Love, Fear and the Destiny of Nations

In national values assessments across the globe, people profess to holding values such as "trust" and "accountability" as their core personal values.  How then can we live our personal values on a national scale, exhibiting them to the world through our actions?  Our research clearly indicates that fear continues to rule.  According to the 2011 US National Assessment, Americans are focused primarily on "blame", on placing fault with others for a lack of progress and cohesion.  The political system has stagnated because leaders fail to put aside personal fears and act for the greater good.  Polarized political parties cannot agree on what to do, and people do not believe they can count on leaders to act with integrity.   It seems American leaders can come together to avert crisis, we have witnessed it time and time again.  Yet once the imminent threat has passed, it is back to partisan politics as usual.

As often happens, the antidote can be found among the Desired Culture values.  When asked what values Americans would like to see exhibited in the nation, "accountability" is the top request and exceeds votes for any other value.   

So, how does a nation move from "blame" to "accountability?"  Values-based leadership is helping to create answers in Iceland.  As this nation seeks new approaches for dealing with the economic collapse of 2008, they have turned to the values requested by citizens as a foundation upon which to build their future.  Iceland is adapting the constitution based on the feedback from the values assessment and is creating online social networking to encourage civic engagement.  More than 1,000 citizens from voter registrations are working to help the government rebuild a values-driven nation. 

In Trinidad and Tobago, Bernard Marshall, a police officer and CEO of Strictly Kingdom NGO, has launched a national cultural transformation initiative entitled, "Change our World."  Marshall has a powerful motivation for conducting a national values survey:

"The programme we are looking at is to provide a road map...to avoid the revolution and perpetuate a transformation...to prove that change is possible...to initiate national transformation beginning with the leadership from all spheres... At the completion of the symposium participants must at least recognise that there is hope and that we have the capacity, potential and resources to make Trinidad and Tobago a better place for the generations to come." 

Indeed, we all have the potential.  The call for values-based leadership is emerging in our nations, in our world.  It is up to us to respond.

In his upcoming book, Love, Fear and the Destiny of Nations, Richard Barrett explores the quality of democracy from a values perspective, examining values such as "freedom", "justice", "openness", and "equality" and how well these values are exhibited and experienced in nations around the world.  

To lend your voice to the Quality of Democracy study, click here.

username: democracy

password: values

7 Questions, a Drawing and a Prayer for Leaders

I recently had the honor of facilitating a leading edge cafe discussion table at the Barrett Values Centre International Conference. Our table topic was our personal leading edge for level 7 values. If you are not familiar with the Barrett values model, level 7 represents the highest spiritual values of humanity; such things as wisdom, ease with uncertainty, ethics and future generations. My task was to distill 3 major themes that came out of our discussions. Well, spirit cannot be contained nor neatly summed up, so instead we offered our fellow conference attendees 7 questions, a drawing and a prayer.

The drawing was the work of Tom Boardman, a wonderful leader and the former CEO of Nedbank South Africa. Tom turned the Barrett model in on itself, offering a spiral rather than the traditional hierarchy of levels, noting that all value levels are present at all times and a true leader knows how to seamlessly shift to what is present and needed in the moment. Below are the seven questions and the prayer.

• Who am I?
• Where do I stand?
• Can I express in fearless humility the beauty, peace and love I wish to be and truly am?
• Can I mirror the wisdom of All-That-Is back to itself?
• How do I call to and inspire my fellow beings to their highest self?
• How do I learn and listen to reveal what is next?
• Can I play in the spiral of consciousness to serve the planet, humanity and future generations?

The level 7 leaders prayer:
May the pain of playing small
inspire me to fearlessly express
who I really am
To boldly proclaim
This is where I stand
and to humbly ask
How may I serve?

What Will be Your Legacy- part 2

After a couple of solid years of regular blogging, my posts have become infrequent due to a personal decision to take care of my sick mother. This was a full-time commitment that took up most of my time for nearly a year. I was able to continue my growth and learning during this time, and I am excited now to return to full-time pursuit of my dual missions:

1. To make the quadruple bottom-line of People, Planet, Profits and Purpose the common measure of business success.
and
2. To help leaders discover and express their deepest values, signature strengths and highest purpose.

I look forward to sharing inspiring ideas to co-create this world so badly in need of values-driven leaders who share this vision of business as an agent of world benefit.

Shifting Collective Consciousness

Transforming organizational culture begins with transformational leadership, which was briefly defined in our last blog post. What we are talking about here is a shift in individual consciousness from a primary concern about the self to a broader concern for the common good. As leaders in an organization shift their consciousness, the culture of the organization shifts with them. We know the effects of individual transformation can be dramatic within a relatively small eco-system like organizational culture. But do individual shifts in consciousness affect the larger community, or even the global community?

