Leaders – do you feel The Force?

Over the weekend I read a short passage in a book that really resonated with me. So yesterday I wrote a quick LinkedIn update and Tweet to share it with my network…….. …to absolutely no response!!

I woke up in the middle of the night and found myself thinking about it again – and decided that it raises an issue that is so important that I can’t let it go – I needed to write more and evoke a reaction.

These two lines of text define the difference between traditional pyramid leadership and the exciting possibilities of future generation leadership which is now beginning to emerge.

Our intellect can only take us so far. At some point we need to move beyond it and learn how to work with other forms of knowing”
from ‘Riding The Creative Rollercoaster’ by Dr Nick Udall

What are ‘other forms of knowing’ and how do we access them?

We all have access to an inner wisdom that goes beyond the knowledge we have learned from teachers, parents, leaders and colleagues. Call it intuition or call it gut reaction, I’m sure every one of you can remember a time when you have just ‘known’ that something was either right or wrong without having access to statistics or factual information to back up that decision. How many times have you arrived at a previously unknown junction in the road and ‘known’ which way to go? This is your inner wisdom, and I encourage you to listen to it, and act on it on business decisions as well as personal. If you’re unsure then test it out on smaller decisions first and see how often things turn out well.

Another way of stepping outside of individual intellect and logic is to trust and believe that the collective wisdom from a group of people will be more powerful/potent than that from any individual. This could mean that you put your trust in a self-managed group of employees to come up with a solution, or you experiment with a new way of working with your leadership team. Instead of leading by command and control, try guiding them to make a collective decision allowing every voice to carry equal weight. If you’re feeling really bold this type of decision-making with be at its most potent if you all physically sit in a circle, equally spaced apart so that no one individual stands out.

Both of these suggested forms of knowing involve a level of acknowledgement that an intangible ‘force’ (yes, may the force be with you….) or energy exists despite not being proven by science or explainable by logic. If we can learn how to access this wisdom and trust in it I believe that leadership strategy and decision-making will take a leap up to the next level.

When I work with individuals or teams to help them access this new level of knowing my biggest challenge is persuading them to temporarily switch off the analytical, logical mind for a while and forget the traditional process-lead business training. It’s amazing what results come forth when people allow themselves simply to ‘be’, and feel, and sense the solution to an issue – then trust in it.
And it’s fantastically motivational for teams to be allowed to work this way too.

Please share any stories you have of working this way – it would be great to hear what results you have achieved.