarchies without defence, the system expelled him, and he ended up somewhat isolated, albeit in a beautiful self-built house on the borders of a beautiful Nordic lake (the story is correct, the picture below not)
It is not my ambition to get expelled, and I am trying to walk on thin ice every blog again to get your attention for being your true self.
It is in that context that my questions to you are:
- How can we get these new practices out of the reflection room and into the daily value creation practice?
- Who has already implemented these principles?
- What worked and what did not work when rolling it out or letting it emerge?
Let’s share and learn from each other. Let’s document this practice for value creation. This practice of Leadership. Jump in.
Petervan Studios 
If you are looking for good examples of new leadership here is one from Brazil
Also, Sergio Chaia has just launched his book on mindfulness and leadership, but as far as I know it is just in Portuguese right now
You have a written an excellent article as always
Thx Simon for sharing some good practices in Brazil. Thx also for the encouraging words.
Reblogged this on kwalitisme.
So timely: just discovered this post about Apple’s Tim Cook “always treat your own people with a sense of dignity and respect”
Read more: http://www.inc.com/paul-spiegelman/why-apple-will-make-even-more-money-a-change-in-leadership.html#ixzz2FBxBUFzO
Your post resonates, Peter, with what a new book just started reading: The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin. It is a new reality indeed, the end of the industrial age that brought us wealth through productivity.
The new emerging age is more about the wealth we can now co-create through our new fast and wide connections. I agree, this is a new model of leadership, much based on observation, intuition and being human.
Happy winter solstice, happy holidays.
Thanks for your sharing, Brend! Seasonal greeting to you as well. I’ll have a look at Seth Godin’s latest. Peter
Hi Peter, thank you for your openness and i agree with many of your believes. I do not share you MBA experience. I do have friends who did pursue the title. Instead i chose to follow my passion of meeting people and learn on the job, thus a different career and just because I never studied I never needed to “fit in”. I choose to go discover myself i.s.o. go from the books.
I ‘graduated’ at Disneyland Paris where I helped out with the opening (the summon of experience economy Pine & Gilmore), went to London worked @ Marriott EMEA office resv. sales , trained staff on Frequent Flyer Program and shook hands with Bill Marriott Jnr a few times (e.g. frontierland of CRM and HRM), shared and implemented this knowledge at different airlines; KLM (who outsourced their frequent flyer contact), Garuda (state run) and Singapore Airlines (financial driven) working at marketing. By the time I left Singapore Airlines. All this experience I gained in 4 years(92-96). I don’t believe I could have learned more sitting in class do you? the last 2 I was connected to the Internet. From there on I went to work for a startup feeling like young energetic explorers who knew a lot was going to change seeing and feeling it. When the big consultancy firms (the testos academic MBA people) trying to grasp and validate what we did. The world was torn at that time with on and offline believers. I however as well as the people I worked with always believed in the combination of both. In 1998 I started the PoetryJockeys.nl initially to enhance intensify interaction through writing instant poems between people (already at that time we believed that people were interacting less and less face2face) Now 14 years later we have a group of PJs who have written so many poems for people that I call memorable moments of Interaction. But the real value is that we have showed and trained hundreds of people (children to business people) to write and share their story, dream too.
And you what…no phones, no screen just a pen and paper..And it has proven to be a great method to hear the voice of the quiet ones. As I know exactly what you meant.
I never look back but when I read your extensive article many time I thought about my happiness that I never choose that path otherwise I would have never been so rich with the ideas, stories and passion that other shared with me. I give guest lectures on innovation and speak about my career path.
I don’t proclaim it was easy but i did choose myself and i know many wanted that too and still don’t dare. That was one of the reason i started my own blog
martijntimmermans.nl I do feel a strong need to share the alternative path of possibilities.
p.s. excellent sharing of the mix
good luck,
Martijn
Thank you Martijn for your rich sharing.
I did not have the chance myself to do an MBA at HBS or other schools/universities. I was a drop-out from Architecture. In my first job, i worked at a retailer’s HQ counting the discount vouchers from all over the country. I did night jobs to pay myself a decent living. In that period i got a real good feeling about the good, the bad and the ugly in humans. In corporate life, i was regularly disappointed by the fake going on and the power games being played by the “leaders”. In general, i was always quite lucky with my managers, who gave me lots of chances to progress in life. Some even created a job around my strengths. So, my suffering was light, if any. But i have seen many other people, who were less lucky and being wounded by the system. In my post, i tried to share my fascination for the work of Rune, and tried to put it in a perspective of my last 30+ years in corporate life, where i have seen way too many people being hurt and humiliated by the existing hierarchical power system.
Thx again for taking the time to comment. Warm regards, Peter
Hi Peter
Thanks for your reply I watched your inspiring TEDx talk, at times a trip down memory lane with Bjork. In general a nice way of storytelling!
You might find some of the slides i used for my lecture on the Innovation Buzz of interest to you? It has become more of a working story as when i prepared for it I found out that we don’t have a universal understanding / definition eventhough we all talk about it and it has been around for centuries. Its an interactive lecture/talk with video and references to the person who inspired much of Apple design..
http://www.martijntimmermans.nl/1/post/2012/10/my-lecture-on-innovation.html
Have you read or heard of book Theory U, Leading from the future as it emerges – Otto Scharmer.
I will try to watch the video from Rune at a quieter moment.
Thanks again
Martijn
Thank you thank you thank you. Your slides have some refreshing elements to it. I also like the list of your “heroes”. Is something everybody should do as it helps crystalizing what is really driving you. So, i believe the deck says more about you and your discovery journey than about innovation, which is perfectly fine. I would suggest that you enliven it a bit by adding some personal authentic story/ies.
And yes, i know about Theory U. I like the Open Mind, Open Heart, Open Will as they are really the flipside of many corporate cultures that are based on Judgement, Cynicism, and Control. I think i wrote about this in the very early days of my blog 😉 But yes, Otto Scharmer is fascinating.
Warm regards
Petervan
Hi Peter, this reply is meant for your last feedback.
Thank you for that. I think you have point about being it more about my personal search on the subject of Innovation.
I thought if there is no universal understanding of Innovation I should turn to the divers group of people I know, trust and respect in their opinion.
I will take up your advice to add the personal points until now they have only being said and not written.
Again thank you for sharing and have a good day
While there’s certainly a great deal of validity to your point — that “top down” hierarchical leadership has severe limitations and collaborative action is often superior — that has limits, too. I’ve seen this point made many times in different situations, and the same limitations are always present yet seem ignored.
First, I should point out that I’m no MBA Harvard grad either. I’m an Open Source developer, particularly in an extremely bottom-up, actively structure-and-direction-hostile community. That means I get to see both the benefits and the limitations, of that model up close.
To be brief, since this is just a comment, there are two main limitations:
1) Expertise. While communal, almost communist (lower-case C, not the political movement) decision making can work very well in many cases, it breaks down when what is needed is an informed decision. Spreading a decision out from one person to several can improve the decision, *provided that* all of the decision makers is adequately informed as to the inputs to the decision and has the background and perspective to analyze that input effectively. Simply taking a poll of all interested parties rarely gives a meaningful answer if the question at hand is non-trivial. To use the classic example, how should a nuclear plant be built? For the love of god, don’t ask me. As a construction worker on that project, you should *not* be involved in bottom-up empowerment decision making. An architect with an enormous amount of training and prior experience should be responsible for making that decision and drawing up plans and, yes, leading the construction process, in consultation with other highly-trained experts.
2) It’s natural. Really. Humans are pack animals. All pack animals of whatever species form pecking orders. The process of forming that pecking order may vary, and it’s possible to shift around in that order, but left to their own devices humans will always form pecking orders. If you have an unstructured organization, hierarchy will form all on its own without any effort from you but it will be hidden, subtle, and implicit. That is even worse than an explicit hierarchy, because no one knows how to navigate it and will run afoul of it without meaning to, yet still get slapped back for it. For a superb treatise on that subject I recommend “The Tyranny of Structurelessness”: http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptorium/wlm/tyranny/
Neither of those mean that we should never let people self-actualize or allow bottom-up organizations to form and so forth. But at the same time, we should not dismiss the value of good, informed top-down leadership and structure. A bad leader will be bad either way, but some very good leaders can still inspire and create great things, without tearing people down, from a top-down perspective.
This is good input to the discussion, Larry. Thank you for that. That’s what we’d like to document: what works and what does not work. There is also the work of Dave Gray in his recent book “The Connected Company” where towards the end he discusses company structures from hierarchies to “pods”. My post was not so much about structures, or bottom-up or top-down, but more about Rune’s concept of leadingship of equals and fellows. But i really get your point there are limits to either system. I love the concept of leadingship but i wonder who has already implemented it, even partly, and what the experiences are, good or bad.I’ll keep the link to “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” for some week-end reading ;-). Again, thx for sharing and commenting. Warm regards. Petervan
I think the key point I was driving at is that “leader among equals” is all well and good, but presumes that all involved *are* equals. There’s no inherent guarantee that is the case, and when it is not, a structure that tries to pretend it is will cause just as much dischord as a top-down “me manager, you peon” model when the parties really are more equal. (All of that is subject to some definition of “equal” that is highly contextual.) It’s also unnatural, so takes effort to maintain.
A good organization knows where and how to balance those different needs depending on the situation, the work type, the specific people involved, etc.
Awesome. Now i get your point. Thx for coming back with some further clarification 😉 Especially the “it’s also unnatural, so takes effort to maintain”
Hi Peter,
I just started my Action Learning MBA with BSN in The Netherlands because Action Learning is always trying to find answers to questions that have not yet been answered in books… Action Learning is about experimenting the problems of today with asking the right questions, reflection and respect for each other. Check http://www.wial.org for more information about Action Learning.
I hope that this will help you to get a fresh view on the leadership of the 21st century.
Regards,
Peter Pfeiffer
Nice blog Peter.
