“Mankind owns four things
That are no good at sea:
Rudder, anchor, oars,
And the fear of going down.”[i]
In leadership, we are often responsible for things we don’t completely control. Some refer to it as the Authority Paradox. The more authority we have, it seems, the less we can rely on authority to get what we want.[ii]
It takes psychological and emotional maturity to lead, to stay passionate, and to accept that we don’t have complete control. Fear often makes us think too much about ourselves. We spend our cognitive and emotional energies identifying and avoiding what we fear.
When we trend ourselves toward the higher levels of adult development, we embrace passion-based thinking. We release ourselves from preoccupation with our own safety so we can focus on the living systems that surround us.
When we lead from a passion-based cognitive and emotional operating system, we seed environments to make it likely that certain things will happen. Then we dance with patterns, encouraging the productive and discouraging the counterproductive. We use our adaptive abilities to build consensus and seize early wins. We bring people together, and we build momentum.
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Fern EPC specializes in empowering physicians, physician leaders, and executives through Adaptive Development coaching.
[i] Antonio Machado. Translation by Robert Bly.
[ii] From Joel Trammell.
