I almost wholeheartedly agree with this post Richard - and that rarely happens for me :). It mirrors what I've been discussing with colleagues in the leadership development space for a while (but which gets rejected). It's the article I've been trying to write for a while. I suspect the adult development space has drifted into an ideology that deifies and is obsessed with self and identity. While this is true enough at a particle level, it's full of traps and has always been too reductionistic for me.
The late, great psychiatrist Murray Bowen of Bowen Family Systems fame once said something close to "the problems with psychology and therapy is that is thinks the self is in the individual. The self is in the system of relationships".
Yes of course, grow and mature self. Grow yourself up, right where you are. No higher plane is needed - that's just a mental abstraction. But if you are a leader, you are also charged with designing and shaping the patterns of the system. So, also see the system and patterns, Shift the system. It's the right hemispheric way of paying attention to the world, that in itself changes the world, as Iain McGilchrist so powerfully explains and urges. An invitation to get beyond self quick time. Which is the paradox of 'adult development'.
Oh my gosh!!!! This is so wonderful I feel like I have been grappling something for years and you have just given me the language and the conceptual framework to think about it. Hallelujah!!! You even explain my deep frustration with leadership development in a way that finally makes sense.
I was going to say that I don’t meet many people who would ‘get’ this but that isn’t quite right. There are many people who feel it. They can’t articulate why but when asked they can point to a leader or a team experience where this kind of leadership was being practiced. They yearn to experience it again and mourn its loss.
You have opened up the world again Richard and I can’t thank you enough.
I almost wholeheartedly agree with this post Richard - and that rarely happens for me :). It mirrors what I've been discussing with colleagues in the leadership development space for a while (but which gets rejected). It's the article I've been trying to write for a while. I suspect the adult development space has drifted into an ideology that deifies and is obsessed with self and identity. While this is true enough at a particle level, it's full of traps and has always been too reductionistic for me.
The late, great psychiatrist Murray Bowen of Bowen Family Systems fame once said something close to "the problems with psychology and therapy is that is thinks the self is in the individual. The self is in the system of relationships".
Yes of course, grow and mature self. Grow yourself up, right where you are. No higher plane is needed - that's just a mental abstraction. But if you are a leader, you are also charged with designing and shaping the patterns of the system. So, also see the system and patterns, Shift the system. It's the right hemispheric way of paying attention to the world, that in itself changes the world, as Iain McGilchrist so powerfully explains and urges. An invitation to get beyond self quick time. Which is the paradox of 'adult development'.
Great article Richard. Thank you.
Oh my gosh!!!! This is so wonderful I feel like I have been grappling something for years and you have just given me the language and the conceptual framework to think about it. Hallelujah!!! You even explain my deep frustration with leadership development in a way that finally makes sense.
I was going to say that I don’t meet many people who would ‘get’ this but that isn’t quite right. There are many people who feel it. They can’t articulate why but when asked they can point to a leader or a team experience where this kind of leadership was being practiced. They yearn to experience it again and mourn its loss.
You have opened up the world again Richard and I can’t thank you enough.
Thank you, Felicity. I hope you still feel the same way when I get to alternative ways of developing and leading in a few weeks.