Tag Archives: dreams

The New Age Leadership: What We Must Do Now To Nurture It

Leadership Genx

I hear several people talking about the new generation wanting more, expecting more. In corporates this shows up when young and talented pool of employees, show more attrition rate, than the older more experienced ones.
So, what is this new generation about? why are they so unstable? If you talk to them they seem to be looking for something, some say it is balance, some say wholesomeness, connect, etc…

When they don’t get what they are looking for, either you see a decline in their performance or they just go and find another job. Some times they may also start on their own, and may find success or not.

What seems missing is good role model for these young leaders. These young kids are smart and see through most of the farce. So if there are only words and no action, they bluntly term it “Corporate bullshit”. Also you will find them challenging every leader and his/ her leadership behaviors. They question and slowly detach, when they realize they are up against a wall.
These new age leaders are not about frill and talk, they are about depth and connection. If they don’t find it in your organisation, you will not be able to retain them. They are about deep sensitive friendships and not leg pulling politics. They are about spontaneous creativity and freshness, not old production processes and conformity. These leaders are not about quantity they are about quality and congruence. They look for transparency and trust. Believe me you, even if the goals are not clear, these leaders through their adaptive powers can make any vision, any dream come true. Only they would test you, they would test your wisdom, your Leadership, to trust you and give you their 100%. If you do not pass their barometer they know how to defy you, how to negotiate and how to put your work into a loop.

These New age leaders are emotional and have a natural spiritual connect, to have them in your organisation means to inject huge amount of energy. This energy can grow your organisation multifold, in the area of innovation, technology, as well as happiness index. But to have these Leaders on board would entail a self growth process for the organisation itself.

Interventions on creating clarity around  growth paths, goals, job roles, stakeholders for each goal will have to be implemented. Parallel to this work around building, trust, transparency, emotional connect will have to be done across the organisation. Understanding along with working around employee values and connecting them to organizational values, institutionalizing them is crucial. Creating awareness around silence and pause will become the key in the coming days in every organisation. And when that happens a new organizational structure will emerge, which will be empowering to the New age leadership and will integrate with it. This organizational structure will be a huge container, which will have intrinsic wisdom and spontaneous growth characteristics. This structure will be flexible and natural, it will allow emergence of several new containers within, and expand with their growth. Also this organizational structure would pollinate with other structures to create hybrid structures.

The Language would be of Nature, the language will have Union, Pregnancy, Birthing, Spontaneity, Cycles and Death. In every realm of the organizational structure, seasons would play an important part and with deeper awareness. Deeper connect with self and the planet. This would be the container for the New age leaders to perform and innovate from their depths and feel the sense of belonging. Not everything will look like bed of roses, pain will be a part of every piece but, it will have more meaning. That is what New age leadership will be all about…an ‘Empowering Meaning’.

If any organisation wants to be relevant after ten years from now…the work has to begin…the ground has to be ploughed for the seeds of New age leadership…

Image Courtesy: http://ecowatch.com/2014/04/10/teach-kids-about-sustainability/

The Yearning for Work life Balance and What Does it Mean!

Work life balance
In many of my facilitation and coaching sessions, I hear the participants lament about the lack of work-life balance, that they experience. They also constantly talk about how is it completely de-energizing or de-motivating them. Many of them say that, they feel inspired to see the way I balance my work-life. It used to surprise me earlier, but now I understand what they are talking about. I feel, I am clear on my priorities and that just helps me plan my work better, or even say ‘no’ to work that doesn’t interest me. Just by doing this I save enough time for activities that energize me and my family. I feel there are three main aspects at the root of the work-life balance, if you are able to work around these, then work-life balance doesn’t look like an herculean task anymore.

1. What is your long term Goal?

Is there something you aspire to do in the future, some dream that you want to come true? If you haven’t thought of this, then “take a break” to find this purpose. You may go away to a forest, or do some social work, Vipassana or just take a long nap. In Native American Shaman cultures, there is a process that a teenager had to go through, this process was a Visioning challenge. Where the teenager entered a forest and lived there for two or more days all by himself, only on his means, it is said that when he returned, he was transformed and knew what he wanted from life. Similarly in early India the Gurukul provided guidance to the path, which became your Dharma.

2. Is your Goal connected to what you are currently doing?

The connection may be direct or indirect. For e.g: Currently you may be doing a job to earn money, which will help you bring the dream to reality. Or, you might be already working towards the dream. The point here is, how aware are you of your present being related to your Goal or Dream?

If it is not, then you might be facing what I call as “Incongruloma” this word is not in the dictionary, so I will explain. Incongruloma is a confused state of being, where you are not sure, why you are doing, what you are doing? Also the confusion seems to continue to increase like cancer. In this state it seems like things in our life are being driven by someone else and we have no control over our own lives. Mind you this is a illusionary stage and it is easy to get out of it, if you learn to “take a break”or “take a chill pill”. Learn to say “No” to something that is not worth your time and “just stay”.

3. Create a list of things that are important in your life and that make you happy. Both at work place and in your life otherwise. Relive the moments and relish the emotion that you feel in your body. As you will sit quietly relishing all the moments that have given you happiness you will experience “Cheriscity“. Cheriscity is happy electric pulsation through your body, you won’t find this word in the dictionary again. Once you know the feeling of Cheriscity, all you have to do is create more and more of it for yourself and others.

When you follow the above three guidelines, you will observe that your balance will show in your work-life. It is the inner imbalance that makes us feel that our work and life is imbalanced and most of the time there is someone else to blame for it. It could be either our organisation, or our boss, if nothing else, we end up blaming our parents and our government.

We find our balance when we know what is it that we are looking for? It then comes naturally to move in the direction that takes us away from the rat race, which causes “Incongruloma” to finding spaces that create “Cheriscity”.

Image Courtesy: http://www.careerattraction.com/finding-balance-clock-can-improve-career/