The Institute of Noetic Sciences is a pioneer in leading-edge research into the potentials and powers of consciousness - including perceptions, beliefs, attention, intention, and intuition. The Institute explores phenomena that do not necessarily fit conventional scientific models, while maintaining a commitment to scientific rigor. These folks are definitely on the leading edge, and their research findings challenge many of our traditional beliefs. They recently released a short animated video, starring Dr. Dean Radin, a world-renowned researcher of psychic (or "psi") phenomena, as Jedi Master Oh Be One Kenobi, as he takes viewers on an amusing foray into quantum entanglement and planetary fields of collective consciousness. Click here to learn more about research findings into how our collective consciousness shifts with world events.

They are also running a special Trial Month of the Shift in Action program for a $1 donation to the Institute of Noetic Sciences. May the Force be with you in 2009!

An Integrative Definition of Leadership

Leadership has many definitions. At Leadership Beyond Limits, we subscribe to the efficacy of transformational leadership as presented by Bass and Avolio (1994). This leadership definition implies that leaders lead followers to levels of higher morals. In addition, transformational leadership implies that the followers are better off with the four I's of:

1. Idealized influence - does the right thing for the right reason
2. Individualized consideration - treats each person as an individual and with care and compassion
3. Intellectual stimulation - offers employees stretch goals and encourages creativity and innovation
4. Inspirational motivation - lives from his/her values and inspires employees to build on the vision

I recently came across an excellent scholarly article that painstakingly researched the various definitions of leadership. The authors identified 92 discrete dimensions of leadership, along with a 93rd miscellaneous list of 20 more leadership characteristics. The authors believe that researchers, scholars, consultants, and leaders have helped create confusion around the definition of leadership in that we have examined the parts of leadership but not the whole. They draw on the story of the blind men describing the elephant and the different accurate descriptions that each blind man gave, yet each was insufficient to understand the whole.

The article is definitely worthwhile if you haven't yet read it, you can find it here:
http://www.regentuniversity.org/acad/global/publications/ijls/new/vol1iss2/winston_patterson.doc/winston_patterson.pdf

If you find that interesting, you will likely also appreciate their longer working paper, which includes the above analysis, along with a more in-depth discussion of servant leadership:
http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/working/integrativedefinition.pdf

I admire the authors effort at creating an integrative definition of leadership, and appreciate their metaphor that reminds us that leadership is a large, complex animal.

What Does It Take To Lead Generation Y?

Enter any organization and you will hear a leader from the Baby Boomer Generation expressing frustration over a co-worker from Generation Y.

When you think about it, this issue is probably less of a values gap then it is a leadership gap. Generation Y was parented by Baby Boomers. It is apparent that a different type of leadership than is currently practiced by many Baby Boomers is required to tap into the brilliance of Generation Y.

Let's look at what Generation Y wants. According to studies conducted by Rainmaker Thinking, Generation Y wants:

*Leaders who are honest, transparent and authentic;
*Leaders who use story-telling as a means of communicating;
*Leaders who inspire them and who recognize that different things inspire different people;
*Leaders who stimulate their thinking and allow them to make a contribution;
*Leaders who appreciate their civic mindedness and provide opportunities for them to give.

These desires are the characteristics of transformational leadership - the leadership of the future. It is the leadership of the future because it is the style of leadership that will truly tap into the brilliance of every generation and lead organizations to success. Take a look at our "What Engaging Leaders Do" blog posting for a list of transformational leadership characteristics.

This style of leadership can be learned through development and coaching programs. For some it will come naturally and for others it will be a longer journey. It requires a deep self-awareness, a sense of purpose, big-picture thinking and a willingness to give up control. These things can't be faked or rushed, therefore the time to support leaders in their own transformation is now.

Leadership Beyond Limits offers a variety of leadership development and coaching programs to build transformational leaders.

What Engaging Leaders Do

Employee engagement is dependent on leadership style. There are leaders who inspire their teams and bring them to life and there are those who perpetuate presenteeism and disengagement.

Recent workplace surveys tell us that one of the most important drivers of employee retention and engagement is a competent and visible senior leadership team that is invested in the well-being of the company's employees. Today's employees want to work for transformational leaders. The four characteristics of transformational leaders are:

1) Idealized influence: they do the right thing versus what is the most expedient, simple or cost-effective.

2) Inspirational motivation: they work from their values and can articulate a vision for the organization that holds meaning. Followers become greater through stretch goals and growth.

3) Intellectual stimulation: they ask the right questions that challenge the intellect, beliefs and creativity of followers.

4) Individualized influence: they believe in their followers and offer them care, compassion and support. They see their followers as human beings with full lives, not just as resources.


These leaders lead with a coaching style and give their employees space to perform. Their team relationships are steeped in trust and that trust inspires employees to be their best for the team.

Typical leadership skill building will not develop transformational leaders. Transformation comes from the inside out; it's a way of being. Companies on the cutting edge of leadership development are investing in the personal development of their leaders including exploration of personal values, life purpose and character strengths.

Organizations transform when people transform.