Business schools must make the issues of leadership, teamwork, and culture a clearly visible priority if we are to maintain legitimacy and credibility as a source of knowledge for successful practice in today's global economy.
The really good news is that when you give people the tools and the support to pursue what I call "four-way wins" - that is, improved performance in all parts of life - they are actually much likely to achieve these wins and, through the process, develop further their leadership skills.
Executives are afraid of losing control if subordinates try to roam too far. Conversely, hierarchy squelches talent by forcing rote standardization through the punishment of failure, a necessary accompaniment to experimentation.
My view is that leadership is not about position - you can lead very well with no one reporting to you in a hierarchy and you can lead quite poorly with many people below you in the traditional chain of command. Leadership is about mobilizing people toward valued goals, and anyone can do this, in any aspect of life.
The thing to keep in mind is that the answer to the question I often get - Are leaders born or made? - is an emphatic yes! All leaders are born, and all are made, through devoted practice of reflecting on experience to learn what's worked and what hasn't, good coaching and accountability pressure to grow, good luck, and, of course, some talent.
My research and practice indicates that people need to be doing work they love and to love the work they do. They need to feel that their efforts matter for the people and causes about which they really care. Further, they need to be doing work with people they respect and enjoy. Finally, they need to feel free to choose where, when and how it all gets done. It's not easy to put these conditions in place, but it is certainly possible to do so, as I have seen and shown in my work in organizations and communities using the Total Leadership approach.
Managing the boundaries between work and the rest of our lives - family, community, and the private self - is now a much more daunting task. The good news is that there are ways to realize the promise of greater focus and presence on the moment for better performance and results, but it does take discipline and practice to get there.
Right now we're in the midst of a grand experiment on how best to harness the incredible power of the Internet while we struggle to maintain useful boundaries among the different parts of our lives.
Of course that's the best way to continue to learn anything: Try to teach it!
There are many structural changes, both in organizational practice and social policy, that must also change to enable men and women to have the freedom and support to pursue the lives they want to lead. Fortunately, many more people are today engaged in these efforts than when started working on this issue decades ago.
At the individual level, you need to examine what you truly value, share this with key stakeholders in various life domains both to get feedback and support, and then to experiment with new ways of doing things so that - over the arc of a life - you can achieve harmony and have more of what it is that you uniquely want out of life.
We all want to have a rich and meaningful work life and a fulfilling life beyond work.
Continual improvisation on a theme is a more useful way to think of how to bring the various parts of life together.
Instead of the metaphor of scales in balance, I prefer the idea of a jazz quartet: you're trying to make music that feels and sounds good, and sometimes you only hear the trumpet or just the bass and piano. Sometimes all four are playing at the same time, but perhaps at different volume.
No one can have it all, at the same time. I've never seen that.
If you're searching for "work/life balance" you'll always be disappointed because "balance" connotes a zero-sum equation.
If you shift your mindset to asking "How can I initiate change that's good for my family, and my community, and my career, and my private self (mind, body and spirit)? then you are more likely to produce harmony in your life, over the course of your life.
People struggle most with seeing new ways of doing things and often need help in breaking through their tradition-bound mindsets.
I've been writing for decades that balance is an inapt metaphor as it necessarily entails tradeoffs.
I find that many people have a hard time, at first, in painting a compelling image of an achievable future; to envision their legacy, that is. Often this is because they're afraid to commit for fear of failure.
The act of envisioning is mainly useful as a means for identifying what matters most to you now.
The worst thing you can do, despite the innumerable obstacles we confront, is to not try.
I'm a humanist and an optimist.
I believe each life has value and that we're on this earth to leave it better than how we found it. I want people to take this to hear and to try as hard as they can to improve their capacity to do so.
Michelle Obama is a powerful example of someone who has learned how to align her actions with her values, manage boundaries across domains of life, and embrace change courageously.
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