Tag: postaday2011

Happy to be what you are

Mahmud Omid Djalili is a Muslim living in London with his wife and family in the movie The Reluctant Infidel. He discovers much to horror, that he was born to Jewish parents and adopted by a Muslim Pakastani family when he was two weeks old. The anguish of how to deal with this including how to tell ones loved ones. Especially when his son’s future father-in-law is a radical cleric from Egypt and needs to give approval for the wedding.

We all gain at least part of our sense of who we are from our ethnicity, our parents and our culture and possibly the religion of our parents and community. But what if there was a missing link on the way through like there was for Mahmud?  Would your whole sense of being be brought into disarray? Does it matter?

As it turns out (and we know this), Mahmud discovers it’s the same god, that actually Muslims and Jews have much in common and in the end he’s still the same father, businessman, husband and friend he was before he knew about his birth parents. Only he’s nicer. Aware of the absurdity of forced demarcation we get from religion, he brings the two together with new understanding and tolerance.

It’s a comedy, or more particularly a farce, but it’s got a great lesson in leadership about finding commonality by seeing through artificial contrivances and having the ability to laugh at ourselves.

It’s worth seeing!

Stephen

Are you expected to be 24/7?

I’ve taken a few days off to, well not to do too much, but sorting out things at home, having lunch, even some cleaning, changed a couple of light bulbs that had been staring at me, dead, for quite a while. Even cleaned the fish tank.

Recently the Auckland District Health Board announced that they were considering not employing people who smoked. If health workers are to engage patients then they need to role-model the behaviours that are expected. I must admit I feel less confident if I’m seen by a Doctor who looks like he or she might be overweight, have high blood pressure or in otherwise risky condition. Of course what do I know, but you do get a sense!

I’m still responsible for the Centre for Innovative Leadership while I’m on leave but I’m sure you’ll agree I can do my own stuff, how I like and when I like. Role-modelling in leaders is arguably the most powerful of all leadership attributes and happens whether you like or not.  I often simplify leadership to the concepts of resilience, relationships, change, teams, adversity and vision. Most things flow from a leader’s ability to exhibit positive engagement and pro-activity in these aspects of leadership.

So if you’re not in good health, a narcissist (but relax you can’t help it, just stay away!), can’t maintain relationships with those you work with, or pretend to like teamwork but really only like that there’s a team doing your work, then leadership might not be for you.

And if you work for the health board looking after the sick and injured then it’s probably a fair bet that your patients are wanting to trust what you say, as well as what you do. Smoking doesn’t really cut it in that sphere.

So you don’t need to be on full alert 24/7. Afterall, authenticity doesn’t need such vigilance, it’s authentic and natural, just like the work means. You do need the characteristics of leadership 24/7 though, otherwise you aren’t role-modelling. Which is why I’m running on my days off to keep my resilience up (and my trousers fitting too!). Not just because it’s a role-model of leadership, but because it’s who I am.

Stephen

ps And I’m determined to get in as sharp a shape as I was here for a PB!

Slipping up for good

It’s the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Freud Museum in London this week. Freud is famous for his study of Psychoanalysis and the Freudian Slip is a principle he came up with that says that when you slip up and say the opposite of what you meant to say or contrary, to what you meant to say, it’s because it’s what you really meant to say.

Has this ever happened to you? It’s not very authentic is it? Saying the opposite of what you actually mean to say. But then again like Jim Carey in the movie Liar Liar, you probably don’t want to walk around saying every thought you have. Or would you? Perhaps if you only had good thoughts then it would be okay, but inside me I humour myself with irony and absurdity that I see wherever I go. You don’t want to hear all that!

But sometimes slipping up with the truth is the right thing to do. Actually I’m not happy that this is not been attended to, rather than okay, let’s get onto this tomorrow.

After being away in Martinborough for most of the week last week running a leadership programme, I turned up to a mountain of stuff to be done. I worked rapidly and with intent. I said exactly what needed to be done and when it needed to be done. Someone said they hadn’t seen me like that before.

Authenticity is about your strengths and where you come from. Empathy is about seeing others’ perspectives. Can they co-exist? Yes, but sometimes you need to let Freud take over and say it as you authentically mean it. Others might need to see you perspectives very clearly!

Stephen

It’s the weekend (nearly)

I’m back at the specialist at Milford this morning to complete my testing. I was already awake at 6.00am when Mum emailed to say they had another wake-up call in Canterbury this morning registering 5.1. People probably didn’t even need to check on-line, they’ve had so many they can tell the force instantly within two or three points. Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers talks about 10,000 hours of experience to become truly expert at something. I wonder if 7,500 earthquakes in 10 months is getting close to qualifying for expert status. I have a sense that after this series of tests I’m going to become expert at something to do with my diet. It looks like I might be Fructose intolerant and this morning’s testing is about Lactose. The friendly man next to me is also on his third testing and we agreed that being intolerant to Lactose, living in dairy-loving NZ, wouldn’t be ideal. I’m tolerant to most things in life, except intolerance.

Sitting here for a morning is very productive and quite reflective too. I’ve one more week of a very intensive work period and I’m taking a few days off the following week to rebalance myself. So I have a sense of anticipation looking forward to some refresh time. Which is a a bit like the staff who have been arriving at the specialist rooms this morning with TGIF said in many different ways!

We like the weekend, or more particularly, we like some time away from our usual routine to recharge.  But if we’ve done the 10,000 hours there’s a good chance we’ve had more than our fair share of wake-up calls on the way through, but those experiences will have given us the resilience and experience to keep going. As we gain expertise in our area we also become more tolerant of those around us as it’s less about proving yourself, but rather enjoying the strength that comes from experience and, for leaders I hope, growing others.

So enjoy the weekend, make it a time to refresh and enjoy why we exist. To be happy. Monday will be work, but if it’s work you are passionate about, not only is that a happy place, it’s a chance to grow some more.

Stephen