I believe that Leadership, or the lack thereof, underlies many if not all of the challenges that we are experiencing in today’s world. But what is Leadership?
Leadership – A 21st Century Concept
According to the dictionary, Leadership is the position or function of a leader. (I hate when dictionaries define a word with the word itself, don’t you?) The definition of a leader: a guiding or directing head, as of an army, movement, or political group.
And I think that is exactly the mistake we are making in our world. Who am I to call myself a leader – I’m not a directing head of anything but my own life!
We are waiting for someone else to lead, someone else to take responsibility for our lives, someone else to judge what’s right or wrong, someone else to fix what’s wrong in the world. While on the one hand, I think that having a centralized government is generally a good thing. Our world is really too complex to work without that, I certainly don’t want to be dealing with paving that big pothole or providing electricity to the city!
On the other hand, I believe that giving over the responsibility for my own judgment, my own authority to someone who lives far away and over whom I have no influence is a mistake.
It fosters corruption. And it gives me a convenient scapegoat for all that doesn’t work in my life. It sets up an environment of shame and blame and empowers a victim mentality. It creates a society that is OK with corporations that steal from the individual as long as the stockholders are making money; with a health care system that takes your money but doesn’t take care of your health; with waste and a pollution which may yet make our planet uninhabitable; with a government that undermines our human rights in the name of security.
All because we’ve given away our leadership.
On an individual level, we don’t learn to trust ourselves. We are taught to trust the authorities in our lives over our own internal guidance from early infancy, whether it’s our parents, our teachers, our religious leaders or our peers. This can create tremendous stress, self-esteem issues, and challenges with addiction and depression, because we feel helpless, a piece of flotsam in a vast sea of conflicting and violent currents. And because we’ve forgotten how truly powerful each and every one of us is.
And it fosters an inability or unwillingness to take responsibility for our own actions, our own outcomes, even our own feelings. But the truth is, taking ownership of our action and our outcomes, being responsible for our feelings – these are skills we can learn. And so I’ve created my mantra, in order to create myself as an authentic leader in each moment, in each day:
I have the opportunity TODAY
To live my life how I intend my life to be
In balance and with consistency
I’ve become passionate about the challenge of personal leadership. How do I create authentic leadership from within myself and how can I empower you, my clients, and my readers to do the same? I believe that we co-create our world in each moment of every day. Join with me on this journey of exploration, personal growth, creation and expansion. So that we can co-create a world that truly works, that empowers life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that gives equal opportunity to each and every one of us.
3 Responses
Very true, Debra. I noticed it even when my daughter goes to preschool. A ‘creative project’ means using teacher prepared materials and putting them together following exact instruction, and even being scolded when she wants to do things her own way.
We are taught very early on that we don’t own our own lives, which is very debilitating and stands in the way of us ever reaching any kind of real maturity.
To fully accept responsibility serves the relationship both with oneself and with others.
Thank you, Debra, for your passion and bringing forth the inquiry of Leadership.
I fully agree with you that true Leadership, especially now, is in our own hands for ourselves, of ourselves, and with profound responsibility for the impact we make on the lives of those we touch.
I was fortunate that at a very young age, I knew my Life Purpose, what I call now, my Soul Purpose. As an Entrepreneur Soul Coach, my commitment to myself and to my clients is to bring that pursuit of claiming one’s Soul Purpose as their key to true leadership. No one can challenge our Soul Purpose. No one can dilute how our Soul Force floods into our lives when we live committed to our Soul Purpose. This is Leadership in action, from my spiritual training and life experience.
Regardless of our Recession and the clamoring of other peoples’ perception of truth and leadership, the path to follow is the paved road determined by our own internal compass as guided by our own North Star. That is the bigger picture, don’t you agree?
When we are quietly alone with our own thoughts in the privacy of our own inner chambers, the only leadership that matters, is the one we embrace within ourselves. What else can we do to make sense of our lives and to stand in our personal power? Everything else around us is illusive, ever changing, and subject to interpretation. There is no certainty. The only certainty is our Purpose and our Passions.
Having been in business for 22 years now, I am more convinced than ever that in order for a person to even remotely grasp the leader within themselves one really must identify what is one’s Soul Purpose and to design their life according to one’s Soul Passions.
When an individual finds that truth about why they here in this life time, what there life lessons have been prepping them to become, what they were born to do, a depth presents itself. It is an energy field can be felt as an electrical current that surrounds the person. It is their very Soul Force projected out through their Soul Passions into their Soul Purpose. I call this individual a Leadership Soul.
I am glad that you have come to recognize your unique definition of what being a true leader is. Thank you for doing your part to assist others in grasping a bigger picture for themselves. It is always a joy to find fellow travelers who are here to remind us that this life is about one’s Soul Force being freed up to express one’s gifts. In this way, the leader that we are will emerge and truly serve.
Thank you,
Sasha
http://www.entrepreneursoulcoach.com
Wise words indeed!
For a long time the prevailing wisdom in this country has been to let the powers that be have their way and play their games as we common folk go about our own business pursuing our own goals.
But the powers that be – the government, religious leaders, corporations, etc. – have gone so far at this point that our individual freedoms are disappearing before our eyes. The economy is in steady decline and this current “recession” is only a blip in the downward spiral. Our choices in the market place are evermore bad vs. harmful – especially when it comes to what supermarkets call “food.” Debra already mentioned other negative trends.
Why is this relevant to Debra’s essay? Because to reverse these trends we need to reverse the mind set that got us here.
We need to re-examine the words “public”, “society,” and “community.” The Soviet Union was never communist. And they weren’t out to infiltrate our government and brainwash the people. The Soviet Union was just one example of totalitarianism and authoritarianism that took away the choices of the people.
But we have always had totalitarians in our own country and they HAVE infiltrated the government and brainwashed millions of people are taking away our choices. They just do it by lying to us. First, they say government is the problem – you know, that institution that is of the people, by the people and for the people. Then they tell us that we should let corporations – not elected officials make all the decisions.
How do we reverse this trend? By taking responsibility in our actions – including what we spend our money on and the thoughts we allow in into our brains. Instead of being sheep who follow the dictates of the TV commercials, we can make an effort to think for ourselves and encourage and reward others for doing the same.
Yikes! I didn’t mean to write so much. But it boils down to this. Are you willing to be a master of your own destiny? Are you willing to take leadership of your own personal life? We start by shedding the victim consciousness and accepting responsibility for the how the food we eat, the company we keep, the TV shows we watch, the music we listen to and the language we use effects ourselves and those around us – the public, the community and society.
Hey! I can quote myself here. From my song “Freedom Is Your Destiny?”
“It seems to me that you are going to go far – that you’ll reach your highest star – once you realize where you are – in the product of your deeds – your own world is your responsibility.”
Peace
– Spook Handy
http://www.spookhandy.com
http://www.facebook.com/spookhandy
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