Though the MBA programme at Vlerick Business School is about leading and treating people with DIGNITY! In the class of leadership, we talked a lot about the leadership style of Ernest Henry Shackleton (the Endurance). I’m surprised that HBS hasn’t gone that way yet. So there is not an “end of leadership”, Leadership is just adapting itself to the societal transformation of 21 century. The book BEYONDERS (found on Amazon) explains what the new Leadership is all about.
The existential question is: why should you be let by someone else?
Respectfully,
Jules Kalenga, MBA
Hi Jules! Thank you for your feedback. I’ll have a look at the Beyonders book. I am not familiar with any MBA program – i am a dropout – so also not the one from Vlerick. but when i read the sentence “is about leading and treating people with DIGNITY!” , that still feels (most probably not intended that way) that the leader is owning the dignity as a resource to be given to the subordinate. My main message of the post, was that in the leadingship model, nobody is the exclusive owner of the resource, whether that resource is dignity, respect, delegation power, etc. Warm regards, Peter, non-MBA 😉
Excellent Post Peter; I’m a fan of Nilofer Merchant. Indeed the old world is coming down; for example, The Monitor Group went bankrupt. It was led by the work of Harvard’s Michael E. Porter who created the Porter’s 5 Competitive Forces Analysis tool that has been taught world-wide in B-schools for decades. If it is any consolation; here is an article that I wrote on the subject of collaborative vs competitive strategy that reflects upon the new ideal of leadership that you so wonderfully describe here: When competition has met it’s match… http://www.ingenesist.com/general-info/where-competition-has-met-its-match.html
This post is getting at something quite profound about leadership – the conventional wisdoms of leadership just don’t work. In our more than 15 years of helping organizations develop “cultures of greatness,” we found that almost everyone knows the conventional wisdoms but hardly anyone practices them, and the few that do practice conventional leadership do not have much impact. About 5 years ago, we began to focus in on what the truly successful leaders were doing that seemed so different than the majority. We found that they were all incredibly humble about their abilities, particularly when faced with tremendous uncertainty, many hidden agendas, resource shortages, disruptive competition, globalization and a host of other factors. We found that they followed what we now call the 4 positives:
• Positive Deviance – they relied on the most respected people in their organizations a lot
• Positive Images, particularly positive purpose – they focused on creating a collective compelling purpose that was expressed in terms of the greatness they could achieve
• Positive Practice – They insisted that everyone, themselves included, practice being great at achieving the purpose, and gave people the time and support to become great
• Positive Reflection – They spent time thinking about who they were and what they hoped to accomplish and expected everyone else to invest in self-reflection as well (which creates authenticity and trust)
The four positives, which are directly supported by the newest research on positive deviance and neuroscience, are the foundation of great leaders. No lame, glib mission statements here!
Understanding the conceptualization of “Leadingship”
The ultimate core in the vision of “Leadingship” is the principle of self-determination at work. Subsequent that the individual human being is self-deciding within a defined area and field of work based on her or his individual competence. This principle should be the natural and self-evident choice in designing organizations regarding managing and leading working processes. “Leadingship” is a substantial humanistic principle by design and is stating the value of “Leadingship for Everyone”.
The contracting principle to “Leadingship” is that someone is leading and deciding over others and someone is led and decided over by others. The superior authority in subjugating people to subordination is designed by position and rank (contrery to competence). The design principle of “Leadership” authorizing the superior person in charge, is depriving the persons belov their innate sense of being personal responsible of one owns contribution and performence of work. The relationship between superior people and subordinate people is legitimating the design of somene above who is worthy trust and responsibility and others below that is unworthy the dignity as equals and peers in the workplace. “Leadership” is definitive an anti-humaninstic principle by design and is stating the value of “Leadership for Someone”.
In sum the natural design principle at work is to grant competent people their human right of self-decision. Depriving people their right of self-determination, is to devaluate their competence as authorities within their personal field of expertice. And that choice is both unnatural and anti-human.
Rune Kvist Olsen
January 2013
Wonderful articulation of Leadingship by Rune. Thx!
http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/ seems complementary to Rune’s theory of Leadingship
One of the ways the leadership paradigm sustains itself is by convincing people that leaders are superior and followers are inferior. This book http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Self-esteem-Rational-Emotive-Behavior/dp/1591023548 provides a good antidote to the superior/inferior model.
One way I do it is by making a distinction between a person and a person’s resources. Resources can be superior or inferior depending on a given task, but that does not mean that the possessors of those resources are superior or inferior. Ultimately, assigning ratings to people is the precursor to legitimizing the mistreatment of some people by making reference to their supposed inferiority.
One of the things I really like about Rune’s description of Leadingship is that it does a very good job of describing the oppressive and humiliating dynamic of leadership. So many people just take it for granted that this is how the world should operate and it’s so important for people to see that it does not have to operate this way.
I worked at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government for nearly 10 years and originally went there to learn from the “best”. Unfortunately, what I found was leadership that operated just as Rune describes. I made efforts to address some significant morale issues in my department by encouraging its members to inquire into each other’s definitions of respect, so we could treat each other better and increase morale. That recommendation fell on deaf ears. I also suggested that we hire a consultant who focused on improving morale after reading several of his articles and concluding that his method was based on getting to the deeper drivers of morale (like an absence of respect) and not relying on the superficial gimmicks (free tickets to sporting events) so often used by organizations who are reluctant to address those deeper issues. The response to my suggestion was an unequivocal “no” without any explanation as to why. I eventually left the organization because I could no longer pretend to like working there. Leaving was an ordeal, but I am much happier now and have a better conception of the type of organization where I want to work and a greater ability to articulate how such an organization would operate. Rune’s theory of leadingship is one the tools I am using to describe that organization.
These two organizations might make good case studies
Gore http://www.gore.com/en_xx/aboutus/culture/index.html
Articulate https://life.articulate.com/culture/
Good stuff John. Many thx for sharing. These are great resources
Peter,
You are an essential instrument I can play to get the song out to the world. I will be playing more of the song the next months to come.
Thx for this instrumental plattform in revolutionizing corporate working and business life by challenging the nature of Leadership by its opposite pole of Leadingship.
Rune KO
Understanding the incomprehensibility and unintelligibility of the unknown matter of reality, through our adapted perceptions of beliefs and values.
To become able of understanding and learning anything that comes to us as a matter of something unknown, strange, different and perhaps controversial in challenging our ingrained beliefs and truths, we are dependent of an ability and a willforce to think the
unthinkable in understanding the unbelivable substance of the unknown matter at hand.
Unless our capacity of transgression beyond our force and power of mind exist, we will surely be stuck with our old belefs and truths surrounded by ignorence, prejudice and convictions – as protective shields against challanges perceived as threats to our known measures of reality.
The jurney of mind from Leadership to Leadingship, is an example of such a provocative, contraversial and challenging test for our ability and will to move beyond the unthinkable of the common reality of theory and practice in organizations to day.
Rune Kvist Olsen
February 2013
The pedagogical core of Leadingship
1. As individual human beings we must learn to become independent
responsible human entities interacting with each other on mutual
and equal ground.
2. As individual human beings we must learn to practise our free will
in taking and making personal choices, and practise
responsibility towards our self and each other as trustworthy,
dignified, reliable and accountable humans.
3. As individual human beings we must learn to convert our learnings
to personal competence by practising our independence
and responsibility through the adaption and application of our
learnings in real life.
Rune Kvist Osen
February 2013
Being independent and responsible human beings at work
When we have become truly independent and responsible individual human beings at work by taking care of our self and each other, we have gained the personal ability to practice Leadingship in the process of leading our self together with others based on our competence and enabled by mutual trust and personal freedom.
Rune Kvist Olsen
February 2013
Fear based relationship powered by Leadership versus
trust based relationship powered by Leadingship
A relaltionship based on fear (of rejection, exclusion, punishment etc.) and managed by control, command and domination over other people in the organization, is an expression of a deep and intrinsic personal need, urge and desire of being in charge as a superior person ranked above others as subordinates ranked below. By being in charge the person has gained the superiority and the enforcing power over others. The nature of Leadership is to lead others by deciding over them and by subjugating others to be led through obedience and loyalty. The notion of being subjected to others mercy, is in it self a source of the thretening emergency of fear.
A relationship based on trust (of appreciation, recognition, acknowledgement etc) and managed by personal freedom, mutual respect and social responsibility, is an innate expression of a devoted and compassionate engagement between people who are regarding themselves as equal, peers and partners in either working alone or together. The social mutuality is practised through the respect and appriciation of each person as a worthy, competent and valuable contributer in the integration and coordination of work. The nature of Leadingship is to lead one self together with others in taking personal responsibility for decisions within one owns field of work based on the shared trust in performing independence and responsible actions.
Rune Kvist Olsen
February 2013
The consistency in interactions between personal conceptions of reality and the influence of personal power in the organization.
The general conceptual principle: We are envisaging the reality as we are our self, and not as the reality is in it self.
The particular conceptual principle: We are seeing the reality in our organization based on Who we are as persons and What we have as persons.
The organizational design principle: Our reality conceptions at work
varies and fluctuates with our specific and factual organizational circumstances.
1. The reality conceived from a Leadership point of view:
As superior persons appointed to leadership positions we see the reality from above and downward. We are envisaging the reality based on our position and rank as superiors and will understand, interpret, explain and defend our conceptions and perceptions of the reality context accordingly to his respective circumstance of power over subordinates below.
The superior person in a leadership position is given the power to determine and ascertain the correct version and view of the truth and the power to enforce the authorative description of the reality.
The subordinate person must accept and comply to the version
of the true reality conception established by the ruling order with
loyalty and obedience, with the purpose of sustaining one owns
job and work.
The reality conception powered by Leadership is based on What we are and have by the virtue of positions and ranks.
