I’m reading Robert Greenleaf’s leadership classic Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness and it’s just loaded with wisdom and perspective on leadership ethics and practice. Here’s a great insight on the formation and role of awareness which is similar to Edwin Friedman’s writings on the connection between self-differentiation and leadership vision.
“The cultivation of awareness gives one the basis for detachment, the ability to stand aside and see oneself in perspective in the context of one’s own experience, amidst the ever present dangers, threats, and alarms….Awareness is not a giver of solace–it is just the opposite. It is a disturber and an awakener. Able leaders are usually sharply awake and reasonably disturbed. They are not seekers after solace. They have their own inner serenity.”
–Robert K. Greenleaf, “The Servant as Leader,” Servant Leadership, 27-28.
Part of what I like about this is that it speaks to the cost of vision and discernment. There’s a lot of self-proclaimed discerning or “aware” people out there, but few demonstrate that they are separate enough in their character and makeup to truly see things from a bigger picture and be able to bear the disturbances they SEE from a secure and connected place.
