Entitlement - The Loftiest Leadership Stage a Leader Can Rise

Is Barak Obama enjoying the loftiest leadership stage any leader can reach? What about Nelson Mandela? Who between the two has reached the highest leadership stage? How can we know this? How do the leaders gain public fame? How did they take on the stage of public arena? Is there some defining moments that demarcate the leaders' walk to public arena? If indeed there can be such moments, can these moments be captured? If so, can they be lessons for current and future leaders? What can current and future leaders learn from such moments?  Yes, there are indeed defining moments and, these defining moments can be traced and captured. Besides, they can be used as learning lessons to current and upcoming leaders.

The loftiest leadership stage in the ten defining moments in leadership is Entitlement, when a leader has gained the public fame.  The other stages stretching from when a leader is virtually unknown to when he or she is widely known are Emptiness, Experimental, Experiential, Endeavour, Engagement, Endorsement, Endearment, Endowment, Entrenchment, and the loftiest, Entitlement  stage.

Whether positive or negative, fame is seen as increasing at the same level as the influence a leader exerts in the public domain. Thus, the more a leader is known and recognised, the more he or she exerts influence to the led. This simply means that if a leader is not known, his or her influence is small or none-existent. If he or she is a known public figure, his or her influence is great.  In this way, a leader is able to affect the public agenda even more. With the ten stages, the book traces the leaders' life's journey from the time a leader is virtually unknown to when he or she becomes a household name. It traces the struggles, the huddles, the joys, the power and glory, of each stage, as well as the temptation accompanying each stage along the way. The book can be used as a leadership mirror to evaluate where the leader currently is, where he or she is going, and what such a leader needs to do as well as avoid during the current stage. The book also prepares a leader of what to expect in the next leadership and subsequent stages.

Why base leadership on fame? Simply put, a leader can simply be described as a dealer with people. At every level, from the home front to the national and indeed international front, leaders affect people either positively or negatively and many time a mixed grill of both. People rejoice when good leadership is in place or likewise mourn when the bad leadership is in place. Therefore, one cannot divorce leadership with follower-ship, and in the latter is where people are. For good or for worse the higher one climbs in the leadership ladder, the more people one affects, influences and touches. This means a man with a wife and three kids will adversely affect his family if that is the only influence he has. A business leader with a thousand people under him or her will adversely affect those people, and so will a president with a country of thirty million people. Then there are those leaders who have no geographical borders. They are bound to affect very many people in one way or another, for good or for worse.

Leaders everywhere occupy one of the ten stages of leadership ladder. The ten stages are further divided into four phases.  Phase one is known as survival phase when the cup of fame is empty.

Phase two is known as success, a phase of relative fame when the cup of fame is half-empty. The third phase is called Success-Significance when a leader is enjoying wide fame, thus the cup of fame is full to the brim. The fourth and last, the highest leadership can go, is called Significance phase when the cup of fame is overflowing cup and the leader enjoys wider fame. Let us see this one further:

Emptiness - A LEADER WITH A FLEDGING VISION & UNTESTED VIRTUE

Phase one is known as survival phase-The empty Cup of Fame.  This phase has three stages, Emptiness, Experimental and Experiential.

The first stage of section 1 entitled Survival- The empty cup of Fame is Emptiness. This is a stage where and when a leader is little or not known at all. Both the position such a leader holds and influence he or she wields is limited or non-existent. It is when a leader holds only a fledging vision in mind and untested virtue at heart. This stage is promising, has all potential, but troubles abound and hindrances abide. Nothing but hope and faith is vested in such a leader, hope that he or she will make something out of his or her life or will turn out to be or somebody in the society, and faith that he or she will not disappoint. Therefore, the ‘public' expectation of a leader in such a stage is courageous leadership.

Experimental - A LEADER TESTING THE WATERS

Two words form the basis of the second stage called Experimental stage. The words are ‘try' and ‘risk' because the stage has bottlenecks which include uncertainty and let downs, misunderstandings and threat posing, rejections and regrets. Well, these are enough to keep the leader's diary full and his or her life occupied. But with all the odds in this stage, and though they do not come easily, there are payoffs as well. This includes baby steps and vision test, exploiting the unexplored potential, knocking doors, building networks and collecting a basketful of learning experiences. This is the stage where the public expect authentic leadership, enough to overcome the let downs on the way to public leadership.