2. The reality conceived from a Leadingship point of view:
The power of Leadingship is based on the principle that everyone in the organization are entitled and authorized personal power within a respective field of work, and entrusted with individual freedom and personal responsibility in making autonomous decisions.
Everyone are relating as equals and peers and are envisaging their reality context from a similar point of view (neither upwards or downwards – but sidewards) from the same platform of
outlooking the organizational reality.
A shared reality conception between individual human beings occurs when individiduals are able to understand that other´s
conception of reality can be as real, true and valuable as their own
conceptions and perceptions. The common awareness that our
reality are composed of a myriad of different views, conceptions and opinions, are the dynamical cord that are linking and connecting us togther through our individual personalities in shaping our common identity as a working community.
The reality conception powered by Leadingship is based on Who we are as individual human beings based on our personal competence and capacity in doing our respective jobs.
Rune Kvist Olsen
Mars 2013
1. The Truth powered by Leadership:
The Subjective and Superior Truth as a matter of an Objective Supremacy Fact. The superior leadership person sees and rules the truth, and the subordinate person is told and ruled by this commanding truth:
– If and when a superior person in a leadership position don´t like, disagrees and disputes a ctrical and contraversial resport from subordinates, the superior person will most likely terminate and close the matter, and file the case in the archive as invalid, unreliable and unaccountable. The subordinates will be labled as disobedient, disloyal, dishonest and not trustworthy.
2. The Truth powered by Leadingship:
Subjectivity is a personal matter as an individual expression of reality conception. Objectivity is a collective matter as a result of shared understanding amongst the people involved.
– When people have gained the personal force to operate and function independently and entrusted the liberty to take responsibility of actions as equals and peers, they have at that moment of concsious state of mind attained enough personal confidence and willforce to accept and trust the reality description of others without fear, rejection, condemnation, denounciation. damnation and contempt.
Rune Kvist Olsen
Mars 2013
The consistency in interactions between personal conceptions of reality and the influence of personal power in the organization.
The general conceptual principle: We are envisaging the reality as we are our self, and not as the reality is in it self.
The particular conceptual principle: We are seeing the reality in our organization based on Who we are as persons and What we have as persons.
The organizational design principle: Our reality conception at work varies and fluctuates with our specific and factual organizational circumstances.
1. The reality conceived from a Leadership point of view:
As superior persons appointed to leadership positions we see the reality from above and downward. We are envisaging the reality based on our position and rank as superiors and will understand, interpret, explain and defend our conceptions and perceptions of the reality context accordingly to his respective circumstance of power over subordinates below.
The superior person in a leadership position is given the power to determine and ascertain the correct version and view of the truth and the power to enforce the authorative description of the reality.
The subordinate person must accept and comply to the version of the true reality conception established by the ruling order with loyalty and obedience, with the purpose of sustaining one owns job and work.
The reality conception powered by Leadership is based on What we are and have by the virtue of positions and ranks.
2. The reality conceived from a Leadingship point of view:
The power of Leadingship is based on the principle that everyone in the organization are entitled and authorized personal power within a respective field of work, and entrusted with individual freedom and personal responsibility in making autonomous decisions.
Everyone are relating as equals and peers and are envisaging their reality context from a similar point of view (neither upwards or downwards – but sidewards) from the same platform of out-looking the organizational reality.
A shared reality conception between individual human beings occurs when individiduals are able to understand that other’s conception of reality can be as real, true and valuable as their own conceptions and perceptions. The common awareness that our reality are composed of a myriad of different views, conceptions and opinions, are the dynamical cord that are linking and connecting us togther through our individual personalities in shaping our common identity as a working community.
The reality conception powered by Leadingship is based on Who we are as individual human beings based on our personal competence and capacity in doing our respective jobs.
Rune Kvist Olsen
Mars 2013
1. The Truth powered by Leadership:
The Subjective and Superior Truth as a matter of an Objective Supremacy Fact. The superior leadership person sees and rules the truth, and the subordinate person is told and ruled by this commanding truth:
– If and when a superior person in a leadership position don´t like, disagrees and disputes a critical and controversial report from subordinates, the superior person will most likely terminate and close the matter, and file the case in the archive as invalid, unreliable and unaccountable. The subordinates will be labled as disobedient, disloyal, dishonest and not trustworthy.
2. The Truth powered by Leadingship:
Subjectivity is a personal matter as an individual expression of reality conception. Objectivity is a collective matter as a result of shared understanding amongst the people involved.
– When people have gained the personal force to operate and function independently and entrusted the liberty to take responsibility of actions as equals and peers, they have at that moment of concsious state of mind attained enough personal confidence and willforce to accept and trust the reality description of others without fear, rejection, condemnation, denounciation. damnation and contempt.
Rune Kvist Olsen
Mars 2013
The consequence of a polarized reality conception powered by Leadership versus a shared reality conception powered by Leadingship.
1. The Leadership reality conception directed downwards and upwards:
* Mastering hegemony by monopolizing the truth.
* Colliding values and believes.
* Minimizing, discrediting and ridiculing alternative statements as rhetorical and semantical matters (depriving and renouncing confronting aspects their authority in being serious and real).
* Conflicting priorities.
* Contradicting truthfulness.
* Compromising reliability and credibility.
* Alienation by separation.
* Ruling by dividing, conquering and domination.
* Verticalization of relationships.
2. The Leadingship reality conception directed sidewards:
* Sharing by beneficial benevolence.
* Communication by leveling.
* Collaboration by coordination.
* Corporation by complementation.
* Connecting by integration.
* Equalizing by reciprocality.
* Horizontalization of relationships.
The structure in organizing, managing and leading work and people are a consequetial reflector of the structuring of power as the premissive shaper of the reality design in the organization.
Rune Kvist Olsen
Mars 2013
The consistency in interactions between personal conceptions of reality and the influence of personal power in the organization.
The general conceptual principle: We are envisaging the reality as we are our self, and not as the reality is in it self.
The particular conceptual principle: We are seeing the reality in our organization based on Who we are as persons and What we have as persons.
The organizational design principle: Our reality conceptions at work varies and fluctuates with our specific and factual organizational circumstances.
1. The reality conceived from a Leadership point of view:
As superior persons appointed to leadership positions we see the reality from above and downward. We are envisaging the reality based on our position and rank as superiors and will understand, interpret, explain and defend our conceptions and perceptions of the reality context accordingly to his respective circumstance of power over subordinates below.
The superior person in a leadership position is given the power to determine and ascertain the correct version and view of the truth and the power to enforce the authorative description of the reality.
The subordinate person must accept and comply to the version of the true reality conception established by the ruling order with loyalty and obedience, with the purpose of sustaining one owns job and work.
The reality conception powered by Leadership is based on What we are and have by the virtue of positions and ranks.
2. The reality conceived from a Leadingship point of view:
The power of Leadingship is based on the principle that everyone in the organization are entitled and authorized personal power within a respective field of work, and entrusted with individual freedom and personal responsibility in making autonomous decisions.
Everyone are relating as equals and peers and are envisaging their reality context from a similar point of view (neither upwards or downwards – but sidewards) from the same platform of out-looking the organizational reality.
A shared reality conception between individual human beings occurs when individiduals are able to understand that other’s conception of reality can be as real, true and valuable as their own conceptions and perceptions. The common awareness that our reality are composed of a myriad of different views, conceptions and opinions, are the dynamical cord that are linking and connecting us togther through our individual personalities in shaping our common identity as a working community.
The reality conception powered by Leadingship is based on Who we are as individual human beings based on our personal competence and capacity in doing our respective jobs.
Rune Kvist Olsen
Mars 2013
1. The necessity and essentiality of substituting and replacing obsolescent and anachronistic believes and dogma (f.ex: Leadership) with new and alternative options and solutions (f.ex: Leadingship) – which are not part of the illness and disease that inflicts and infects the mental health of the human mind in contemporary organizational life.
The excellent and brilliant statement of Buckminster Fuller says everything about the necessity in creating alternative options (model,
concept, system, structure) when dealing with obsolescent matters opposing and counteracting new future realities:
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete.”.
The power and force embedded in the concept of Leadingship enables us in moving beyond existing mental boundaries in reaching the emergent future of a new workplace reality, where everyone are relating equally and mutually on the same level of co-existence. At that point of evolution in the state of mind of the individual human being, we have released the chain of control and command from someone above to lead and others below to be led. This significant action have made the existing model of Leadership for Someone superfluous by compensating this obsolescent dogma with a new model of Leadingship for Everyone.
Rune Kvist Olsen
Mars 2013
1. Notorious governing administrative mechanisms and ruling Leadership techniques in enforcing silencing, subjugation and subordination in the workplace – in relation to Leadingship practice.
The purpose of well known and famous governing mechanisms administered by the system and ruling leadership techniques applied by the superior (leader, boss, supervisor, controller, director etc.) person in charge, is quieting and silencing people against advocating personal, individual and collective concerns, anxieties and worries about their work, working conditions and working contracts. The intention of such subtitle and often concealed leadership action, are enforcing, protecting and preserving the interest of the power holding and the powerbase that ensures supreme privileges and advantages for the people in charge in leadership positions.
In practicing Leadingship everyone must take responsibility and operate independently because there are none to command and control, and subsequently there is an absence of manipulative mechanisms and techniques of silencing people to muteness. One main purpose behind Leadingship is to take each other seriously and not dismiss controversial, challenging and critical arguments as invalid.
There are some factual and actual factors (mechanisms/techniques) applied by superiors above in governing/ruling subordinates below by legitimate leadership strategies and tactics:
1. Dismantling the existing workplace setting.
2. Dispersing/dissolving the working group.
3. Exiling persons from the workplace (office/station).
4. Removing access to working instruments.
5. Depriving of tasks and functions.
6. Redrawing authorization, certification and security clearance.
7. Degradation/depromoting downwards.
8. Excluding/out locking from job.
9. Expelling from department.
10.Relocation to another physical setting.
11.Discharging/firing from job.
