Self-empowerment

Leadership is a very complex thing, you can talk and write about it for years and still there is always something else to talk about. For instance, what about the fact that leaders today have EVERYTHING, in terms of information, knowledge, etc., and still they make so many mistakes...?

Well, I myself wrote a lot in this blog about it and about some of its by-products. One of them is empowerment.

Empowerment could be seen as the first "taste" someone gets of leadership - it is that moment when your mom trusted in you to buy the right brand of butter, or your boss trusted you that big project. It is different than delegation as in the last one, mom and boss will be hovering around all the time and you will be only their arms, their worker...

A fully empowered person has the chance to practice some leadership and test some concepts too in a quite safe environment, as the final responsibility still will go to mom (if the cake is not tasty, nobody will blame you) an boss (if the project is successful or no, he will be known for that). But it is a good beginning for many people. When you are the leader, success or failure always comes to you.

And that responsibility weights... it is heavier than many burdens. And if you have some personal life, then the burden seems to multiply itself.

As a coach, I have to deal with situations like that from other people. As a consultant, I have to tell others what to do, nice suggestions from a bright mind. As a leader, I have to deal with the situations... myself. And I know how heavy they can seem.

So, it is very important to empower the self too and that has two different meanings: you start to trust yourself in dealing with the situations with whatever you have learned or with advice from people you chose to trust. The second meaning is to fill you with power. Both have the same intention: enable the self to face situations, the burden a leader carries, and to start the self on the pathway towards self-leadership.

Thinking about self-empowerment and its impact in my life, I have difficulties to even imagine myself as a non-empowered person. I have known many like that; for them, life is always threatening, people are always wrong and they are always right. It is the life either of an eternal victim or someone who thinks only his ideas are right, and they are not...

I will mention here what I do for myself. I am sure you can add or adapt that for your own life:

• Meditation. First things first; I need some time with myself, I need to understand what is going on in my mind, why I am having thoughts like these... Meditation is also for me a mean to get the eight powers I need (check my post on 8 attitudes) and a way to relate to God, and other people better. When I meditate, I feel the self, filling with energy, I feel my decisions are clearer and I have the power to implement them.
• Study. Leadership is a road where you have to study forever. Same applies to self-leadership and, of course, self-empowerment. What I have in consideration is that my study is useful, it creates an impact in my life an in others' lives and it "tunes" with me. When I was a high-school student, I used to love Math and hate Biology; the last it was because it didn't "tune" with me. Your study has to respond to questions like "Who am I?" and "What am I doing here?". Of course, it has to help you to solve the riddle "What will I do in this situation?".
• Blessings. Yep, that is it, I live on blessings most of the time. Let me explain what I mean: do you know when you do something good to another person? First, there is the soft sensation inside your mind, the pleasure of helping another human being. Second, there is a subtle energy you will feel, probably later and when you are under stress that will help you to overcome it - that is what I mean by "blessings". It empowers the self because it gives us a relief during moments when otherwise you would feel the pressure.

When you are a fully empowered person, the world will change around you as there won't be anything you can't do and your leadership will be a real one, as you would have started with yourself.

The basis of being a leader

I think this is a world which should have an overpopulation of leaders. There are a few reasons for that.

If you consider leadership a competence, its formula is very easy:

• Knowledge. There is plenty of knowledge on leadership, thousands and probably millions of books and an infinite number of articles on this topic, in most languages. There are courses in colleges and universities all over the world too.
• Skills. Apart from that, there are probably millions of consultants or training schools who can help leaders to develop certain skills for a better leadership.
• Attitude. With all courses and people talking about leadership, I feel it is not difficult to develop a leadership attitude, although that, as it is a little subtle, would require more effort.

Of course, that is problem the question of the century: What is leadership? Not in the sense of definition, but it is more like "where does it come from?". A friend of mine says there is no leadership; what we have is leaders (I particularly do not believe in that, but it is an idea...).

Ideas are coming and coming, but still leadership, from many different points of view, is easy and it is getting even easier. But then, why our wold is in such a situation? Because it does not matter what line of thinking you follow, a leader will always emerge at times of crisis. And, well, I guess this is not happening... At least not in a way to really overcome crises...

As a thinker, I feel that what is missing is self-leadership. You can find many articles in this blog itself on that, and thousands more in other places. The basic reason: you can't lead if you are unable to lead yourself!