Experiential - A LEADER TASTING THE FRUITS

The third and last stage in this first phase is called Experiential. This when and where a leader tastes the fruits of his or her labour. The bottlenecks include intense competition as well as a leader settling on laurels by reducing the vision originally cast. It is in this stage that the road branches somewhere, one fork of that road leads to virtue, and the other expediency. This throws such a leader in a dilemma of which to choose from the two forks of the road. Will the leader choose virtue or expediency? This presents a crisis to the leader for both of them offer opportunities or danger. Having been in the field of leadership and having built some following, people's expectations towards such a leader are rising. The most important expectation is that a leader in such a calibre shows some principle standards in all his or her dealings.

Endeavour - A LEADER FORGING ON

Phase two is known as success -The Half-Empty Cup of Relative Fame.  This phase has two stages, the Endeavour and Endorsement. Though both the position and influence are on the increase, position is still greater than influence. Because of this, a leader in this phase is therefore ruling.

This phase begins with Endeavour stage, when a leader feels that enough is not enough and decides to move on in leadership ladder. The first characteristic in this stage is that the leader has more than enough, described as successful and that both the position and influence of a leader is on the increase and the leader is desirous to leave a mark in his or her leadership. But there are at least three bottlenecks in this stage, the naked and un-tempered ambition and greed and grabbing as well as the urge to exterminate or at least smoothen out the enemies on the way.  The public expect a leader in the endeavour stage to offer integrity leadership, much needed at this stage.

Endorsement - A LEADER GAINING PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE

Overall the fifth stage, second stage in this phase is known as Endorsement a stage where and when a leader is gaining public acceptance.  The dangers in this stage involve setting a secure leadership base or solidify this endorsement for he or she may still feel insecure and in so doing take the path of revenge, settling scores on personal vendetta, surrounding self with cronies, rewarding those who helped the leader up as well as taking people for granted. Opportunities of Endorsement Leadership include proving his or her saltiness and building bridges and mending walls as well as seizing this opportunity to serve the people who voted or put him or her there. Therefore, the led expect such a leader to offer responsible leadership.

Engagement - A LEADER GETS SOMETHINGTO DO

The third phase is called Success-Significance- The full to the Brim cup of Wide Fame and contains Engagement, Endearment and Endowment stages. For the first time, the leader's influence surpluses his or her position.

In the Engagement stage, a leader is engaged, he or she  gets something to do. His or her diary is full. The stage is transactional in nature, that is, there is a business-like transaction taking place between the leader and the led. Therefore, there are discussions, communication, concessions, and mutual agreements reached between the two parties.  However, transaction work well when every party plays their part and work wrongly when one does not play his or her part well. Transactions being in the business world, it follows the characteristics of misuses found in that world, like underhand and shady deals, as well as breaking promises and lack of integrity. Three requirements needed in this stage are, the minimum requirement, the leader keeping the promise, the optimum requirement, the leader uplifting the virtue of integrity, and, the maximum requirement, the leader raising the level of leadership offered in this stage from transactional to transformational. Taken together, the public expectations of leaders in this phase are public accountability, positive influence, and a show of integrity. The public expectations of leaders in the Engagement stage are transformational leadership, a more superior leadership than mere transactional one.

Endearment - PEOPLE'S EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT TO A LEADER

The seventh stage is Endearment stage. While the fifth stage, the Endorsement stage was rather rational in nature, Endearment one goes beyond that to involve and invoke the emotional side of people.  In Endearment, people exhume great love and pride and admiration of   their leader. However, this may produce the flip side situation where the leader yearns to consolidate all the adoration directed to him or her and yearn to remain the centre of attention.  The public expectation of Endearment stage is to offer steward leadership. Thus, their main responsibility and test of leadership to be effective and faithful stewards of the resources they have been entrusted with and the greatest resource being people themselves.

