Are You An Activist Leader?
If you're old school and not politically fighting a cause - you're not. If you're new school, and you activate richness of contribution in others, you are.
Being an Activist Leader is more about being. More about "who," and "how" than "what."
As leaders most of us are already beyond being good at doing. Across doing, we're scaling our work footprint across others. Doing with and thru those around us. We've let go, or so we believe, of being identified as the subject matter expert. Now we create them. Rather than restrain their development out of fear of losing our own territorial knowledge ground. As high achievers we get that we need those we rely on (more than they need us) if we going to scale and scale desired outcomes.
Activist leaders create conditions. Conditions that activate the unique and inherent richness in others. It's how we scale transformation. Over and over again - across wider and wider cooperating networks of knowledge partners.
Activist Leaders have come out of their closets.
They're no longer limited and bound by a need to be perceived as a results driven D-12 Caterpillar, moving massive obstacles to objectives. aside to get the results they need to continue building. Activist Leaders build way more than just profit, margin and share. Activist Leaders build people.
Activist Leaders let their realness show. They see the next horizon as emotional intelligence development, for themselves and others. It's the next vista.
And ironically, as soon as they express their understanding of others they come to see that their fears about opening up weren't at all justified. The walls they've built around them to protect them from being human in the workplace were all build for naught - due to bias thinking about how work had to be.
And as the Activist Leader in us expresses itself, we see our people, far from being skeptical, jaded or weary of our vulnerability, like we feared - actually applaud us with a sigh of relief. They appreciate the authenticity. It gives them permission to be vulnerable, take risks and express more fully their intelligence.
And so, as we open up and see that, it's more okay than we thought and our people are alright with who we are, we begin to laugh. And laugh. And laugh.
We laugh and echoing, deeply resounding, Buddha belly laugh.
We laugh at our ourselves, our paranoia, our vanity, our stupidity. We laugh at ourselves. And it feels good. Really, really, really, good. And healthy. Like we're young again. Activated. Revitalized. With bounce, buoyancy and elasticity.
Our laughing realization awakens a new found, previously unrecognized richness in ourselves.
And in the instant we see us for what we are - we see others for what they are and can become. And we become astonished. Simply astonished. Swept up in awe of the potential becoming we never saw before but so clearly see now.
And, aha . . . we have become an Activist Leader!
Exactly the leader we've always believed we were and others suspected we could be.
Are you an Activist Leader? You know.