Always Learning

Thought-Starter:

Leadership is an education and the best leaders think of themselves as the students, not the teachers.  

 – Simon Sinek

Context:        

We are always learning.  We are always curious.  At least that’s what I hope most leaders are thinking.  There really are no ‘finished symphonies’ as Karl Rahner suggests.  We must always be open to the opportunity of the moment but also stay grounded in our experience to lead.

It is challenging to keep up these days.  Technology and communications run so fast we can quickly feel left in the dust of the ‘next great innovation.’  Are we missing something we should know?  Does our competition know it and we don’t?

Those are perfectly legitimate questions to be asking, but they can’t become the be-all end-all of our daily work lives.  As leaders, we need to be able to look in the mirror and discern what weight we give the constant flow of information.  We need to give ourselves moments of self-compassion and understanding so we can synthesize learning for our organizations to be places of growth and self-actualization.

As Jerry Colonna says in Reboot, “When we stand still, we run the risk of remembering who we are.  When we stop spinning, we run the risk of confronting the fears, the demons who have chased us all our lives.  When we stop bullshitting, the pretending that we’re crushing it, that we’ve got it all figured out, we run the risk of being overwhelmed by the realities of all that we carry – the burdens we’re convinced must remain secret to keep us and those we love safe.”

So how does this apply to a business context?

Each time our work fails to live up to our whispered expectations (or those grumblings we convince ourselves might be held against us by our employees, our investors, or colleagues, and our loved ones) we’re reminded of one of our most complicated and intricate fearful belief systems: We will inevitably fail because we are a fraud; and such failure will prove, once and for all, what we suspected all along - that we are unworthy of love, do not belong anywhere, and are therefore, wholly unsafe.

That’s not really the case, but it is the crucible that a leader must face each day. Am I being authentic with my whole self, my strengths and areas where I need to continue to learn?  I suggest the first and most important area of deeper learning starts with the work I’m doing with the Invisible Obvious – self-awareness, personal integration, and accountability.

Prophetic & Insightful Teachers:

When we are in a learning stance we are more open to everything – people, ideas, relationships, innovation and inspiration.  We suddenly feel connected to a larger whole that can shimmer with the energy of possibility as we acknowledge it’s not all about us and our singular great ideas.  It’s about how we create something special together.

Simon Sinek wisely notes, “The goal is to feel part of something, not just play a part in anything.”

And wisdom teacher Richard Rohr shares, “The prophet is not an outsider throwing rocks, nor a comfortable insider who defends the status quo; but one who lives precariously with two perspectives held tightly together in a loving and creative tension:  the faithful insider and the critical outsider.”

The Invisible Obvious:

I guess what I’m trying to say here is we can learn in many different ways.  Understanding how best we learn and take in new ideas is certainly the starting point for an expansion of ourselves on multiple levels.   

If we present as a leader always interested in learning from every possible angle, it will have an effect on our team and organization.  If we invite people on a continual journey of learning together, then the false pressure to create the magic dart fades away.  We are hungry for ideas that inspire and innovate and help us continue to move the ball forward in our most creative ways.

Can we pause for a moment?

We need to think about how we are modeling learning as leaders.  As people often placed in an ivory tower wrestling with the big problems of the day, perhaps our employees don’t see how we lean into new ways of thinking and absorb new information to generate the momentum needed for our enterprises.

This is especially true today in dealing with so many issues around diversity, equity and inclusion.  How are we showing our active engagement in cultural issues that have a very real impact on those in our company?

We can keep privately learning information that may leak out in different interactions… 

Or, or we actively show how our learning leads to greater awareness, personal integration and accountability.

More on those later…

To learn more about me and my work around greater awareness, integration and accountability and being a trusted support partner please visit invisibleobvious.io.