Birdwings to fly free?

Last month’s Harvard Business Review headlined with an article on Women in the Leadershp Labyrinth. This challenges the concept of “glass ceilings.” What makes or breaks women in senior leadership is not so much an arbitrary blocking point near the top, as a complex tangle of challenges and sticking points throughout womens’ working lives. Organizations can minimize injustice and wastage only by addressing systemic discrimination factors at every stage.

I really enjoyed reading Carly Fiorina’s book this August, having been greatly inspired by her contribution to this year’s Leadership Summit. She seems amazingly realistic and unrancorous about the high hurdles she has surmounted, and sometimes collided with. Her story so far is a worked example of the need for two qualities in the best leaders — humility (encompassing both radical realism and freedom from distorting self-regard) and determination (never to give up or let things get to you). I also sensed in her a great awareness of her personal priorities and the value of life in the broadest sense, to keep things in proportion.

When people have stereotypes of what you can’t do, show them what you can do. When they have stereotypes of what you won’t do, show them what you will do. Every time you resist someone else’s smaller notion of who you really are, you test your courage and your endurance. Each time you endure, and stay true to yourself, you become stronger and better.

First Day Leadership Summit Top Four learning points Day 1

A very high quality learning day, beginning with a brilliantly graphic and moving Video/rap production that told the story of Church as lived reality. Sadly it doesn't seem to be on Youtube... yet! It's called Fast Forward

1. Activist Leaders don't like it, but the only way to cast visions that amount to anything is PROCESS. Solo "Mount Sinai" styles of vision casting make people feel undervalued. They undervalue people and wreck teams!
   Bill Hybels
   
   
2. The Hireling looks just like the good Shepherd (the one with ownership, for whom it's personal) and in normal circumstances may well do pretty much the same things. When things hot up, the differences of motive and outlook will show up. The single most determining factor in people owning the vision is whether they really believe you own it. They'll only take a bullett for it if they believe you will...
   Bill Hybels
   
   
3. Carly Fiorina talked us through her famous HP Shenanigans, with a moving clarity, honesty, and realism. She seemed remarkably calm unrancorous. The core of leadership was about Character and authenticity. It requires both passion and dispassion. She also raised some teasing gender issues around work and business. There is gift in everything, if only we will see it.
   Carly Fiorina
   
   
4. Marcus Buckingham rekindled my interest in the positive psychology movement, and basing my view of people on their strengths, not their weaknesses. He drew attention to three ghastly lies, and the truth about them:

• RUBBISH — "As you grow your personality changes"
  TRUTH — "As you grow you become more of who you really are"
  
  
• RUBBISH — "You grow most in your areas of greatest weakness"
  TRUTH — "You grow most in your areas of greatest strength."
  
  
• RUBBISH — "Working as a team requires I lay aside my strength and do whatever it takes to help the team."
  TRUTH — "The best way to help the team is to volunteer your strength to the Team as a resource"
  
  This has radical implications for Ministry Review schemes, and for the way we take responsibility for our own development. It's important not to infantilise people, but to build people's sense of responsibility for their own growth. Emergencies apart, we need to play to our strengths, not centre our attention on remedial action.

I also got a new Pat Lencioni book with a kind of Joy at Work theme — a must read for plane trip home.