Creative Leadership

Kerry Bunker, an associate of the center for creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina, tells of a bright executive who used self-knowledge to his own benefit. He learned that he was a highly controlling person, and that this tendency alienated his colleagues. He turned his controlling tendencies on himself, controlling his controlling tendencies. He stopped looking so closely over shoulders, and started keeping a daily journal to monitor his own progress. He became more comfortable with letting go, even if it meant output of lower quality than if he’d done it himself. And he paradoxically found his career progressing more smoothly and rapidly. 

(From a purely selfish standpoint, [improving yourself] is a lot more profitable than trying to improve others. Dale Carnegie, he to win friends and influence people)

Sometimes the best way to find you is to get lost. P.B Walsh was a collage professor and forensic therapist at a maximum security prison in Pennsylvania. She took a week-long retreat at a hermitage cabin in New Mexico where she was totally out of touch. She loved the solitude so much that she moved to remote rural Colorado, down a dirt road 10 miles from the nearest town. 

Rick Klump suffered what might be the ultimately deflating job loss; after seven years at a seminary, he was told that he wasn’t cut out for the monastic life and had to leave. He went through a period of intense anger, and received counseling for a number of years. Finally, he came back to the church, made many new friends, and riveted his attention on all that he has to be thankful for. He loves his job as a cab driver in St. Louis, shares a nice home with his wife, and is putting his children through good schools. Gratitude, he says, changed his life. 

Stacy Feldman, a counselor with the five O’ Clock Club, a national job-search support group based in New York City, suggests doing what you wear. The “uniform” often indentifies a person by industry (blue collar) or by company (IBM’s white shirts versus Apple’s Blue jeans). Consider the wardrobe you have and what you like to wear in targeting your best occupation, company, or geographic location. 

We learn best when we are learning about ourselves, when we’re discovering truths that speak of inner and outer realities, when we’re finding out what makes us unique and like others within the community ( Marsha Sinetar, To Build the life you want, Create the Wok you love ) 

Ellen J. Wallach, a Seattle consultant specializing in career and organizational development, says you need to make your own luck by: 

 Challenging assumptions. 

 Recognizing opportunities.

 Using the chance to take advantage of the unexpected. (Don’t procrastinate when opportunity presents itself!) 

 Taking risks.

 Building networks. 

Allen Grossman is Executive Director of Outward Bound. Having moved from highly successful family business into the nonprofit world, his eyes many point to the stars, but his feet are firmly on the ground. “I would never,” he says, “hire someone who tells me that they really just want to work for humanity. I want to know that they’ll love that work they’re doing, and be good at it.” Grossman himself made sure that he would be good at the work by designing his own apprenticeship in nonprofit organization management for several years before accepting the position at out ward bound.  

Self Assessment and self Knowledge: Part-6