12.Dismissing/teminating contract
13.Disgraced/dishonored professional reputation.
Revealing and exposing pretentions, intentions and reasons behind the monumentation and cementation of the Truth of Reputation by the correct version of history description,, is the only option in establishing transparency and prevent future veiling of manipulated truth powered by Leadership.
I will end this enigmatic lesson with a statement from some years ago:
“The truth is only threatened by its own essence when revealed as a deception and falsehood in concealing the real and sincere intentions and reasons behind a manipulative action in preserving the status quo.”.
Rune Kvist Olsen
Mars 2013
Identifying and mapping the consequences of institutionalizing the correct version of the Truth by the legitimate and authorized act of either superiority or equality in the organization.
Evidencing the Truth of reality by Leadership versus Leadingship. Our conception of reality becomes our truth depending on how we are letting and accepting the reality being described and interpretated by someone keeping the power based on (leadership) position, or by everyone sharing the power based on experience and knowledge (leadingship competence).
The act of indentifying the common reality experienced by everyone individually in the organization, can be done by proposing relevant questions in revealing and exposing the real truth about powering, organizing, managing and leading work and people:
1. Can you envision a workplace where all people are powered with authority by their own abilities to operate and function independently and responsible?
2. Can you envision a workplace without superiors and subordinates where some people have power to dominate, control and command others in the act of subjugating them to subordination?
3. Can you envision a workplace reality where the power to make and take decisions is linked exclusively to personal competence (in contrast to position and rank)?
4. How are your present workplace powered, organized, managed and led?
5. What are the intentions and reasons behind the existing structuring of power in your organization?
6. What would you regard as the most important, crucial and vital assets and requirements in changing your workplace to a reality where everyone have equal access to personal freedom and individual responsibility?
7. How can you contribute in addressing issues at work that you need to resolve in creating a transparent and ethical social conscience amongst the people in your organization?
The strategic option in this organizational context is either staying behind by maintaining and conservering Leadership for Someone or moving beyond by initiating and implementing Leadingship for Everyone.
Rune Kvist Olsen
Mars 2013
Why Leadership versus Leadingship are interconnected opposite poles in a dynamical learning progression interfacing each other through reciprocal interdependency and mutual influenciality.
A key to a dualistic relationship between diametrical contrasting opponents is challenging each other by their opposing differences and inequalities, lies in the insight, knowledge and experience of how the essence on one specific entity is shaped and formed in the relation to its absolute contrast. For example to understand white we must understand black, god versus bad, nice versus evil, sharing versus keeping, cold versus warm etc. Our conceptions and perceptions are constructed by this code of symbiotic dualism. Subsequently the insight and understanding of Leadingship is found in the knowledge of Leadership. The simple pedagogical motto is therefore;” Knowing the one by knowing the other and visa versa”.
The paradigm of dualism unites separation and integration as two opposite aspects of the same matter, both contradicting and presupposing each other at the same time in a dynamic and progressive process of attraction and repulsion. The pedagogical flow are the initiating energy behind all human learning as a composition of mutual interaction and interference between distinctive reciprocal components. These influencing factors generates a synergical and symbiotical impact of unified consciousness by the momentum of learning.
In balancing and harmonizing a dualistically process between opposite poles that are contesting the essence and nature of each other constantly, we must establish counterbalance that are enabling the potential and options of alternative choices granting us the freedom to choose. In choosing and selecting one spesific option, we must at the same time be aware of alternative options. Alternative options gives of the freedom of choice, while absence of alternative options will be forcing us to submit to the only given solution at hand. The lack of options is the opposite of freedom of choice. In balancing and harmonizing our choice in organizing, managing and leading work and people, the option of Leadingship contra Leadership is significant and essential in sustaining the free will and the freedom of choice. Subsequently the counterbalance of interconnected opposite poles in a learning perspective, is substantial in generating “learning of the one” by the “learning of the other” and visa versa.
We learn our self in relation to others by questioning What, Why and How we our self can perform, accomplish, achieve and pursue our intentions and purposes. We are not truly learning by letting others tell us what to do. Learning from others are just reproduction and copying old learning’s. Others can help us to learn, but the learning is ours to do within our self. Learning is a personal process done inside the human embodiment. By internalizing and processing all types of inputs from outside and inside, we will be molding our impressions to distinct emotions and thoughts that can transpire to learning’s that enables specific actions. By converting the learning’s to actions, we are creating competence as we are testing our theories into practical operations for our self and others.
Competence is a individual and personal matter that never can be conveyed and transferred to other people, because of the nature of the process as a personal matter inside the individual person. Everyone must do their job and learn by themselves from birth to death. However we can share and exchange our knowledge and experiences so that others can internalize and process their own impressions, and later can convert their thoughts into competent expressive actions.
Learning as a dualistic matter is all about learning and understanding One Self through the relationship to others in true and affectionate mutuality of susceptibility and receptivity. In this way we learn by challenging and questioning the truth conveyed by others, and instead be searching for our own personal truth in becoming authentic individuals.
Rune Kvist Olsen
Mars 2013
The Learning Design of Leadership versus the Learning Design of Leadingship. The vital and crucial questions are:
1. Am I my self able in taking responsibility for my own learning or not?
2. Am I the person who know best what I need to learn most and in a way that suits me best?
Answers to these questions will be determining and forming the applied learning design principles regarding which force of power that will be ruling and governing our learning process and learning lessons. The selected force of power will have two alternative options of choice:
1. My inner self capacity in taking care of my learning responsibility.
2. Someone outside my self who is assigned my tutor and appointed my superior being considered as best qualified.
I. The Leadership Learning Design:
Someone above as the superior authoritative person in charge is telling, instructing, training others below as subordinates what to do, why to do it and how to do it. The learning belief is that the person in the leadership position has the best knowledge and competence to determine what is best for the people below in performing their jobs, while the subordinate person is not personally equipped and endowed with the adequate and sufficient talent in taking care of one owns learning in an independent and responsible manner. This difference in preference and reference signalize the distinction between trust and distrust in people and in the emphasizing of the significance of position and rank. This differences in conception of who to trust as superior and who to mistrust as inferior, are the main reasons that someone is valued and regarded as best qualified to leadership positions and subsequently most trustworthy in taking care of others learning.
The leadership learning design principle is focused on organizing learning as a system of teaching, training and education from top down the hierarchical ladder by the appointed person in charge of the facilitation training program in employee education. The superiors themselves are summoned to exclusive Leadership programs in learning the design principles of organizing, managing and leading the subordinates below.
II. The Leadingship Learning Design:
Everyone are considered qualified in taking care of their own learning actions as trusted equals and peers based on their respective competence and personal characteristics in adding value to the common good and the corporate benefit. The learning belief is that everyone are doing their learning from inside themselves based on personal choice of individual development. The learning must be subjected to personal choice and processes in order to evolve as a personal matter of competent individual actions. People will be operating independently and responsible in generating their learning and be converting their learning into applicative competencies.
The leadingship learning design principle is to situate and arrange necessary space for personal learning and collective sharing of individual learning, where the internalized learning outcome from everyone can be coordinated and integrated as a collective force of organizational competence. The leadingship design of learning is focused on organizing learning as a consecutive process of learning byexperiencing progress and regress in personal achievements, and by reflection on continuous improvements in personal accomplishments.
The Leadingship programs of training and education are inclusive for everyone since everyone are learning by themselves together with others all the way through their working life and private life.
The ultimate choice of the Design principle of Learning is subsequently a choice between either Leadership learning program for Someone or Leadingship learning program for Everyone.
Rune Kvist Olsen
Mars 2013
As in Heaven – So on Earth.
Leading and Learning through parallel perspectives of Reality.
In this time of solemn and holy reverential sentiment to come for the celebration of the Easter holliday, I would like to summarize my posted lessons in both an earthly perspective as a spiritual perspective. I will be starting this angling approach with the spiritual part in relevance to the theme; Leading and learning in parallel perspectives of reality, by making a connection between references to spiritual experiences extracted from conveyed intervjues with persons under superconcsious hypnosis. The distinguished author and scientist Dr. Michael Newton has uncovered the mysteries of our state of being in the spirit world, and has written several books covering experiences from living human beings who convey reports from their spiritual realm. The texts of Dr. Newton gives a fascinating and an intriguing insight of how a parallel reality such as the spiritual world, could be organized, managed and led. The following statement is quotations from the book; “Destiny of Souls”: “While in a superconscious state during deep hypnosis, my subjects tell me that in the spirit world no soul is looked down upon as having less value that any other soul. We are all in a process of transformation to something greater than our current state of enlightenment. Each of us is considered uniquely qualified to make some contribution toward the whole, no matter how hard we are struggling with our lessons. If this was not true we would not have been created in the first place. (page 6)… Advancement through the taking of personal responsibility does not involve dominance or status ranking but rather a recognition of potential. They see integrity and personal freedom everywhere in their life between lives. (page 7)”.
A rather solemn and reverential statement at this time of sentimental and ceremonial reflection and contemplation, I would say. In either way these words of Dr. Newton can perhaps give us a touch in raising our senses in expanding our perspectives of existential matter.
I will be ending this lesson with an earthly part in relevance to the theme; Leading and learning in parallel perspectives of reality. The earthly duality of values and believes states the overture: “Someone are leading others and others are led by someone” powered by Leadership versus “Everyone are leading themselves together with others” powered by Leadingship.
At the moment when the majority of people are deprived their power of self-decision and ranked below as subordinates with superiors in charge, the structuring of power is shaped vertical and organized hierarchical. At this momentum of subjugation by subordination, someone is appointed the authority of leading others by the virtue of their superior position and rank, and others are subjugated to be led by the virtue of their corresponding inferior position and rank. This way of organizing, managing and leading work and people represent the rule of Leadership where the organization is adopting and adapting Leadership for Someone.