Endowment - A LEADER CROWNED BY THE PEOPLE

The eighth stage of leadership and fame is Endowment stage, a very high stage indeed and prone to all kinds of dangers and vanities.  Crowned by the people either by votes or by increase of customer or client base, or even fans, the next stage, the Endowment leader, believes he or she has special knowledge to lead, and thus taken as a gift of God to the people and not the other way round, is a beneficiary and not the other way round, can enter in the realm of metaphysics and not the other way round. The feeling of nuli secundus, the Latin word for second-to-none may dominate in such a leader.  This builds the leader's greatest weakness.  Such leaders can capture leadership opportunities by serving a higher cause, and giving people glory.  People's expectations of their leaders increase at every level, and become more serious. People expect empowerment leadership, a kind that will improve their lot, not that kind of leadership that will only enrich the leader.

Entrenchment - A LEADER IN PEOPLE'S PHYSIC

The fourth and last, the highest leadership can go,  is  called Significance phase- The overflowing cup of Wider Fame which contains two stages, the Entrenchment and the Entitlement stage. While Endorsement stage leaders were approved rationally, and Endearment types approved emotionally, the ninth stage of leadership, Entrenchment stage, leaders' transcendence beyond all these and enter into peoples' physic. This means that such leaders has  too great influence  that even if they leave the position of leadership, without use of force or arms they still influence any decision to be taken or made.

For good or for bad, Entrenchment leaders are very hard to replace and the obvious gap exists between them and any thought replacement. For good or for bad again, everything around these leaders is public. Holding the world to the sway of their influence and power, and using their larger than life space, if these leaders climbed all the way while they are dwarfed inside, they can misuse this honoured position of leadership in more ways than one. The potential and real danger surround Entrenchment leaders are insecurity and power abuse, moral compromise and lapse, breaking of rules, pride, vanity, fantasy and fanaticism all rolled into one. Such can subsequently combine to produce false beliefs in a leader which can lead to the dangers of human rights violations. On the positive side, Entrenchment leaders' influence is so great that their virtues are felt widely and deeply. They should serve the high office better doing two things, one serving the people, and two, mentoring others in leadership. This is encapsulated in shepherd leadership expected of them by the public.

Entitlement - A LEADER TAKEN AS A GIVEN

When the queen of Sheba parked her train caravans full of gold, camels and precious stones and crossed over from Egypt to Jerusalem to see for herself of the fame she heard of King Solomon, she was responding to King Solomon's last form of leadership, Entitlement leadership, a leadership that makes other kings and queens travel far and wide to witness for themselves the glory associated it.  This last and highest stage of leadership rides on greatest fame, greatest power and loftiest glory.

However, even such a leader can be larger than life but internally dwarfed. Some of the characteristics of such a leadership are pride, aloofness and a don't care attitude, manipulating and misusing people, squandering state or business resources and, smoothening his or her way through by removing opposition and competition on the way. His or her conscience may die and can transcend from a fellow human being to a demi-god. Once these leaders consistently maintain the negative trends of leadership, they have a final and permanent place for them to go in history- back into permanent and irredeemable obscurity.

In such a high position as this, leaders ought to have nothing to prove or lose, nothing to hide or hold back and, at the same time everything give and gain. Even as people offer them permanent entitlement for leadership, the best Entitlement leaders can do is to have no entitlement on their side. They should portray a sense of selflessness as they lead people. Virtues like to nurture and mentor new leaders, to help humanity, to empower others and to leave a positive, lasting legacy are virtues that such leaders are expected to maintain while in such a stage in leadership.  The overall public expectations of this phase are a  showcase of more wisdom and model to them, portray more of genuine humility and service, shower more praise and  appreciation to people struggling with hard life and concerns and, probably a culmination or a combination of all, a  more display of greatness that kisses goodness. This is a leadership that can rightly be called servant leadership.

Source: articlesbase.com

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Next Generation Leadership and Generative Leadership

The reason we have interest in Next Generation Leadership is because the last generation of leadership interpretations were inadequate. They didn't deliver the goods of enabling actual leadership and leadership results, however captivating the leadership framework and stories. 

Leadership is a field that needs some clarity and usefulness where we outgrow our appetite for "next generation leadership" because the last generation didn't produce satisfaction and effectiveness. We need an understanding of leadership that is fundamental, clear, observable, necessary, executable, rigorous, and learnable. We need an interpretation that brings us closer to the "eternally valid aspects" of leadership, regardless of culture or historical era. 

