Pages

12.19.2007

Visionary leadership

Visionary leaders act AS-IF the future will be different than present circumstances. They act AS-IF the future they envision will come about by acting AS-IF it's emerging now. They believe in creating a desired future by imagining that it's possible, how it will play out and what differences it will make. They experience their vivid imaginations building their own convictions in this future. They make it easier to act AS-IF their future is coming about by acting AS-IF it is already unfolding. They utilize the dynamics of self-fulfilling prophesies intentionally. They comprehend the power of "so be it".

We bloggers are visionary leaders, We are acting AS-IF authority is distributed among us, diverse voices have significant validity and self expression is essential to networked endeavors. As we act AS-IF this is true, it's becoming true in our world of hard data and convincing proofs of substantive changes. By acting AS-IF the world can be different in this way, the world is conforming to our beliefs. So be it.

Visionary leaders affect others with fluid belief systems. It takes personal experiences with changing AS-IF's to be free to change one's AS-IF's at will. Experiences with acting out of character, putting on masks, and playing different parts are ideal for changing AS-IF's. No one "act" seems real. Rather the process of acting and experiencing different AS-IF's are real.

The living examples and inspired messages fail to affect others with rigid belief systems. The lack of experience with changing AS-IF's eliminates responding to a leader's influence. There's no messing around with roles, characters or acting. When belief systems are rigid, the situation is really serious, dangerous, even deadly. The troubles are obviously overwhelming, threatening and intimidating. The life experience is incessantly limiting, confining and difficult. There's no way to play around with what is necessitated and no way to skirt around the burdensome obligations.

Rigid belief systems create living nightmares. More bad stuff happens by believing the apparent dangers are a fact of life. Belief systems do not become fluid through day-to-day experiences. Fluidity comes about though disorienting experiences like initiations. The rigid belief system loses reliability as real-life experiences reveal the system cannot handle disarming, unexplainable and mind boggling changes. A breakup of rigid convictions precedes the breakthrough into fluid beliefs.

2 comments:

  1. Tom;
    An effective leader of change creates a powerful narrative that does a number of important things...1) it taps into the concerns, beliefs, and values of those that we wish to lead; 2) it provides (as you point out) a vision of what is possible; 3) it is grounded in a way that people believe it is possible to get there.

    Leadership can be described as helping people to accomplish things they thought were impossible.

    pete

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well said Pete. You define a wonderful challenge here: to create a narrative that gets people's story being lived in way they can get free of it.

    ReplyDelete