So, what we have is not really a lack of leadership, or leaders, but a lack of self-leadership and leaders of the self.

Taking the same formula and understanding self-leadership as a competence, we have:

• Wisdom. Knowledge is good, but to be a leader of the self, that knowledge has to transcend and turn into wisdom. It is difficult to teach that in universities, but it is easy to assimilate that from reflection, contemplation or meditation.
• Powers and virtues. Skills are used to put leadership into practice. For self-leadership, you need more than skills. Spiritual power is an energy the being has that helps the self to overcome situations (check my post on 8 attitudes). Virtue is that energy that enable the being to live in the world adapting to all situations that come. Both could be called attitudes.
• Awareness. Leadership of the self is only possible if the leader's awareness is awaken. Most of the time, we are not aware of what is going on around us; it is only when that is interesting or it requires more from the senses, that you become aware of its reality (for instance, the sound of air-conditioning system or the traffic in front of your office). To be a leader of the self, for that you do need to awake the deep hidden awareness of who am I, where am I going to, what am I doing here and many of the traditional questions on self-existence.

So... you see, it is not that difficult!

Is it? I will help you with more and more posts on this topic. I can help you personally with examples of my own life and, most important, I am sure YOU CAN HELP me and others with your own example!

8 attitudes of self-leaderhship

Seeing the news and the confusion of people and government, employees and employers, there is something missing in the air: LEADERSHIP.

How is it possible that in such a world, with so much information and knowledge flowing around, we don't have capable leaders to solve things that are quite simple? One response is the lack of leadership on the self; due to that, the leader cannot manage his or her own emotions and desires, preventing good decisions to take place.

And how to become a leader of the self? Self-leadership can't happen without some thinking and reflection. In fact, it only happens that way.

To lead the self quite often is more difficult than leading a company. At least, in the case of a company, it is easier to see its results, vision, mission, etc. In the case of an individual, that only comes with deep reflection. Sometimes the person does not have any kind of support from other people for self-leadership.

But there is an easy way to develop self-leadership. Reflection will be there too, but it won't be that you will need to contemplate for twenty years to start seeing glimpses of that. It can start right now...

The eight attitudes are based in an Eastern knowledge on how to deal with inner and outer situations. After all, that is what leaders do: they deal with whatever comes to them. The basic and main difference with a manager is that a leader will look into each case with depth, thinking in the long term, while a manager has to solve things right now.

In other words, when you have a problem in front of you, instead of just reacting and solving the problem as it shows, you prepare yourself, you check possible solutions and you implement that which will last longer.

I will give an example: if you find out you have cancer, a common person will just get desperate and will try as best as he or she can to cure the sickness. If the person is a good self-manager, she or he will research a little bit in relation to the best possible solutions. A self-leader will go beyond, understanding what is going on and accepting whatever can happen, either healing or not.

So, what are these eight attitudes?

• Introversion. It is the attitude that helps preparing the self for action.
• Tolerance. It helps to live in a world full of contradictions and differences.
• Adjustment. It enables the self to be flexible and adapt in any environment.
• Discernment. That is a key attitude, as it enables the self to understand what is coming and make his or her own mind in relation to what to do.
• Decision. It is very important to implement whatever the person feels it is right to do.
• Facing. Not hiding, escaping of fighting; facing means to accept and see how to solve tough circumstances.
• Cooperation. Another key attitude, as it helps the individual to cooperate with others and get cooperation from others in tasks that bring benefit to many.
• "Packing-up". Healing and moving on.

Even when you think in terms of leadership, these eight attitudes can cooperate with your leadership. For instance, Tolerance and Adjustment are key attitudes at the time of making a team come out of a crisis. There are however three ways to use these attitudes, and I will give examples related to that.

The first one is that of a manager: she or he uses tolerance, but after the argument. Typically, a person like that (supposing it is a manager) will send some sweets or a soft email trying to get the team together after screaming at some of its members... It is not a bad use, and no doubt, if you have a situation like that, do it. But it is not what a leader would do.

The second and third one are the ways a leader would use these attitudes. Let's understand the PROACTIVE way of using these attitudes: a leader won't wait for the crisis. He or she will prepare the self through contemplation, studies, dialogues with other people, and other means to improve tolerance. In that way, when some problem emerges, the leader naturally will be able to manage it.

