As I have been thinking and blogging about leadership, a number of qualities of what makes a good leader have been suggested to me or have emerged in my own mind.
The first three I have addressed in my “Powerful Leadership #’s 1 and 2″ posts.
1. good listener
2. able to accept healthy compromise
3. authenticity
The items that have been added to my list, I comment on briefly below:
4. compassion
I touched on compassion in speaking about listening, when I said, “If I am to listen deeply I need to be willing to enter into your world, to see life from your perspective and to acknowledge that your experience of the world is valid and worthy of respect just as much as mine.”
Compassion is not the ability to feel sorry for another person. Compassion is the ability to truly enter another person’s life experience and see the world through their eyes. The root of compassion is the conviction that there is no difference between myself and any other person.
The leader is not separate from those he seeks to lead. True leadership emerges from the awareness that we are all one. There is no hierarchy in the human community. Leader and led are completely equal.
Leadership is not something the leader does to the person she is leading. True leadership means joining with the person being led in the process of discovering the best way forward together. Leader and led are inextricably linked. Like forgiving and forgiveness, leading and being led are complementary realities. The one cannot be fully realized without the other. They fulfill each other in a mutual dance of cooperation and compassion.
5. fair-mindedness
This quality was suggested in a comment on my original “Powerful Leadership” post. Fair-mindedness suggests that the leader has an ability to step aside from bias, prejudice and personal agenda. The powerful leader is not driven by personal wishes or by conformity to a particular ideology or group within the community. The powerful leader is always able to step back from personal self-interest, or narrow tribal prejudice and see a larger picture.
Fair-mindedness requires that the leader be open to more than one perspective. The powerful leader understands that there is always more than one way of seeing any situation. True leadership requires that the leader be open to different ways of understanding the world.
For the fair-minded leader there are no questions that cannot be asked, no assumptions that cannot be challenged. The fair-minded leader believes deeply that the wisdom of the collective surpasses that of any one individual. The goal of the fair-minded leader is to help uncover that collective wisdom.
6. gentleness
The powerful leader understands that more is accomplished by yielding than by forcing.
The powerful leader is able to be gentle because he understands that there is a flow to life. The goal of leadership is not to force the flow, but to identify it and cooperate with the flow that is taking place. There is an energy in circumstances. When we find the energy and support it, we discover that the deep reality of life is guiding us to transformation and new life.
Transformation does not come about as a result of force. No community is enriched by being abused, manipulated, or badgered with guilt. Life-giving change takes place in an atmosphere of kindness.
True power comes to the person who resists the temptation to seize power and trusts the force of gentleness.
7. openness
Powerful leadership does not keep secrets. We are seldom well served by hiding.
There may be occasions when a leader needs to withhold certain pieces of information. But, for the most part, powerful leadership will be biased towards absolute transparency. The powerful leader will trust that the people he is responsible for leading are adult enough to handle the truth of their situation. They do not need to be protected from reality. We are always better equipped as both leaders and led when we operate in the light.
Secrets and deception do not serve the well-being of any community. Power comes to the leader who has the least need to hide. The more information available to a community, the better able that community is to make decisions that will lead to the greatest good for everyone involved.
8. responsiveness
Powerful leaders pay close attention to what is going on and respond to the realities of life as they are unfolding. They are able to change direction in response to what is happening.
This does not mean they are unstable and changeable. They are not simply awaiting the latest wave of popular opinion and then surfing that wave until it runs out. They are rooted in deeply held convictions. But, because of the solid ground of their convictions, they are able to adapt and be flexible to the circumstances in which their leadership is being exercised.
9. flexibility
Responsiveness and flexibility are closely related; but the concept is so important it is worth the risk of being repetitive.
In the complicated world in which we live, the inflexible leader will never survive. Dictators are always overthrown eventually. And, even while the tyrant continues in power, the energy of the organization they are leading only produces death. Every person is diminished in an organization dominated by a tyrant.
Flexibility is not weakness. it is stronger than rigidity. It has the ability to find new ways when old ones are no longer working. The flexible leader is not bound to outmoded ways of thinking or functioning. When, unexpected eventualities occur, the flexible leader is able to adjust and find new ways of doing things without sacrificing the core values of her leadership.
10. is able to live with chaos
Most of us are afraid of chaos. We will do almost anything to convince ourselves and others that we are in control. It is tempting to put our faith in a leader who manages to convince us he can bring order out of chaos.
But, if we are honest, we know that chaos always lurks just beyond the edge of our fragile attempts to maintain control over the forces of life. There is a thin line between our feeble efforts to keep order and the raging forces swirling around our protective little illusions.
The powerful leader knows that chaos is always a present reality. But, in spite of this knowledge, the powerful leader is not afraid. The leader’s power resides in this quality of peace in the midst of uncertainty and confusion. The true power of the leader is the power to stand steady when everything and everyone seems to be in turmoil. The powerful leader is secure within himself and that security is the source of his leadership.
