The Open Heart Leadership Manifesto
I have been working with Alper Utku, who runs the Middle East Management Centre, and who is developing a definition for the form of leadership we need today. Alper calls it Open Heart Leadership. We've put together his draft manifesto to define this form of leadership - I just help him put it into English and we co-create a little bit to sharpen definitions, but the thinking and practice is Alper's. I think how Alper tries to lead is a role model for all of us, and he's given me permission to post the draft manifesto here. It's attached. Here's the opening:
" So, what do we mean by Open Heart Leadership? (Opening excerpt from the draft Open Heart Leadership manifesto)
It is an approach to leadership that is all about personal growth through openness, love and compassion. It’s about developing unconditional love for others and for who you are and what you represent, without prejudice and conditions. Open Heart Leadership happens when you embrace whatever comes to you, with a sense of leadership.
Personally, Open Heart Leadership is an evolution for me. I’m now almost 40, trying to live and experience this kind of leadership as a leader in a consulting organization. What I’m learning is that what makes life worth living is passion for personal growth. Not status or money. That may be the end result. But, it’s more about embracing something bigger than myself with authenticity, dialogue, intimacy, realness; embracing whatever is in front of you without any condition.
‘One-ing’
I’ll use ‘one-ing’ as a verb here. We all come to this life with a core. Then we start to have experiences, interact with people, develop attitudes, behaviours/behaviors. Our core remains the circle in the middle, but it becomes surrounded by other circles – interactions form a second circle, assumptions that arise from those interactions form a third, attitudes form another, then behaviours, then personality.
The different roles we have in life bring us different responsibilities. In my personal case, as leader, father, friend, stakeholder and so on, we assume we have to do certain things to fit that role. To fit the definition of father, salesperson, manager, we feel there are things we have to do.
That creates a duality between the someone at the core – who you are – and the ‘should be’ that you try to be when in these different roles. You have created a second person. One of the deepest sources of stress is the tension between these two different places, which we can call:
1. The place of human being (our core)
2. The place of human doing (how we act in different roles)
My biggest interest in what Open Heart Leadership can accomplish is to achieve a sense of liberation in ‘one-ing’ ourselves, to use the new verb we have coined.
The Sufi poet Rumi tells us:
“Either be as you appear or appear as you are.”
...
Click on the file attachment to download the full pdf of Alper Utku's Open Heart Leadership draft manifesto, which is about four pages. Comments welcome. Phil.
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| DraftOpenHeartLeadership.pdf | 153.97 KB |
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Be True to Our Hearts
One of the deepest sources of stress is the tension between these two different places, which we can call:
1. The place of human being (our core)
2. The place of human doing (how we act in different roles)
A wonderful sum up of what we so often witness in business. The conflict between who we are as compassionate and caring people and the perception or at times expectation of how we act; uncaring, remote, souless. This is similar to be my thoughts on Spiritual Leadership.
Kate
True and false self
This is close to Winnicott's, true and false selves.
Good stuff. I've used it more than once. On me too.
:D
True
I actually believe that the best leaders are the ones who are "genuine". It might be the hardest thing to do, mainly in business environment, but so far it has worked for me.
People do appreciate that you do not pretend what you are not. Sometimes though you have to let them know or set boundaries before hand : "That is how I am, take it or leave it".
And always, always be yourself first, then the role.
Jan
Truth
Why should being genuine be one of the hardest things just because it is business? I hear this a lot but fail to understand why we separate our 'business' life and behaviour from our 'personal' life and behaviour. In truth if you are not genuine in your business life then I suspect you are not genuine...fullstop.
Kate
The Monk Who sold his Ferrari
Emma Hackforth Headhunter Matchsticks Ltd www.matchsticks.biz
In Leadership Wisdom from The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, I think Robin got it right. Lead with the heart in mind and link pay to purpose...why oh why do people still have two personalities, I get to see this a lot in heahunting and if only they would just be themselves instead of this person they think everyone wants them to be. When in fact the "REAL" person is actually ok. Is it low self esteem on the leaders/managers part? Have they decided to mimick someone in their company that doesn't suit there style. more importnatly who is ever going to tell them to be themselves? I am brave enough but sometimes they just don't want to listen. Mirror, mirror on the wall I say
Business vs. genuine
Kate,
you may have different experience, probably because of environment and culture you live in. Unfortunately having dealt with big multinational companies moving to east, "they" do not want you to be a personality. "They" just want one to deliver resutls and generate cash... cause "Everything coutns in large amounts."
One might hit one´s head very hard against the wall if one stick to being just "himself".
Then it only gets doen to people ane personalities, either they take you as you are and then it is a win/win.
Or one has to surrender some of his personality to conform and be compatible, it is a loss and it will lead to parting ways sooner or later.
Unfortunately the approach changes with the people in charge.
As for headhunting - here it is very formal, one is considered and evaluated mostly on the paper background and first impression ( on a "model" that is expected) rather than real abilities and personal strengths. In my career it happened only twice during interviews that I felt comfortable beign me and that it actually paid off. Majority of times one gets rejected.
Anyway me bing me, I always brign my own skin to the market (as a local saying goes), I do not pretend to be someone else in order to satisfy anyone. I am me all the time.
Jan
Something of more substance then...
Open heart
Phil your comments:
"That creates a duality between the someone at the core – who you are – and the ‘should be’ that you try to be when in these different roles. You have created a second person. One of the deepest sources of stress is the tension between these two different places, which we can call:
1. The place of human being (our core)
2. The place of human doing (how we act in different roles)"
are at the center of why many are failures at leadership. When there is such a dissonance between the core and how we act in our role, it seems there can be little else other than failure, stress, fatigue, and all the negatives we experience.
When my daughter was diagnosed with Leukemia when she was just 17 years old and again 2 years later when she was 19, I learned the importance of vulnerability and the difference that it made in how people responded to me. I found that when I was open and honest about what I was feeling, and what I was going through, in other words when I expressed what was at my core, people responded in amazing ways.
So when I made up my mind to become vulnerable at work and incorporate the core of my human being with my human doing, is the time when I became an effective leader. It is also the time when many of those that reported to me became true leaders because they saw that incorporating the being and the doing was safe to do. The effect on the bottom line was phenomenal. We took a 40 year old company and doubled sales in 3 years and increased profitability by 180% in the same time frame. The other interesting thing that happened was that those managers who did not become more vulnerable are no longer with the company. They quit finding a “safer” place to work.
Too many leaders hold on the idea that the boss is to be tough, have the answers, and make the decisions. And if we are not that at the core of who we are, then we have to create that “second person” to be that person in order to the kind of leader we should be. Not so! The most effective leader is the one who is true to his inner core.
The one caveat to this is that effectiveness also demands harmony between the core and the culture. I experienced that first hand as well. After 14 months on the job, I left because of the of an inability to be who I really was. It was not that I was bad or the culture was bad it was that there was a lack of fit.
We need to learn who we are and be that kind of person. Not someone who we “should” be.
Edgar