At the moment of revelation of the apparently devastating and damaging consequences of Leadership for Someone for the human energy and spirit in the workplace, where the majority of people are subdued to inferiority and subjugated to subordination, people will at the moment of despair understand that this vertical and hierarchical way of organizing is obsolete and destructive regarding human engagement at work. The mantra of Leadership for Someone would at this point be at its breaking point of revolution, and ripe and ready for replacement by the essence of Leadingship for Everyone.
The essence of Leadingship for Everyone is that all people are enabled the authority of self-decision at work. At this moment of transformation in the way we operate as free individual human beings, the structuring of power is shaped horizontal and organized egalitarian with people sharing power, exchanging resources and complementing each other in unified actions. This way of organizing, managing and leading work and people, represent the era of a humanized work life, where the organization is adopting and adapting the vision of Leadingship for Everyone. At this moment of truthfulness including and equalizing Everyone and Everybody in the organization, we are in a way aligned with the spiritual vision of leading and learning beyond our own comprehension of reality.
Enjoy the spirited season to come!
Rune Kvist Olsen
Mars 2013
Marginalizing human individuals through restructuring and reorganization of the present corporate system of reality by the power of Leadership, versus optimizing and releasing human potentials through creation of a new corporate system of reality by the power of Leadingship.
When the authorative power of Leadership is revealed, challenged, endangered and threatened, the forces of Leadership are mobilized in protection and defense of the ruling regime against oppositional forces. Such a Leadership mobilization (restructuration/reorganization) would be focused on:
1. Discrediting and invalidating troublesome elements suspected and accused of disloyal and disobedient actions in destabilizing and jeopardizing the legitimate ruling order.
2. Neutralizing and marginalizing threatening elements that are pursuing real, substantial and sustainable change in the force of leading, managing and organizing work and people.
3. Modernizing and modifying the existing system through System Recovery Actions (re-struct./re-org.) in removing annoying and disturbing threats of unpredictable forces.
Leadership for Someone will at the moment of restructuration of the ruling order become resurrected and restored as the legitimate force of power in stabilizing and sustaining the corporate Truth by Someone, on behalf of Everyone. At the moment of enforcing the corporate Truth, the organization has chosen a predictable strategy powered by Leadership as a defensive action by fearing the unknown future, instead of encountering the challenges in making essential offensive changes powered by Leadingship in preparing for the inevitable future.
The great paradoxical deceit in choosing safety and security through defensive predictability as a strategy in organizational change, rather than facing future options and potentials through offensive organizational dispositions, is and will be an illusion and delusion based on cowardice. The character of the human being is irrational in nature by its mere essence, and will regardless of the matter process a free will to make individual choices in spite efforts of suppression and oppression. The only option ready and adaptive for future conditions, will be organizing and practicing individuality and personality through unconditional trust and freedom powered by Leadingship for Everyone based on courageousness.
Rune Kvist Olsen
April 2013
Leading and learning as a personal matter in becoming and being conscious, reflective, autonomous and responsible human beings,
is based on our personal apprehension and conception of our own state of realities.
The conceptualization of the pedagogical implications of progressing an awareness of our Human Self, is based upon the following design principles:
1. Learning as an individual process is natural and essential both as contradictory and coalescence at the same time and moment of existence. Therefore learning is a laborious and arduous matter in understanding, conceiving, and accepting contradictions as real elements in the same context of reality, as we internalize the impulses in the perception of mind. New knowledge emerge as a contrast to old knowledge in a dynamical intersection of obsolete and modern adoptions and applications. Learning as a paradoxical phenomenon is based on the presence of contradictions designed as learning principles in fulfilling symbiotically and synergically purposes in the releasing of human potentials. Learning through contradictions is driven by the following modes:
* Mutual dependency.
* Reciprocal contradictory.
* Complementary and supplementary.
* Presupposing and preconditioning.
2. Learning is an internal force of personal attachment powered by the free will of choice, and progressing within the human being in processing new knowledge related to the awareness of individual person.
3. Teaching is an external force of institutionalized arrangement powered by the educational system in recycling, reproducing and conveying old knowledge related to the reference and preference of the institution.
4. Competence is a result of applied learning by practicing and experiencing the validity and reliability of learned lessons in a operative context of reality.
5. Pedagogy is a fusion between learning as a individual process and teaching as a institutional system. The distinction between learning as a process and teaching as a system must be related to learning as a process inside the individual human being respectively teaching as a opposite and contradictive matter outside the person. The individual person learn while others can teach the person to learn. Nobody can learn others anything while others can learn everything by themselves.
We will be able to learn the art of leading as long as we can conceive and perceive the counterpart of the subject. With one part of the subject of leading absent and the other present, we will be learning old knowledge and we will be reproducing the same matter over and over again even if the production is modified and modernized. In enabling learning of new knowledge we must apprehend and comprehend the counterpart of the subject. Subsequently we will learn Leadingship in relation to Leadership and vice versa. Then we can find out the real nature, essence and significance of the known matter when the nature of the new matter is revealed and manifested as a real option of choice. However Leadership or Leadingship can be THOUGHT without the presence of the other, but that matter will take place without the presence of LEARNING of the missing link.
Rune Kvist Olsen
April 2013
Preserving the human capital versus releasing the human potential –
by either Leadership for Someone or Leadingship for Everyone. The option and choice is either staying behind in the past by ruling and controlling the human factor, or by emerging into the future by releasing the human factor. Two major strategic options of choice in organizing, managing and leading work and people, and the consequences of the respective choices are:
1. The Leadership team has accomplished its intention and purpose in silencing, marginalizing and neutralizing so-called troublesome, provocative, difficult and demanding individuals by reorganizing and restructuring the organization. Some of the stigmatized persons are relocated to other jobs and workplaces. while others are forced to resign. The rebellious tendencies are removed and the people have returned to the organizational fold in conformable moods. The ruling order powered by Leadership for Someone has been restored.
2. The Leadership team has decided to move ahead into the future by initiating mutual trust and personal freedom, and by inviting everyone in raising their voices and speaking their minds up – without any fear of personal and collective reprisals. The individuals mobilize their personal resources in leading and learning by themselves in maximizing and optimizing individual and corporative benefits and profits. The human potential initiatives are enforced and enabled as the prime corporative force of power, and people are extending and expanding their performances, accomplishments and achievements by interfacing, interaction and intersection with each other based on personal and collective assignments.
The respective strategic decisions will subsequently either rule the direction and the survival prospects of the organization by controlling the individual human being through fear based conformity, or be ruled by the human being in progressing and prospering the human potentials through trust based creativity.
In either way, the corporation can decide its own future by selecting between Leadership for Someone or Leadingship for Everyone.
Rune Kvist Olsen
April 2013
Leading and Learning – Contradicting and contrasting terms or conjunctive and congruent terms?
We learn when we make our own choices and take responsibility for the consequences of our actions. By other words are self-imposed and self-made choices learnable options.
We do not learn in the same manner (learning by personal choices) when choices are been made for us by others. In that sense are others the learners who are making and taking choices on behalf of someone else. By others words we do not learn by imposed choices enforced upon us by others. Imposed choices inflicted upon us are subsequently not learnable options.
Self-determination is prerequisite for learning, as self-decision is prerequisite for learning by leading our self as independent and responsible human beings with access to free will and the freedom of choice. When we lead our self we learn because we make our choices and take responsibility for our own actions. When we in contrast are led by others, we do not learn because the choices are not ours to make and take. When we are led by someone our choices are handed over to others and are taken over by others by the virtue of their position and rank as superiors. It is the task and responsibility of the superior person in charge to make decisions for the subordinates and take the responsibility of their actions. That is the why the superior is assigned superiority and the subordinate is assigned inferiority. Superiority is granting learnablity as an assurance measure of learning the rights and wrongs of decisions and choices. Inferiority is a preventive measure of not being involved in the function of leading and the role as leader concerning decision making and responsibility taking.
Free will and the freedom of choice is subsequently paramount to the human desire and ability of learning. Deprivation of the free will and the freedom of choice in the decision matter as a learning potential, generates in contrast reluctance, resentment, apathy and resignation towards learning new knowledge and skills, and disables the innate disposition in feeling responsible for decisions others have made on our behalf.
Leadership for Someone imply and implicate that someone will lead and others will be led. Therefore Leadership is a way in damaging and destructing learnable options for those who are led. Leadingship for Everyone indicate that everyone will lead themselves together with others. In that way Leadingship is generating learnable options for everyone. In this respect we can state that leading and learning can both be contradictory and conjunctive dependent on the organizational conditions provided. Either contradictive in the sense of learnable options for Someone ranked above as superiors and unlearnability for those others ranked below as subordinates powered by Leadership. Or conjunctive in the sense of learning options and learnability for Everyone powered by Leadingship.
Learnability powered by your Self through your internal authority, makes you confident with self-esteem, self-respect, self-pride, self-discipline and self-control. Powering your Self done by the self in togetherness with others, is the main force in becoming and being learnable. Teaching powered by someone else through external authority gives us access to formal education and job-advancement when the formal barriers of grades or popularity are passed. However teaching is not equal to learning and formal grades is not equivalent to competence. Climbing the organizational ladder and passing educational tests posed by external authorities, is a token of delegating power from someone above to others below. Delegating power or empowering someone in the system, is something done in creating and stating that learning is equivalent and proportional to the level of grades. However learnability is something we attain and accomplish from the lessons we internalize and process by our Self in life by self-powering, in contrast to the em-powering we are exposed to by the teaching from others at work or in school.
Powering our individual human being in the act of learning and leading, is the prime connector in making our person both independent and responsible. Empowering our person by the will of others is the same as making the person dependent of others and irresponsible towards own actions. Powerment is for Everyone enforced by Leadingship, while empowerment is for Others by Someone enforced by Leadership.
Rune Kvist Olsen
April 2013
Leading and Learning –
Two distinctive parts by one correlated matter of choice.