In other words, being proactive is to prepare the self in relation to all of these attitudes so that they come naturally when time comes to use them.

It is possible the situation is really critical and the preparation was not enough. Even though that can happen, the leader will make her or his best to not react. He will listen to the situation, or she will look at what is happening and, instead of tolerance, the leader will use another attitude, for instance, making a decision that can help the moment (Guys, I invite all of you to come to my place this evening...).

The ACTIVE way is all about humility and self-esteem. The leader acknowledges his lack of capacity to solve the present situation, but at the same time recognizes there are other capacities within that can help it.

I will talk a bit more on these when I talk about self-empowerment, but I hope with what was written, you can start using these at least in a basic level.

The capacity for resistance II - Tolerance, The Pathway towards Self-Leadership

I would like to give some interesting examples of resistance and tolerance.

Gandhi’s fight

At the beginning, he was considered a crazy idealist man by those who met him. Gandhi used his skills to keep himself above the English domination. His fantastic Salt March was an example of a man’s charisma, who left the easiest option (about three hundred millions Indians with knives running after the British Lords) and who adopted the idea of the ahimsa, that is, non-violence.

We can see in him very clearly the former cycle: his idea was that mental and spiritual freedom was higher, which generated a change in the world perception. For the first time people were talking about the freedom of a whole population without violence. Nowadays, we see international negotiators traveling country to country, many of them successfully attaining peace. But at that time, Gandhi emerged as a deep paradigmatic change agent challenging the biggest empire of the moment.

By establishing the difference of potential, of consciousness between the English conquerors and the people of India, Gandhi got to create a huge resistance towards the empire where the Sun never sets. English weapons and the power of their culture could not overcome that.

A resistance that turns into tolerance: instead of fighting for their rights, Indians started to tolerate defamations and distress. Soldiers beat people without reaction. However, like ants in the jungle, the people did not stop. Tolerance made them even stronger and helped to increase their numbers until that point when the giant kneeled before the weak half-naked slim man who looked more a fakir than a Chief of State.

With tolerance, they got a bigger shift in their consciousness and that generate more resistance and so on. It was not a lineal process; it was not that millions of people joined the Mahatma immediately. No, at every cycle, more people joined the cause of non-violence.

Gandhi influenced many thinkers and known XX Century Western people. The idea of non-violence was the flag of the 60’s and 70’s hippies, and it is still present somehow in modern thinking.

Motherly love is the purest way to love

Mother’s consciousness enables the woman to stand in front of the worse suffering and insults for the sake of her child. In other words, the elevated consciousness increases her resistance in front of any adversity.

However, one of the most painful processes the Western society is going through at present is the breaking down of families. It is calculated that in United States, 40% of families have gone through a separation processes. In Latin-American, this number is increasing: in Colombia, a statistic indicates that marriages last in average a little more than twelve years.

Motherly love is also going through the consequences of a change in the family members’ lifestyle. In this way, resistance to day-to-day problems is less, tolerance decreases, which translates into an even lower level of consciousness. In this way, the cycle keeps on going until the person ends with stress and very exhausted.

In fact, at this moment, all of us – women and men – can be mothers… of the world. Perhaps we are living a unique situation in history in which our perception of humanity is stronger than the religious, cultural or race barriers. And for that we need to think of the self as a mother capable to give love and attention to the lives of our friends, co-workers and even to unknown people, to the whole world.

It might sound idealist, but it is a possibility we have to avoid stress. It is a question of not think too much, but developing this consciousness, either you are a mother or not, either you have children or not. It is a question of think of what you have within to give humankind. Physical charity is not as fundamental as feelings and thoughts.

When I put these examples, I try to show the role of resistance in terms of tolerance. Why don’t we reflect about the level of our own consciousness? I would like to ask three questions that may help you to check if the difference of potential is high enough to face the current. Sometimes, when we respond such questions, we tend to know the “right” answers, as they are a bit obvious. The idea is however to have honest responses even though they are not like the “right” ones.

1. When you wake up, where do your first thoughts go to?
2. During the day, are you more involved in problems or solutions?
3. By night, do you relax and try to forget whatever happened during the day or do you try to dedicate sometime to create, learn and live something new and different?

 (partial extract from the book El Camino hacia el Autoliderazgo)