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The world is in pain. The human spirit has reached its limits of endurance. The ones who got us in this mess are not going to be the ones who’ll lead us out of it.
We will see this year the rise in demand for true leadership and the call for the hero to come to the rescue.
We have so far many people in positions of power and authority, but very few are ‘leaders’.
From politics to the work environment, authority positions and leadership are used interchangeably. As if they were synonymous. But they are not. Leadership liberates and inspires; power and authority subdue to control.
“You know a tree by its fruits.”
Throughout history, power and authority was coveted by those with a desire to dominate and overpower others to subdue them to their rule and command. The dark trad: Machiavellian, psychopaths, and narcissistic tyrants. And periodically, when the thumb of oppression reached the breaking point of the oppressed, a Hero was born. The Leader, chosen by the masses to lead them out of Egypt, out of the land of the tyrant into the promised land.
Unlike what the leadership industry would have us believe, both tyrant and hero are born with their character traits. You can’t make a stallion out of a donkey no matter the leadership courses you get them through. Just as you can’t make a devout priest of someone just because they’ve attended the seminar. Or a coach and therapist because they’ve attended ‘accredited training’. Or an inventor because they’ve attended university.
You have the calling, or you don’t. One can learn to feign it, to temper their original drives, but they cannot acquire a new nature, a new identity, unless they’ve undertook themselves the Hero’s journey into their underworld. Until they faced their demons and came out transformed. Is what we do through the Phoenix Process in our CWS Coaching Programme.
Another fundamental difference between the two is that the leader never wants to lead. Never covets a position of power and authority. Because they’ve undergone their hero’s journey, they have a profound understanding of the meaning of life and of the complexities of human nature. Is through that humbling inner transformation that they acquire both empathy and leadership. From then on, they view their role as a responsibility to lead others to inner maturity and independence.
The true teacher doesn’t aspire to keep their student dependent on them for life; the true therapist doesn’t aspire to keep his clients dependent on their interventions.
The true leader’s role is to lead others to self-leadership.
The success of a therapist is marked by the day when their client no longer needs them.
The success of the parents is marked by the day when their child moved out and lives independently.
The success of an organisational leader is marked by the day when the employees no longer need them to effectively do their job. When they occupy their position aligned with their calling – the only way the organisation could function like a body that reached homeostasis. If liver cells would aspire to play brain cells functions instead of their natural ‘calling’, the body will eventually collapse. If one cell would aspire to dominate the others, we’ll soon have cancer devouring that body.
The only way you address your organisational ‘malfunctions’ (the employees work-related mental health conditions), is by identifying the cells performing other roles than their own. And you can only do this if your people in charge with recruiting and nurturing your talent have done their hero’s journey, faced their demons, and came out equipped with the wisdom to lead others to their own responsible self-governance.
What makes a hero a hero and a leader a leader is exactly this ability to govern themselves to perform their best for the interests of the many, often at personal costs.
The hero doesn’t need a manager to tell them how to show up to their task. The leader doesn’t need motivational speeches. True leadership is the burden and responsibility to undertake one’s inner transformation to such a point where it will equip them with the tools to help others achieve the same. The path of the Hero and the path of the Leader is very close to martyrdom. That’s why they are not eager to become one.
One cannot become a Sherpa by learning about the Himalayas from manuals. Equally, one cannot lead others on their summit if they haven’t done that perilous climb themselves. And I’m not talking here about outward ‘success’, but of the inner.
Times have changed. Human consciousness has evolved. People have started to wake up to the real meaning and purpose of their lives. Labour – especially cheap labour – under the thumb of power and authority has no longer a place in this new dawn of human consciousness.
People crave fulfillment, connection, meaning and purpose. In this new phase of human evolution, like young adults, people crave, above all, independence and self-governance. And what people need now is a Hero to show them the way out of this modern Egypt and out of their underworld. People need leaders to show them the way to self-leadership, not narcissistic tyrants to keep them in positions of followers.
You can’t beat history, just as you can’t beat evolution. And if history taught us something, is that when human nature has reached its peak of self-development, there is either a boom in human inventions and creativity or a mass rebellion to overthrow the tyrant.
We have reached that new peak. Visionary people in positions of power and authority will either grow and adapt or suffer the fate of their predecessors.
At the end of the day, human life and the planet supporting it is nobody’s asset. We are all explorers in this great unknown called life, and we started to realise that the whole point of this adventure is not to slave our way to the grave, but to discover the many flavours of life’s potential.
I predict that the structure of work, the way was done so far, will become a relic in the next 10 years.
And in case you think you can outsmart evolution, think again! You can’t escape this wave of enlightenment by hiring younger, hungrier, and more naive employees to please your old structure – as I see the trend going. Sooner or later that decision will backfire in ways you haven’t conceived of. Because evolution has a way to correct course of aberrant processes or to press the reset button and start again.
The only way through the storm ahead – and there is a big storm coming – is the Hero’s way. Organisations would either adapt to meet the needs of this new dawn or will perish.
The CWS Coaching Method® has the vision and tools to help transform your workforce from toxic top-down autocracy to self-leadership heroes, should you choose to be part of the change.
Just book a discovery call today: cws@infogratielarosu.com and let’s make it happen!
2024 © Gratiela Rosu – Mental Health & Wellbeing Specialist, Bestselling Author, Founder of CWS Method®
