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Where Did My False Beliefs Come From?
After The Three Levels of Leadership came out in 2011, readers followed up with questions on leadership, leadership psychology and self-mastery – all of them interesting. So interesting, in fact, that I’m releasing my answers here as they supplement the “Three Levels” material and others may find them useful. Here’s the fourteenth in the series. I’ll post the others over the coming months…
Q14. Where did my False Self beliefs come from, especially my negative self-image ?
“In a sense it doesn’t matter where they came from. What only matters is that you have a False Self self-image.
I say that not to dismiss the importance of the question, but to focus you on the practical challenge before you. You see, it’s interesting to understand the origins of your False Self beliefs, but it won’t necessarily help you move beyond them, to let them go. Continue reading →
The First Quality of Leadership Presence: Personal Power
In my book, The Three Levels of Leadership, I’ve written about “leadership presence”. In chapter 5, I described the seven qualities of presence, the first being Personal Power.
Personal power is control over your mind. It recognises that although we can’t always control outer events – including others’ behaviour towards us – we can always choose our response to those events. Thus, it’s power over oneself; it’s not a drive to gain power over other people. It doesn’t spring from a need to gain the status, prestige or visibility that power over others brings or an urge to impose your viewpoint through force.
The importance of personal power is this: if you can’t direct and lead yourself, you’ll find it hard to direct others because they’ll sense your lack of inner command. Thus, personal power (as opposed to the power that impressive job titles offer) is crucial to anyone wanting to be a successful leader.
Why am I writing about this now? Continue reading →
What One Thing Would Help Leaders With Presence?
I received this question on my YouTube channel in response to the video, “What is Presence?“: What one thing do you think would help leaders with presence? I couldn’t answer it fully on YouTube as I was limited to 500 characters, so here’s my full answer…
“It depends what you mean by presence (sometimes referred to as leadership presence or executive presence). Do you mean real presence or what looks like presence?
What I mean by “presence” is something no one can fake. It’s the real you, embodied, in action. But “charisma”, as I explain in the second video in the series, “Presence versus Charisma“, is different. I use the term charisma to mean faked presence. Charisma can mimic presence, but it’s usually found out either because of the charismatic person’s negative effect on others or because he/she crumbles under pressure.
I’ll assume you mean real presence. Now your question was, “What one thing do you think would help leaders with presence?” Continue reading →
Leadership Qualities & Traits
Many people believe that leaders are born not made and think all leaders share certain leadership qualities. Thus, they believe, the key to having good leaders is to find people with the right leadership traits… and perhaps give them some training.
The Problem
Now leaving aside the question of whether leaders are born or made, which I’ve addressed in this blog article – “Are Leaders Born or Made?” – there’s a problem with this line of thinking on leadership traits: research shows there is no universal, common set of leadership qualities. Continue reading →
The Four Keys To Becoming A Good Leader
I wrote an article elsewhere about the 4 keys to becoming the best leader you can be. You could say it’s a high-level summary of my leadership book, The Three Levels of Leadership. It’s too long to fit in this blog, but the 4 keys are:
(1) Have a clear practical definition of leadership (many of us have a fuzzy, unhelpful view of it).
(2) Know the purpose of a leader (because “leader” and “leadership” aren’t the same thing). Continue reading →
Leadership, Consciousness, Mind & Brain
This article offers leaders the chance to understand more about the distinctions between consciousness, mind and brain and why this matters to their growth and success as leaders. It draws on recent neuroscience research and explains the essence of self-mastery.
What Is Leadership Presence (Part 2)?
In part 2, James Scouller, author of the book The Three Levels of Leadership, continues his look at this elusive characteristic of great leaders, leadership presence. This time he compares presence to charisma. He argues that the difference between them matters because it shows in the leader’s behaviour under pressure.
What is Leadership Presence (Part 1)?
Leadership presence is a key to being an effective leader, so what is it exactly? How does it show itself? And what is the source of presence? In part 1, James Scouller, author of The Three Levels of Leadership, explains this hard-to-define characteristic of great leaders.
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