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February 1, 2011 at 7:39 am
jaqueline
“But, if we are honest, we know that chaos always lurks just beyond the edge of our fragile attempts to maintain control over the forces of life. There is a thin line between our feeble efforts to keep order and the raging forces swirling around our protective little illusions.”
It is interesting to me that chaos is described as a raging , lurking force, just ready to destroy the little illusion of safety and order we have.
I think this is how we typically see it. But ought we to see it that way or rather ought we to see it as a bad thing?
Is the strong leader unafraid of chaos because she is able to control it? Because she is able to hold it at bay? That sadly is how we want our leaders to respond to it… we want leaders to hold back the Chaos Sea of for us. In an uncertain world, to those who are afraid of chaos, Palin looks better than Obama.
I want a leader who is unafraid of chaos because she understands deeply that that was the raw material of creation. I want a leader who is unafraid because he understands that it is out of that indefinable mass that the new arrives. That recognises and finds comfort that the creation story begins, not with light but with unformed darkness and the creator moving above it.
We may think that opens us up to the sort of chaos that horror movies portray, but I think those players with darkness and chaos are thinking that it in turn it is the stronger force. It is not.
I might describe as a good leader one that recognises chaos and order as the right and left hand of life, and that the heart of life beats in between and to prefer the one over the other leaves life very lopsided.
But it is staying with the heart that allows each free to do it’s work.
Order gives chaos purpose and expression, chaos gives order humility and material for renewal. It seems that chaos and order need to relate to each other, and it is through us, the image of God that they might find that relationship.
February 1, 2011 at 9:57 am
inaspaciousplace
yes this is lovely. my choice of adjectives clearly reflects my own somewhat ambivalent attitude towards chaos.
February 1, 2011 at 8:35 am
Lindsay
“Order gives chaos purpose and expression, chaos gives order humility and material for renewal.” …
Jaqueline, can I add that chaos gives order energy and creativity?
February 2, 2011 at 6:41 pm
jaqueline
I think that it is creativity that brings relationship to order and chaos and that that relationship gives energy (ie life. )
February 2, 2011 at 6:42 pm
jaqueline
and yes then it is true…if something is too ordered then chaos adds energy and vise verse…..but I think the creative is what brings it about , like a catalyst.
February 1, 2011 at 12:16 pm
John
Some would call this Servant Leadership or Mindful Leadership…or Leadership from the Inside Out!!! Whatever label you want to place on it, it is what we should strive for.
February 2, 2011 at 11:20 am
Lindsay
Christopher, I realize it’s embedded in what you written, but can you please, please describe patience a bit more? It seems to me it’s a question of having too little of it or too much of it … maybe it’s more a question of timing? I suspect I might already know part of the answer, but it would be really good to get another perspective. It seems some problems carry on far longer than necessary if dealt with too soon, or left to stew too long ….
February 2, 2011 at 3:02 pm
inaspaciousplace
As you say Lindsay, you already know the answer… “it’s more a question of timing.”
Patience is simply about staying open. Patience DOES NOT mean doing nothing. Patience is like a sailing (about which I know nothing). When the wind goes calm, the sailor does not immediately yank down her sails. She keeps her sail hoisted waiting in the calm for the moment when the wind picks up. Then she tightens her sail and flows with the breeze.
The trick is to really deeply intuitively trust that there is wind. There is a flow! When we remain open, we will discern the flow. When we act too quickly, we miss the actual flow of the Spirit. Patience and faith are closely related.
If our intention is to remain open, we do not have to worry about becoming passive or inert. From that place of openness we will act. When we respond in the flow, we will make choices and choose actions that are far more life-giving than if we simply forge ahead out of the need to just do something.
I believe far more harm has been caused in general by acting precipitously than by waiting patiently.
February 2, 2011 at 6:52 pm
jaqueline
Chritopher, thank you! that is very insightful and helpful
May I suggest that why patience and faith are closely related is that they both are the expression of love ( 1Corinthians 13, 4-8 )
It is helpful to realise that when we are being patient and hopeful and kind we are being loving..especially when we are not much ‘in like’ with someone or some things.
“If our intention is to remain open, we do not have to worry about becoming passive or inert. From that place of openness we will act”.
It is helpful too when so many times in thinking we are being kind and loving we feel like we are being walked on…..I suppose being aware and keeping close to our hearts ensures that love applies to all including ourselves.
February 2, 2011 at 11:56 pm
Lindsay
Christopher and Jaqueline, it’s amazing how both your responses get to the very guts of my original two opposite reasons for asking the same question Thank-you!
February 3, 2011 at 7:37 am
jaqueline
well I needed the wisdom too! I took his words and extrapolated, thinking ‘out loud’. Glad that both served
I like it when the spirit is seen to be listening in .
..I worry about staying in bad things too long, thinking I am being patient but worrying it is fear …It is very hard to then not swing to impatience as a protection…what Christopher describes is the antidote to both extremes. Phew.