Leadership, as with any other field of human endeavor, is a field of distinctions, practice, and discourse. As a discourse, leadership shows up for us based on what story and distinctions we have for it, and these shape and enable the actions we take as leaders. Our personal discourse of leadership may be rich and enabling, or sparse and remote. For many people "leadership" is just a word that names something that is not clear, a bit mysterious, but seems important. They lack the distinctions to see, learn, or carry out effective leadership, though they do experience occasional moments where it seems to happen anyway. 

Leadership draws tremendous attention with many books, programs, and approaches, as we try to explain, show, inspire, and enable effective leadership. The wide diversity of interpretations and approaches is also a symptom that we don't have a clear shared interpretation of what it is. We don't have, for example, such a wide diversity of interpretations for basic chemistry– it's pretty settled as a field of understanding, interpretation, and practice. We still lack such a foundational understanding of leadership. The diversity of approaches to understanding leadership is reflected in a wide diversity of business leadership programs, business management courses, executive leadership programs, and offers of leadership coaching.

"Generative leadership" is the name of the field that has been focused on developing just such a fundamental set of leadership interpretations and practices, to find identifiable fundamental structures and regularities of the ways that effective leaders observe, act, and generate results. We don't believe that generative leadership is the only, final, or right interpretation of leadership, but rather that it provides a fundamental and permanent dimension of leadership interpretation that addresses what is missing in the mainstream common sense. It provides a focus on what is fundamental and non-discretionary about leadership and also provides a frame which allows for variations in style, culture, situation, and historical moment. It acts as a foundation and cross check on other interpretations to increase the value they can provide by addressing the generative aspects of: what is observable, executable, learnable, and produces leadership outcomes.

The roots of generative leadership extend back into a discipline called ontological design, developed by Dr. Fernando Flores, and it is related to the field of ontological coaching, developed by Julio Olalla. The discipline draws from many other fields including neuroscience, linguistics, somatics and embodiment, cognition, biology, psychology and emotions. Developed by Bob Dunham since 1981, generative leadership comes from the original questions of "what is action?", and "how do human beings produce action and coordinate action?" These questions are so fundamental that they also provide powerful new answers to other questions including "what is leadership," "what is management," "what is a team," and "what is an organization." 

These generative answers - which mean ones that are observable, executable, learnable, and that produce the outcome that is named – are based on focusing attention and action on phenomena that are not part of our mainstream awareness. These include commitment based management and coordination, the power of conversations to generate action and results, the role of care in producing passion and ownership, and practice based learning. Some of the key areas of focus of these interpretations include the role of emotions, body, and language in generating action, the role of care in value and satisfaction, and the essential aspects of coordination that underlie effective team performance.

In generative leadership acts of commitment, like requests and promises, produce the generative power of language and conversation. All action is understood to be preceded by conversations that shape and determine its outcomes, both through performance and coordination, and through the assessments of the outcomes. All conversations produce some kind of commitment that shapes future action, and the impact of every conversation is based on the coherence of its language, emotional tone, presence and body language. What people listen when others speak is based on their history and background. Leaders know how to connect to the historical listening and the care of others, and to provoke commitment for future actions. 

The point about these distinctions is that they are all generative – observable, executable, learnable, and always are part of generating the results. This is the power of the generative way of "observing." This way of being an observer - of what one sees and pays attention to - enables being an actor that takes different kinds of action based on these fundamental aspects of human communication, coordination, leadership, management, and teamwork. 

Although these distinctions are not yet part of our mainstream education and training, they address phenomena that are always present and in which we are always moving as human beings. We are in a situation similar to medicine hundreds of years ago when doctors didn't know or study anatomy, but anatomy was always there determining what was happening as a result of their actions. Physicians became more effective when they became aware of and skillful with what was already there – anatomy, biochemistry, and the systems and dynamics of the body. We believe that leadership and management face a similar historical moment: that practitioners are conscientious, hard-working, and dedicated, but are blind to the anatomy and dynamics of their domain of action, which is there all the time and determining their outcomes whether they pay attention to them or not.

To address this Bob Dunham founded the Institute for Generative Leadership in 1998 based on work he and his colleagues have been involved in since 1981. The Institute has trained hundreds of executives, business owners, managers, and professionals through its Generative Leadership Program (the GLP program). Bob's experience includes being an executive in multiple companies, including as Vice President of Motorola Computer Systems, Vice President of Business Design Associates, and Chief Operating Officer of Action Technologies. He actively consults with client companies in management and leadership development.