Cryptical milestones:
1. Where are you stated at this point of mindfullness?
2. Where are your organization stated at this point of alertness?
* Holistic and Dualistic.
* Leading by Powering (sourced inside the person).
* Leading by Empowering (sourced outside the person).
* Learning by one Self (inner authority).
* Training/instructing/teaching by someone else (outer authority).
* Leadership for Someone.
* Leadingship for Everyone.
3. Where are you going from here.
4. Where are your organization going from here?
5. Staying behind in the presence of the past or moving ahead into the potentials of the future?
Your respective choice will be revealing, decisive and conclusive – portraiting your comprehension of your current state, and your apprehension of your prospective state in viewing potentials and options. You will deserve your future by your choice and your future will deserve you. The options of choice are beyond predictability but within imaginability. Stay alive!
Rune Kvist Olsen
April 2013
Mastering and monitoring the conceptualization of Leadership for Someone versus Leadingship for Everyone, by balancing the dynamic elements of Naturality and Normality in the corporate mind.
Naturality and Normality are opposite and different aspects of the same and similar matter, as the case is for Leadership and Leadingship as contradictive and alternating properties of mind and structure.
The essence of “Natural” is Who you are according to your authentic and genuine personality acquired through lifehood, while the essence of “Normal” is What you are according to your professional training acquired through your careerhood.
The nature of Leadership is incorporated in the mainstreamed reality of Normality in corporate life, defining people in relation to What they are based on their positioning and ranking in the organization. According to the standards of Normality and the norms of corporate socialization, people must comply to the enslavement of subjugation in order to become accepted and verified as controllable and ruleable resources adapted to the the legitimate system of belief. This dominating belief system powered by Leadership, is that someone must lead and others must be lead in order to sustain the chain of control effectuated from above to below through superiors and subordinates.
The nature of Leadingship as the counterpart to Leadership, is that eveyone shall lead themselves together with ohers. This system of belief is anchored in the free will of choice stating that everybody are able in operating as independent and responsible human beings in the corporate community. Nobody are in the need of someone in charge when they are able in making and taking competent and responsible choices alone and together with others. This is the normal standard of Leadingship in designing the principles of Normality. The Leadingship Normality Standard is a systematizising of the human resources in realising and unlashing individual potentials controlled by the innate forces within and inside the human embodyment.
Naturality as a human force of individuality, independency and ingeniousity, is in its nature transgressing and transcending in relation to attain and sustain controllability and predictability of human actions. Leadership is enforcing control by external forces and are counteracting and mistrusting individual freedom of Naturality, while Leadingship is embracing the genuine human nature as a source of infinitive and unlimited actions in creating and adding values and benefits. The value of Naturality according to the belief system of Leadingship, is that the naural aspects and ingredients in the human embodyment must be fostered and nutured as precious and vital gifts to the present future of humankind.
Rune Kvist Olsen
April 2013
The ruling Order of Coprporate Normality powered by Leadership for Someone versus the Natural Law of Human Energy powered by Leadingship for Everyone – External control in sustaining the Order of Normality v.s. internal control in emanating the Law of Human Naturality.
Re-powering and re-charging the potent energy field of the human being is the essential and substantial driving force of power in the setting of learning, leading, managing and organizing work and people.
Establishing Leadingship (as a replacement for Leadership) has emerged as the core model in generating and realising the true and genuine potentials of human performance, accomplishments and achievemens at this stage in the history of organizational theory and practice.
Is it evident and obvious that the Order of Normality inclining and implicating that someone must rule and lead others and others must be ruled and led by someone, should be a normal lawfullness here to stay as an immutable and unchangeable fact in corporate life? Is it a virtue of necessity that people in general must be taken care of by some external authorities that thinks and knows the best, bacause people are unable and not incapable in taking care of themselves in organizational settings – regarding the responsibility of ruling and leading themseves based on their competencies.
The need and necessity of subjugating people to subordination lies in the fear of loosing power as superior authorities when people becomes independent and responsible human beings at work. The leaders are justifying their rule over people powered by Leadership, with the argument that people in general must be ruled and led in preventing chaos and anarchy. Unrulable and nonleadable persons could easily emerge as uncontrollable and unpredictable agitators disrupting the system of law and order. The need of ruling and leading people are not caused by the people themselves, but caused by the fear of the rulers in keeping their power for themselves without sharing power based on trust. People are in general quite able in taking care of themselves (as most of us do in privat life) when adequate conditions are provided and supported. People are able to function and operate as responsible human beings based on mutual trust and personal freedom.
However, the established common order is stating that corporate normality is conformity and uniformity, and that people must comply to the rule of someone above as superiors and others below as subordinates with loyalty and obedience – in the sake of keeping their work and jobs. This is and must be the law of corporate nature and the order of normality, in spite our knowledge and awareness of the ability and capability of human beings in taking care of themselves together with others. This is what we can call the peak of deception in corporate life.
How can this valid standard of Normality and the law of narture in corporate settings be confronted and challenged? By modifying and mordernizing the old model of Leadership, or by establishing a new model that will be providing a new set of values and methods? Leadingship as the counterpart and the alternative option to Leadership, is established as an alternative belief system in learning, leading, managing work and people. Leadingship as a system of modelling avd structuring the adaptions ans applications of human resources is:
1. Rejecting the view of the human being as an object of subjugation by the control and the will issued from others.
2. Embracing the view of the human being as a subject of freedom by the control and the will emanated from the Self.
The respective phases in the adoption and adaption of Leadingship for Everyone is:
1. Powering and charging the inclined disposition embedded in the mind of the human being, in becoming and being learnable, leadable, independent and responsible creator and shaper on the corporate stage.
2. Converting and transmitting the external control outside the individual person to internal control inside the person.
3. Re-make external control persons and control systems redundant and superflous, and make everyone at the corporate stage leaders by their own Self.
4. Emanating the Law of the Human Nature by releasing and optimizing the infinitive potentials of the individual human being.
Let the future begin!
Rune Kvist Olsen
April 2013
Leading and Learning is a personal matter in processing individual efforts of performances, accomplishments and achievements.
Leadership and Leadingship is an organizational matter in directing, structuring, powering and coordinating individual efforts.
Leading and Learning as a personal matter is taking place at any time, in any way and in any circumstances of human activity, regardless of the presence of either Leadership or Leadingship. Leadership or Leadingship as organizational matters are institutionalized as vehicles in unifying individual efforts by collective measures of intentions, goals, purposes, values, believes and actions.
The organizational matter of Leadership is functional in the sense of leading persons by the function and in the role of a superior person appointed as a leader of subordinated persons. The function of Leadership is based on position and rank designated by the belief of superiority and inferiority in human relations, and designed by the chain of control and command in the hierarchical ladder of rule and order. The superior person as a leader of persons, will be taking responsibility on behalf of the subordinates according to the authority vested in the supreme leadership role. The subordinates on their side, will be given (delegating) orders in effectuating decisions made by the leader in charge. The superior will according to the function of Leadership be keeping the power of control over the persons below, while the subordinated persons will be getting a sort of responsibility in performing imposed assignments from above.
The organizational matter of Leadingship in functional in the sense of leading processes within a respective field of work. The individual human beings are leading themselves together with others as equivalent members of the corporate community. The function of Leadingship is based on personal competence designated by the belief of people able in taking care of themselves in togetherness with others as independent and responsible entities. Leadingship is granting everyone the power in making individual decisions and taking personal responsibility within a distinctive field of work. Power, trust and freedom is shared by everyone as fundamental factors in practising the free will and the freedom of choice. The function of control is internalized within the human being as a personal force of commitment and sense of responsibility.
The organizational options of choice in directing, structuring, powering and coordinating work and people are subsequently:
* Leadership for Someone as the option of the past validated for the present.
* Leadingship for Everyone as the option of the future validated for the present.
The paramount choice is either staying within the security of the past in preserving the state of the present reality, or moving beyond our conceptions of the present reality in challenging the state of the future.
Regardless of our resistance in keeping power, our resilience in sharing power, and our susceptibility of the threats and opportunities we are facing, the future has already begun and is here to stay – whether we like it or not. Let us become accustomed to that inevitable and unavoidable fact – first of all before last.
Rune Kvist Olsen
April 2013
Fully and total responsibility versus partly and partial responsibility at work. Responsibiliting the Few and Someone powered by Leadership versus responsibiliting the Many and Everyone powered by Leadingship.
A fully and total responsibility is something that we are taking by our self, by our free will and by our freedom of choice.
A partly and partial responsibility is something that we are given and getting by someone in charge of us, by the will of others and by the choice of others.
Leadership is a conditionally responsibiliting of persons in the vertical relationship between superiors and subordinates. The superior has the fully responsibility over everyone submissive in the ordering line of command and control, and is taking the responsibility for the consequences (credit/blame) for the subordinates actions according to the obligation and commitment vested in the function and role as a leader of persons. The subordinates are given and getting a partly responsibility in doing a job without an independent decision authority assigned parallel to the job performance. The authority in making and taking decisions is absolutely connected to the supreme responsibility of control and command based exclusively on position and rank. This is why the superior is a leader of persons and the subordinates are led as persons.
Leadingship is an unconditional responsibiliting of persons in the horizontal relationship between equals and peers. The equivalent co-operator has the fully responsibility over one owns actions and the consequences of ones actions. The co-ordinators are taking responsibility themselves as an obligation and commitment vested in the function and role as an independent co-operator, co-ordinator, collaborator and co-worker, as leaders of processes. The responsible human being has the authority in making and taking independent decisions within a respective field of work based on ones competence. There is none to give, delegate, impose and order responsibility on behalf of no one, and none to get and receive responsibility from others. Responsibiliting in Leadingship is based on mutual trust, personal freedom and the internalizing of control as an innate and integrated part in the mind of the individual human being.
Leadership is responsibiliting for Someone in sensing and taking fully responsibility for persons, while Leadingship is responsibiliting for Everyone in sensing and taking fully responsibility for processes.
