%% #📓 #📄 #🟠 %% **Title:** The Practice of Leadership **Author:** [[Michael Carey]] **Citation:** Carey, M. (n.d.). *The practice of leadership.* [Handout]. Blackboard. https://learn.gonzaga.edu. --- # Summary *Authentic, transformational leaders seek to be conscious and transcend themselves. They empower followers to become leaders themselves* # Notes & Important Ideas - [[leadership as consciousness]] = leader has larger vision of what's possible than the follower does (p.1) - [[true self]] = developmental journey to reject the false self created by societal compulsion - [[transactional vs transforming leadership]] - leadership consciousness drives us toward [[self-transcendence]] - [[human development and moral leadership]] - [[satyagraha]] - [[fundamental option]] = indicates life direction or stable orientation that exists at core level of human person > "When transforming leadership is viewed as a tool which can be used or manipulated to serve a purpose, and then placed back into the leader's bag-of-tricks, it ceases to be moral and becomes at best merely transactional and at worst ideological" (p. 21). ## Connections to Other Materials ### Fundamental option One of my favorite thought leaders is [[Michael Bungay Stanier]]. He is a champion for coaching as a key force for leadership development and culture change. His work speaks to what I see as the key way to facilitate transformation - empowerment through coaching. In a [webinar about how to develop a coaching mindset](obsidian://open?vault=Brain%20Forest&file=References%2FSources%2FThe%20Coaching%20Mindset%20with%20MBS%20-%20Burkus) Bungay Stanier discusses the importance of asking questions instead of giving advice. He points out that this can be very uncomfortable and challenging for many leaders and suggests that part of the reason is that you give up control or [[power]] when you ask a question. He goes on to assert that "this is what [[empowerment]] is. It's not just trying to give other people power, it's giving up some of your power so they get some of it" (Burkus, 2016, 27:56). This connects to Carey's (n.d.) idea of the fundamental option as a choice between [[self-embeddedness]] or [[self-transcendence]]. The leader who only gives advice believes they have insight into the truth and attempts to "transform" the follower to conform with that truth. But the leader who asks more questions and is more coach-like chooses the fundamental option of self-transcendence and leaves themself open to transformation. --- # Personal Reflection & Application ### [[Do leaders have to suffer]]? >> While I completely embrace the idea of the leader being the tool or instrument that helps others develop, I struggle with Gandhi's reflection that the only way to embrace relationship as the "means which is the end in the making" that leads to non-violence is through suffering. # Other References ## Tags [[transformational leadership]] | [[transforming leadership]]