We work with leaders and teams everyday that find themselves facing challenges and opportunities never seen before. These are not stable times, nor are they commonplace. In moments like these different skills, actions, dispositions, and practices are called for.
Let’s work with a familiar image. On the top of our triangle we have the world outside of us represented by the word, “It.” In the middle of our triangle we have relationships represented by the word, “We.” On the bottom, at the base supporting everything above it, we have self-mastery represented by the word, “I.”
Leaders have always been prized for their ability to impact “It” – the external world -by pulling the right levers, working the data, predicting for the future, upping productivity and maximizing profit. More and more however, leaders have been required to add the human being into their equation, the “We” element. Organizations now want happy people. They want to create meaningful work environments. It is all about talent – leveraging it, attracting it and keeping it around.
But as we see with our triangle, there is something deeper and more fundamental than both the it and the we. There is the I. The person that pulls the levers, that builds relationships and comes up with all the great, or not so great, ideas.
What we are interested in is how to best train this person in the fastest and most effective way so as to intensify potential beyond the ordinary to the extraordinary.
For us, the heart of this training is the achievement of self-mastery. This achievement is the highest and most important of all. It funnels up and supports everything above it. A leader with self-mastery builds amazing cultures and crafts relationships marked by deep trust and resiliency. And as far as the external world is concerned, a leader with self-mastery shifts her perspective. None of the old skills go away, they simply take on a power unimaginable to the leader lacking in self-mastery.