The choice of option is either enabling everyone as responsible human beings at work powered by Leadingship, or reserve responsibility as a privilege for a selective chosen few powered by Leadership. The core question will be what choice that will give the optimal benefit and advantage for the good of everyone and the many compared to the good of someone and the few – in creating and sustaining corporate prosperity and growth in the years to come for the human being and for the organization.
Rune Kvist Olsen
April 2013
Calm before the Storm or a Storm in a Teacup?
With this cycle of posted lessons (22) on the respective blog spots in the field of Learning and Leading, I have now reached the momentum of initial introduction in the nature of Leading and Learning of the relationship between Leadership and Leadingship.
I am hoping that the silence and calamity in the wake of these lessons are mere tokens of devoted sensations emerging as a storm full awakening in challenging the state of leading, managing and organization work and people, and in making a significant difference in changing the course of future actions in corporate life.
I will take this opportunity in thanking dearly Peter Vander Auwera for his services in establishing these blog posts as an excellent platform in communicating the lessons. I hope his initiative will prove its worth.
Please also watch the introductionary video of Leadingship in getting a vivid impression of the relationship between Leadership and Leadingship. The link is; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCiVO4fGbl8.
Rune Kvist Olsen
May 1. 2013
Today’s challenge is college revision…must..get some done….
Hi you all!
The paper “Conceptoloy of Learning and Leading at Work” is now completed and ready sharing and reviewing. The paper is available in both a short and a long version. You can access the respective versions of the paper by contacting the author directly on e-mail.
Responses will be appreciated.
Rune Kvist Olsen
rukvol@online.no
Hi You All!
In humble respect for the dedications of the many persons affiliated and connected to the mission of enlightenment and promoting an alternative model of structuring, organizing, leading and managing work and people in organizational life, I am delighted to share and announce the completion of “A Conceptology of Learning and Leading at Work”. Please enjoy the revelation of a new paradigm at hand and the release of a potential challenge and an option of choice in the history of management.
You will find more information on the BlogSpot: https://petervan.wordpress.com/2013/10/07/a-conceptology-of-learning-and-leading-at-work-guest-post-by-rune-kvist-olsen/ .
The model is posted on the link: https://petervan.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/a-conceptology-in-learning-and-leading-_short-version_.pdf.
Here are some final lessons in the enlightenment of the Power of Leading Oneself and Everyone at Work.
Counter forcing new perspectives and alternatives in powering people at work.
Why documented results from academic and scientific research studies struggles with established conventions, conceptions and perceptions about what must be the ruling paradigm of truth, even if results from new research speaks of another and different story.
At this point of establishing an alternative approach of organizing, leading and managing work and people and present a new option of choice in strategic organizational direction, in relation to the mainstream dogma of “Leadership for Someone” with superiors above and subordinates below. the following striking reflections and statements comes into mind:
“The personal opinions of scientists tend to determine whether new ideas gain currency in science and whether articles about new or groundbreaking insights are published. … When new ideas do not fit the generally accepted (materialist) paradigm, many scientists perceive them as a threat. It is hardly surprising therefore that when empirical studies reveal new phenomena or facts that are inconsistent with the prevailing scientific paradigm, they are usually denied, suppressed, or even ridiculed. The history of science tells us a similar story. New ideas rarely received an enthusiastic response; they always evoked resistance.”.
This text is extracted from the book “Consciousness Beyond Life” by Pim van Lommel. M.D.
The ethos of “Leadingship for Everyone”.
Leadingship for Everyone and the Many (in contrast to Leadership for Someone and the Few) is a question of conscience and faith:
The term “integrity” is how I as a person view and conceive my self in the eyes of my own. The term “credibility” is how I am viewed an regarded in the eyes of others. My integrity -my internalized values and believes- is setting the standards and norms of how my conscience is preserved and nurtured. Since keeping my conscience intact in relation to pressure of external expectations and demands, my health and consciousness is assumed to be and stay in a state of well being and still going strong. Violencing and crossing my conscience by contamination, corruption and compromising my integrity and credibility by doing something my conscience can not defend and accept, I will catch infections and health deterioration. Crossing my believes by gaining short sighted advantages in the community, will surely damage and destroy the sense of Who I am as a individual personal and human being.
Consequently I am able to work with people on the basis of their personality as human beings according to Who they are as persons. I am not able to work with people on basis of their positions and ranks as either superiors or subordinates according to What they have as advantages or disadvantages gained from either positions above or below. In this case I have always facilitated Leadingship training programs for everyone based on their identity as individual human beings, and never done Leadership programs for Someone positioned and ranked as superiors. This is my credo and the ethos as a inventor and facilitator. The simple reason behind my professional conscience and faith is that everyone has the ability to be and become independent and responsible human beings at work. At this moment of truth everyone has obtained inside and internalized control and discipline and is able to lead one self together with others. Outer control is herby declared as superfluous and a degrading sign of disgrace and contempt for the human mind and body at work. The policy of “Leadingship for Everyone” is placing the value of Humanability and Humanability as the core essence of organizing, leading and managing work and people At the same time this ideology is rejecting the dogma of “Leadership for Someone” which renounce and deprive many people of their universal force in being responsible human being in charge and control of one self at work.
Perceptual Prejudices in contemporary Management and Organization.
Our contemporary managerial and organizational mindset is completely dominated by the thought and practice that someone as superiors above must lead and others as subordinates below must be led. In this hierarchical context leaders (of others) are subsequently assigned the legitimate power of enforcing and executing the authority of Leadership and Management exclusively, while the non-leaders are committed by compliance with the ruling order of subjugation and subordinatThis separation through verticalization between individual human beings in the contemporary organizational structure of power, have been setting the mind in a fixed state of dogma as a matter of fact and as an unquestioned truth of reality. The people with power over others are the keepers of the truth in preserving the ruling order, while the people without power must comply and submit to the truth of the keepers in order to retain ones job and work.
This system of Management and Leadership is a construction of The Natural Law of Corporate Organzation as the justification of exercising and executing the oppressive, repressive and suppressive mechanisms of subjugation, subordination, degration and disgrace.
This stigma of managerial and organizational construction is what we call “perceptual prejudices” as the bias of an enforced consensus in shaping and controlling the structure of human relations in organizational life through the mindful mantra of Leadership for Someone and the Few. The stigma is the result of the evolution in mind-programming by managerial doctrines and the ensuing indoctrination of the loyal and obedient commitment of everyone under obligation to the corporate values of the past. The urge in conserving and conforming existing values and believes is embedded in the sustention and shielding of the present state of mind from the potential threats and dangers from the future The managerial protective shield is for instance counteracting alternative models of leading caused by the nature of perceptual prejudices. Leadingship for Everyone and the Many where all and one are leaders in performing the Power of Leading at Work by One Self in unison with others, is at stake in dealing with the domination of the prevailing Truth of Management and Organization.
Rune Kvist Olsen
Inventor and facilitator in the Power of Leading Oneself and Everyone at Work
In the Year of Enlightenment 2013
Hi You All!
In humble respect for the dedications of the many persons affiliated and connected to the mission of enlightenment and promoting an alternative model of structuring, organizing, leading and managing work and people in organizational life, I am delighted to share and announce the completion of “A Conceptology of Learning and Leading at Work”. Please enjoy the revelation of a new paradigm at hand and the release of a potential challenge and an option of choice in the history of management.
You will find more information on the BlogSpot: https://petervan.wordpress.com/2013/10/07/a-conceptology-of-learning-and-leading-at-work-guest-post-by-rune-kvist-olsen/.
The model is posted on the link: https://petervan.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/a-conceptology-in-learning-and-leading-_short-version_.pdf.
Here are some final lessons in the enlightenment of the Power of Leading Oneself and Everyone at Work.
Counter forcing new perspectives and alternatives in powering people at work.
Why documented results from academic and scientific research studies struggles with established conventions, conceptions and perceptions about what must be the ruling paradigm of truth, even if results from new research speaks of another and different story.
At this point of establishing an alternative approach of organizing, leading and managing work and people and present a new option of choice in strategic organizational direction, in relation to the mainstream dogma of “Leadership for Someone” with superiors above and subordinates below. the following striking reflections and statements comes into mind:
“The personal opinions of scientists tend to determine whether new ideas gain currency in science and whether articles about new or groundbreaking insights are published. … When new ideas do not fit the generally accepted (materialist) paradigm, many scientists perceive them as a threat. It is hardly surprising therefore that when empirical studies reveal new phenomena or facts that are inconsistent with the prevailing scientific paradigm, they are usually denied, suppressed, or even ridiculed. The history of science tells us a similar story. New ideas rarely received an enthusiastic response; they always evoked resistance.”.
This text is extracted from the book “Consciousness Beyond Life” by Pim van Lommel. M.D.
The ethos of “Leadingship for Everyone”.
Leadingship for Everyone and the Many (in contrast to Leadership for Someone and the Few) is a question of conscience and faith:
The term “integrity” is how I as a person view and conceive my self in the eyes of my own. The term “credibility” is how I am viewed an regarded in the eyes of others. My integrity -my internalized values and believes- is setting the standards and norms of how my conscience is preserved and nurtured. Since keeping my conscience intact in relation to pressure of external expectations and demands, my health and consciousness is assumed to be and stay in a state of well being and still going strong. Violencing and crossing my conscience by contamination, corruption and compromising my integrity and credibility by doing something my conscience can not defend and accept, I will catch infections and health deterioration. Crossing my believes by gaining short sighted advantages in the community, will surely damage and destroy the sense of Who I am as a individual personal and human being.
