INsight/ The Leaders Journey
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Photo by Pierre Van Crombrugghe on Unsplash
Manila, 16 December 2020 — What’s your motivation to climb?
Your World
“You must be hallucinating,” said the embryo in the womb when you described what the world looks and feels like. “There is no other world. I only know what I have experienced.” — Rumi
While humanity has gained a vast amount of knowledge in the 800 years since the Persian poet penned those lines, what hasn’t changed is the difficulty people have in seeing the world through someone else’s eyes.
What did Rumi recommend? To wean yourself from an infant to a child, to a “searcher after wisdom, to a hunter of more invisible game.” In other words, a journey of expanding your self-awareness, little by little.
How far have you come so far on that journey in your life? Just like people in Rumi’s day, you might either seize or dismiss my story, about The Leaders Journey. Since you read this far, there’s a good chance that we can make a connection.
Reasons for Change
Using the metaphor in the photo, The Leaders Journey is a narrow path leading up the mountain, and the views along the way are spectacular. In my experience, people join The Leaders Journey for a variety of reasons.
Some have their eyes set on a promotion and are preparing themselves to get it. Others are fed up with their manager and want a change. Note that Gallup’s research has shown that when a staff decides to leave, it’s often more about the manager than the job.
Others decide to shift their career. Or aspire to a position of greater responsibility. Or to a role where they feel they can make more of a difference, for example through innovation, or by contributing to sustainability.
Some are triggered by a wake-up call to make the most of their potential and not be held back by mediocrity, living someone else’s life, or be satisfied with a safe job. Instead, they work on finding their passion and Purpose.
What I also see happening is that people join The Leaders Journey after adversity strikes, causing a loss, shock, or conflict, and triggering a reset. This year, most of us have experienced that in one way or another in the Covid-19 pandemic.
Just like the embryo in Rumi’s story could not fathom the phenomenal change of being born into the world, hardly any of us could imagine the changes that have unfolded this year. Until we caught up with the change.
The Leaders Journey
So what is The Leaders Journey all about? Well, leadership is nowadays defined as influencing a process of change, both individually and together with others. If leadership is about change, then leaders are influencers of change. Leaders are also people who grow more leaders around them to become positive change-makers too.
An executive position isn’t required to be a leader. Instead, The Leaders Journey has everything to do with weaning yourself, as Rumi wrote. That requires expanding your self-awareness to understand where you’re coming from, who you are now, and where you’re going. It starts with becoming aware that you’re in a transition.
The metaphor in the photo has helped me enormously on my journey: the narrow path, the drive you feel to climb up, and the insights that guide you along the way. Just like the wisdom and the invisible game that Rumi wrote about. A game that you get better at as your self-awareness expands.
Three Challenges
In my work coaching leaders, I discovered that there are three main challenges when you’re on The Leaders Journey. I call them Climb Up, Clear Up, and Clean Up. Look at the diagram below to visualize that, just like the mountain in the photo. Leaders in transition will work on each of these challenges with their coach, in a way that is tailored to your unique situation and needs.
1. Climb Up
Whatever event or insight has triggered you to join The Leaders Journey, you won’t get very far unless you feel a drive, a motivation to climb, a sense that you’re navigating a transition from A to B, with B looking much better to you than A. The drive is important, and the details are filled in along the way.
2. Clear Up
The path is narrow, and you can’t lug along your suitcase with everything you like in it. You need to choose and limit yourself to essentials, to what fits in your backpack and doesn’t weigh you down and tire you out as you climb. I have learned this the hard way, from packing too much for travel, both physically and metaphorically as a leader. Choices and focus are essential.
3. Clean Up
This is about your negative mental stuff, the voices in your head, speaking from the past, that seek to sabotage you on the journey, even before you start, and more so when you already got going. Wean yourself from those, as Rumi said. That’s easier said than done. It takes coaching to make this work, and I know this very well from facing my own challenges on the journey.
Are you with me so far, about how to visualize The Leaders Journey?
If you’ve read this far, I’m sure you have a good reason to join the journey, starting from whatever has triggered you. You have gained the awareness that you, too, are in a transition. You have somewhere you want to go.
Three Choices
Tell me, which of these three choices best describes your feeling to join the climb of The Leadership Journey?
Energized to Climb: I feel that I want to seize opportunities to accelerate my leadership growth.
Challenged to Climb: I feel that I want to make choices to invest in my leadership growth.
Supported to Climb: I feel that I want to start on a new pathway for my leadership growth.
Whichever of these three you chose, it’s a good reason to join.
And, having considered all three options, you will be in a better position to understand the range of motivations your colleagues might have to join you on the journey.
Some might be energized and show up as a self-starter. Others might feel challenged to choose and overcome distractions in order to join you. And others might feel supported to start the journey in the comfort of knowing they’re doing it together with you.
Can you see who fits where? I have found myself working with leaders who show each of these three motivations, in about equal numbers.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line of The Leaders Journey, a sine qua non, is to feel a drive to climb, a desire to navigate the transition that you find yourself in, to get to a place that’s better and more fulfilling for you and others. That’s what leadership development is all about. Welcome to climbing on the narrow path.
Wherever you are, and whatever your conditions are, are you aware that the Universe is waiting for you to make a difference by influencing positive changes, one after another, in collaboration with your colleagues? You won’t regret your choice to join The Leaders Journey.
In Rumi’s footsteps, my recommendation is that you work with a coach to wean yourself, expand your self-awareness, and help you climb to where you want to go on The Leaders Journey. I also suggest that you join a community of leaders to learn and practice together, out loud, and in a safe space. It’s more effective, fun, and fulfilling that way.
If you’re up for a challenge, check us out in Grow3Leaders. Joining is free of charge—not free of commitment. Bring three colleagues and your drive to climb!