A bit more about Bob: he is co-author of the book The Innovator's Way, the Essential Practices for Successful Innovation with Dr. Peter Denning, published by MIT Press. He designs and delivers multi-year programs in leadership in the US and South America, including the Generative Leadership Program (GLP). He also delivers the Coaching Excellence in Organizations (CEO) program in a joint venture with Newfield Network, one of the leading schools of coaching in the world. He is a guest lecturer in the Executive Certification Program for Presidio Graduate School and in the Leading by Design Fellows Program for the California College of the Arts, and was Adjunct Faculty, Executive in Residence, in the Presidio MBA program in Sustainable Management for three years. Bob has also been published with a chapter in the book Being Human at Work, edited by Dr. Richard Strozzi Heckler, as well as in numerous publications, including Communications of the ACM, Training Magazine, the International Journal for Coaching in Organizations, and the Center for Quality of Management Journal. 

The intent of the GLP Program, the CEO program, and others that are in development is to provide generative leadership training that enables people to become more self-generating as leaders, managers, team members, and human beings. These programs provide what is not currently available from other forms of traditional and mainstream education and development: as an MBA leadership program, providing a new dimension to current forms of management leadership training, management development, and organizational performance development. We believe that we provide an essential element to what may someday be a degree in leadership that offers actual leadership skill, not just leadership studies.The results of the programs are being demonstrated by our GLP participants and graduates and our CEO participants and graduates that now number in the hundreds.

Source: articlesbase.com

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How Should a Leader Develop More Power?

Positive connotations of power come when we hear people saying, 'I want to empower my team', 'I feel a powerful urge to try something new' and 'In business, Knowledge is power'. Negative connotations of power are identified when we hear people saying, 'The government is getting too powerful', 'Powerful multinational corporations steam roller the interests of the man in the street' and 'Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely' (Francis Bacon).

So let us look at the legitimate and the illegitimate uses of power. Good uses of power are when power means the capacity to do something. To know that it is within my power to do something about a situation. This is a good use of power, which means you should continually strive to develop your ability power.

So how do you develop your ability power? This can be done by developing your knowledge of leadership and management technique, your communication skills, and your self confidence.

The physicist's definition of power is the work done divided by the time. So in basic terms the amount of work you can do per an hour. How much capacity for work do you have per unit of time? You should develop your power to do more productive work per hour.

This can be achieved by maximising your time management skills and your powers of mental concentration. The opposite of this would be inactivity or inefficiency.

Power can also mean economic power. Think about how much money you have saved and invested in the last five years. Those who have accumulated wealth have gained economic power. Those who have spent every penny, have no economic power. You should strive to increase your economic power.

So how do you do this? Figure out ways in which you can add more value to the marketplace. Invest your money into those things which will gain value in the long run, for example, property, business and gold. Don't spend all your money on things which will depreciate in value in the long run, like holidays and cars.

The three good uses of power are, ability power, work done divided by time resulting in efficiency power and economic power.

There are a number of bad uses of power which include the power over people. You shouldn't try to gain power over others. Some people use a powerful voice to talk over other people. They use their powerful character to rule over meetings and their powerful physical presence to intimidate others. This could be seen to be social bully, which in the long run is bad for everyone.

Power can be constructive or destructive. You shouldn't use your power to destroy and breakdown as it should be used to construct and build. Just think a nuclear bomb is powerful but destructive while a nuclear power station is powerful but constructive. In a business context it is better to construct rather than destroy. By working with others and not against them you can use your power to construct.

The misuse of political power is to unfairly use a position of political authority to personal advantage at the expense of others. Examples of misuse of political powers include a politician feathering his own nest by passing government contracts to a family member's company or a journalist bending the truth for their own ideological purposes.

All of these are examples of corrupt uses of power which will lead to failure for the individual concerned in the long run.

To recap, three wrong uses of power are, power over others (social bully), power to destroy, and corrupt political power. Three good uses of power are ability power, work done divided by the time resulting in efficiency power and economic power.

Source: articlesbase.com