Consequently I am able to work with people on the basis of their personality as human beings according to Who they are as persons. I am not able to work with people on basis of their positions and ranks as either superiors or subordinates according to What they have as advantages or disadvantages gained from either positions above or below. In this case I have always facilitated Leadingship training programs for everyone based on their identity as individual human beings, and never done Leadership programs for Someone positioned and ranked as superiors. This is my credo and the ethos as a inventor and facilitator. The simple reason behind my professional conscience and faith is that everyone has the ability to be and become independent and responsible human beings at work. At this moment of truth everyone has obtained inside and internalized control and discipline and is able to lead one self together with others. Outer control is herby declared as superfluous and a degrading sign of disgrace and contempt for the human mind and body at work. The policy of “Leadingship for Everyone” is placing the value of Humanability and Humanability as the core essence of organizing, leading and managing work and people At the same time this ideology is rejecting the dogma of “Leadership for Someone” which renounce and deprive many people of their universal force in being responsible human being in charge and control of one self at work.
Perceptual Prejudices in contemporary Management and Organization.
Our contemporary managerial and organizational mindset is completely dominated by the thought and practice that someone as superiors above must lead and others as subordinates below must be led. In this hierarchical context leaders (of others) are subsequently assigned the legitimate power of enforcing and executing the authority of Leadership and Management exclusively, while the non-leaders are committed by compliance with the ruling order of subjugation and subordination.
This separation through verticalization between individual human beings in the contemporary organizational structure of power, have been setting the mind in a fixed state of dogma as a matter of fact and as an unquestioned truth of reality. The people with power over others are the keepers of the truth in preserving the ruling order, while the people without power must comply and submit to the truth of the keepers in order to retain ones job and work.
This system of Management and Leadership is a construction of The Natural Law of Corporate Organzation as the justification of exercising and executing the oppressive, repressive and suppressive mechanisms of subjugation, subordination, degration and disgrace.
This stigma of managerial and organizational construction is what we call “perceptual prejudices” as the bias of an enforced consensus in shaping and controlling the structure of human relations in organizational life through the mindful mantra of Leadership for Someone and the Few. The stigma is the result of the evolution in mind-programming by managerial doctrines and the ensuing indoctrination of the loyal and obedient commitment of everyone under obligation to the corporate values of the past. The urge in conserving and conforming existing values and believes is embedded in the sustention and shielding of the present state of mind from the potential threats and dangers from the future The managerial protective shield is for instance counteracting alternative models of leading caused by the nature of perceptual prejudices. Leadingship for Everyone and the Many where all and one are leaders in performing the Power of Leading at Work by One Self in unison with others, is at stake in dealing with the domination of the prevailing Truth of Management and Organization.
Rune Kvist Olsen
Inventor and facilitator in the Power of Leading Oneself and Everyone at Work
In the Year of Enlightenment 2013
Hi You All!
In humble respect for the dedications of the many persons affiliated and connected to the mission of enlightenment and promoting an alternative model of structuring, organizing, leading and managing work and people in organizational life, I am delighted to share and announce the completion of “A Conceptology of Learning and Leading at Work”. Please enjoy the revelation of a new paradigm at hand and the release of a potential challenge and an option of choice in the history of management.
You will find more information on the BlogSpot: https://petervan.wordpress.com/2013/10/07/a-conceptology-of-learning-and-leading-at-work-guest-post-by-rune-kvist-olsen/.
The model is posted on the link: https://petervan.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/a-conceptology-in-learning-and-leading-_short-version_.pdf.
Here are some final lessons in the enlightenment of the Power of Leading Oneself and Everyone at Work.
Counter forcing new perspectives and alternatives in powering people at work.
Why documented results from academic and scientific research studies struggles with established conventions, conceptions and perceptions about what must be the ruling paradigm of truth, even if results from new research speaks of another and different story.
At this point of establishing an alternative approach of organizing, leading and managing work and people and present a new option of choice in strategic organizational direction, in relation to the mainstream dogma of “Leadership for Someone” with superiors above and subordinates below. the following striking reflections and statements comes into mind:
“The personal opinions of scientists tend to determine whether new ideas gain currency in science and whether articles about new or groundbreaking insights are published. … When new ideas do not fit the generally accepted (materialist) paradigm, many scientists perceive them as a threat. It is hardly surprising therefore that when empirical studies reveal new phenomena or facts that are inconsistent with the prevailing scientific paradigm, they are usually denied, suppressed, or even ridiculed. The history of science tells us a similar story. New ideas rarely received an enthusiastic response; they always evoked resistance.”.
This text is extracted from the book “Consciousness Beyond Life” by Pim van Lommel. M.D.
The ethos of “Leadingship for Everyone”.
Leadingship for Everyone and the Many (in contrast to Leadership for Someone and the Few) is a question of conscience and faith:
The term “integrity” is how I as a person view and conceive my self in the eyes of my own. The term “credibility” is how I am viewed an regarded in the eyes of others. My integrity -my internalized values and believes- is setting the standards and norms of how my conscience is preserved and nurtured. Since keeping my conscience intact in relation to pressure of external expectations and demands, my health and consciousness is assumed to be and stay in a state of well being and still going strong. Violencing and crossing my conscience by contamination, corruption and compromising my integrity and credibility by doing something my conscience can not defend and accept, I will catch infections and health deterioration. Crossing my believes by gaining short sighted advantages in the community, will surely damage and destroy the sense of Who I am as a individual personal and human being.
Consequently I am able to work with people on the basis of their personality as human beings according to Who they are as persons. I am not able to work with people on basis of their positions and ranks as either superiors or subordinates according to What they have as advantages or disadvantages gained from either positions above or below. In this case I have always facilitated Leadingship training programs for everyone based on their identity as individual human beings, and never done Leadership programs for Someone positioned and ranked as superiors. This is my credo and the ethos as a inventor and facilitator. The simple reason behind my professional conscience and faith is that everyone has the ability to be and become independent and responsible human beings at work. At this moment of truth everyone has obtained inside and internalized control and discipline and is able to lead one self together with others. Outer control is herby declared as superfluous and a degrading sign of disgrace and contempt for the human mind and body at work. The policy of “Leadingship for Everyone” is placing the value of Humanability and Humanability as the core essence of organizing, leading and managing work and people At the same time this ideology is rejecting the dogma of “Leadership for Someone” which renounce and deprive many people of their universal force in being responsible human being in charge and control of one self at work.
Perceptual Prejudices in contemporary Management and Organization.
Our contemporary managerial and organizational mindset is completely dominated by the thought and practice that someone as superiors above must lead and others as subordinates below must be led. In this hierarchical context leaders (of others) are subsequently assigned the legitimate power of enforcing and executing the authority of Leadership and Management exclusively, while the non-leaders are committed by compliance with the ruling order of subjugation and subordination.
This separation through verticalization between individual human beings in the contemporary organizational structure of power, have been setting the mind in a fixed state of dogma as a matter of fact and as an unquestioned truth of reality. The people with power over others are the keepers of the truth in preserving the ruling order, while the people without power must comply and submit to the truth of the keepers in order to retain ones job and work.
This system of Management and Leadership is a construction of The Natural Law of Corporate Organzation as the justification of exercising and executing the oppressive, repressive and suppressive mechanisms of subjugation, subordination, degration and disgrace.
This stigma of managerial and organizational construction is what we call “perceptual prejudices” as the bias of an enforced consensus in shaping and controlling the structure of human relations in organizational life through the mindful mantra of Leadership for Someone and the Few. The stigma is the result of the evolution in mind-programming by managerial doctrines and the ensuing indoctrination of the loyal and obedient commitment of everyone under obligation to the corporate values of the past. The urge in conserving and conforming existing values and believes is embedded in the sustention and shielding of the present state of mind from the potential threats and dangers from the future The managerial protective shield is for instance counteracting alternative models of leading caused by the nature of perceptual prejudices. Leadingship for Everyone and the Many where all and one are leaders in performing the Power of Leading at Work by One Self in unison with others, is at stake in dealing with the domination of the prevailing Truth of Management and Organization.
Rune Kvist Olsen
Inventor and facilitator in the Power of Leading Oneself and Everyone at Work
In the Year of Enlightenment 2013
Just a (belated) thought:
If Lao-Tzu is right (“As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!'”), then business schools, the media and the rest of the world… don’t know about the best leaders… because the leaders we do know about (i.e. the ones that are blowing their own trumpet) are at best second best!!
Reblogged this on Entrepreneurship Matters.
Hi You One and All,
Please make a difference for the New Year 2016 in the awakening of sell-awareness and self-comsciousness at work . Please distribute and post the message herby attached through your network. The overall purpose is to stimulate and inspire individual courage towards independent thinking as the prime source of unfolding personal actions by the free will and the freedom of choice.
The Concept of Leadingship presents an alternative option of choice in the workplace as it outlines the matter of Leadingship versus the matter of Leadership. The workplace and the workforce is in need of an alternative option of direction in choosing between Horizontal Relationships powered by Leadingship and Vertical Relationships powered by Leadership.
Where I am going with this? I have been working on this task the last 30 years, and have written essays, papers and messages with the plain purpose in creating a momentum of change by activating the human potential of thinking divergent and creatively, and by doing so acting conscientious in accordence with the etichal spirit of personal credibility. This way have led an evolution from the mantra of leadership for someone and vertical relationships to the belief in leadingship for everyone and horizontal relationships. The only way
Self-Aware Consciousness can be raised and empowered as an inner personal value, is by being adopted by autonomous and responsible human beings. Endorsing the belief that people are able to lead and rule themselves when they possess independent thinking and the sense of responsibility, should consequently entitle people the freedom of personal choice and mutual trust.
Therefore I will in this context emphazise the significance regarding the direction of choice in the shaping of the future workplace, by sharing ideas that could serve the interst of fellow human beings at work. Please pass this comment to everyone that should be involved in this enterprise and expedition of pursuing humaness and humanity at work.
Regards
Rune Kvist Olsen
Index: The Sapien Code; The Quest for Knowledge, Preparations for Self-Aware Consciousness in Organizational Life;
The Management Credo 2016; The Leadingship Conceptology