This weekend I took my daughter and her friend to see the new movie “Oz The Great and Powerful” based on the classic book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”. The occupational hazard of having a mom who is a leadership coach is that you don’t get to actually just eat the popcorn and enjoy the movie. You actually have to analyze it and capture the leadership lessons afterwards.
I asked the girls what they each got out of the movie. My daughter’s friend said the moral was “Lying to others is bad and helping others is good”. My daughter’s conclusion was “You can’t judge a book by its cover”. My conclusion was “We each have what we need within us. We just have to seek and find it”. We all saw the same movie. We each took away different insights from it – each very valid. How could that be? Could this be a metaphor for life? Or the next work meeting you’ll be going to?
What is Leadership?
When I was a brand manager at P&G we had a three-step definition of leadership (everything at P&G in those days was in three’s – three rationale points to a recommendation etc.). The three steps were: 1) Formulate a vision, 2) Align people to the vision, 3) Make it happen. Broadly speaking, it is a fine definition of leadership – except that it ignores the state of mind and heart of the leader. It is externally focused. In my opinion, leadership starts from the inside and radiates outward.
Leadership Starts from The Inside
We each process or interpret any external event from our own “consciousness filter” – the unique set of beliefs and mindsets we each have that are as distinct as our finger print. As a leader then, how we see things and what we actually see and interpret is different from how others might see it. It is completely dependent on our own “consciousness filter”. Are we in a state of fear or stress or are we in a state of optimism? Do we generally look for what connects us with others or what separates us from them? Do we believe in scarcity of opportunity or abundance? What do we believe about ourselves?
Self-Awareness is Key
Our “consciousness filter” is mostly impacted by our life experiences. A lot of this filter is even unconscious. Often we are not even aware of many of the assumptions we’ve made about the “rules of life” that impact how we see ourselves, others, and events. Our unwritten rules of life influence our leadership behaviors. Our single greatest leadership task then is to continuously practice expanding our self-awareness. Feedback is a great way to do this. So are assessment tools. I have found mindfulness practice particularly compelling for myself and recommend it to my executive coaching clients.
As we become more self-aware our “consciousness filter” changes. As we raise our consciousness levels as leaders, working with leadership practices that are right for us, we start to see new behaviors emerge – because our consciousness levels don’t tolerate the old behaviors. We also start to influence those around us to be more conscious in their leadership. As Oz discovers, he had the magic powers all along. He just had to see it in himself. T.S. Eliot said “We must not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time”. This is because we see it with new eyes – our consciousness has changed.
So, you see, leadership really is an inside job! How will you now see your next meeting differently?
This post was originally posted on transformleaders.tv
