Leadership is a journey without final destination and with few reliable maps. To honestly face today’s challenges we need to be creative, resilient, resourceful, and courageous. Leaders need tools for working in complex, shifting environments. In times of unstable resources, they need to invite and empower everyone’s leadership, including their own. So how do we do this. Authentic leadership in the ALIA context focuses on three aspects, Mindfulness and authenticity to cultivate our own capacity to be genuine and courageous and to lead Tools for working with uncertainty and transforming situations we find ourselves in How to give space for others to develop and to empower them. These topics are explored in this Presentation

1. 15. March 2012
Introduction to Authentic Leadership
Chris Tamdjidi
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2. AGENDA
Our goals for today
Research: Mindfulness and leadership
Authentic leadership: A Journey
Exercises
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3. OUR GOALS FOR TODAY
Expand our understanding of mindfulness
• Not just a cure or a method - but an attitude or a way of being that
extends into all parts of our life
Review how mindfulness and leadership can intersect
Examine what Authentic leadership means
Practice, practice, practice. Discuss how we can apply this in our lives
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4. AGENDA
Our goals for today
Research: Mindfulness and leadership
Authentic leadership: A Journey
Exercises
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5. RESEARCH ON MINDFULNESS IS GROWING AT A RAPID RATE
Number of Publications per Year (1980 to 2012)
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
Source: Articles with Mindfulness in Title or Topic – Web of Knowedge – Initial
Research by Mindfulexperience.org, Update: own research
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6. RESEARCH ON MINDFULNESS IS GROWING AT A RAPID RATE
The benefits of mindfulness have been researched in many fields
Fields Research Focus
Quality of life Aging, relaxation, creativity, happiness, pregnancy, stress,
communication
Cognitive abilities Memory, concentration, directing awareness, perception, neuro-
plasticity and growth in grey matter.
Physical well- Blood pressure, chronic pain, diabetes, recovery from cancer
being /diseases, fibromyalgia, bran damage, hepatitis/HIV, heart
disease, immune system, headache, cancer, parkinsons, psoriasis
Psychological ADHD, anxiety, bipolar disorder, burnout, depression, sleep
well-being disorders, stress tinnitus, compulsive behavior
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7. WHAT IS LEADERSHIP?
And what is it NOT?
Many models of leadership exist
• Leadership is one of the oldest professions in the world…
• A long history of wisdom on leadership exists from 5000 years ago to
today
Leadership adapts to the situation that it finds itself in
• Leadership, followers and the situation are interdependent – none exist
separately from each other
Leadership is not just exercising authority – although many such models exist,
especially in the early years of corporations
Leadership is not the same as management
• One view: Leadership is doing the right things, management is doing
things right
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8. CURRENT THINKING ABOUT LEADERSHIP HAS MANY COMMON
THEMES
And what is it NOT?
Leadership starts with self-leadership
• Especially in todays high speed, quickly changing world without clear or
strong ethical systems
• Many leaders fail because they lack an inner maturity
Leadership has a lot to do with empowerment
• Workers require high skill sets and high flexibility – and have own access to
information (knowledge workers)
Leadership has a lot to do with helping others grow
• Maslows hierarchies of needs – peoples basic needs are often taken care of,
and success is increasingly being questioned
• Emotional intelligence of leaders seen as more important than pure
functional skills
Increasingly the lines between personal leadership and leading others is blurring
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9. WHERE DO LEADERSHIP AND MINDFULNESS INTERSECT?
The benefits of mindfulness also apply to leadership
Areas Impact
Recovery Recovery from stress, burnout, depression, health problems
High performance Productivity, balance between stress and recovery, work life
balance, concentration, creativity, energy management
Self management/ Understanding own emotions and motivation, self management,
self knowledge insight, wisdom
Emotional Communication, empathy, motivating and inspiring others,
intelligence
•Akron Group – Org Audit –
Sept2008/9
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10. MANY RENOWNED AUTHORS ARE WRITING ABOUT AUTHENTIC
LEADERSHIP AND MINDFULNESS
Harvard Business Review Articles
Level 5 Leadership - Primal Leadership - Resonant leadership - Authentic leadership -
Collins Goleman Boyatzkis George
Professional will Leadership: head and Great leaders create Knowing yourself – self
heart resonance awareness is most
• Focus on results
important point for a
• Unwavering • Good leaders leader
discipline attuned to peoples Usually many false
emotions and assumptions on how to
• Vision and move them in lead Practicing your values
standards of positive way • Being smart and and principles
enduring company
Four core skills working hard is • Formal practice
• Blame self not
• Self awareness – enough
others
self knowledge, • Emotions do not Lead with heart and
confidence matter head
Personal humility • Self management – • Stress and burnout • Passion for work
• Modest discipline, self are a part of life
control, optimism • Compassion for
• Inspired culture,
people
not personality • Social Awareness – Three key things for
cult empathy, service great leadership
• Quiet, calm • Relationship Build lasting
• Mindfulness relationships
determination management –
inspiration, • Vision/Inspiration • Genuine
• Success due to
others and good teamwork, • Compassion friendships
luck conflict
management Self discipline
Source: Harvard Business Review Artikel 2004-2008
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11. MINDFULNESS IS INCREASINGLY PRESENT IN THE BUSINESS WORLD
Quotes from Leaders
Modern office life and an increasingly common condition called “attention deficit trait”
are turning steady executives into frenzied underachievers. Caused by brain overload,
ADT is now epidemic in organizations. The core symptoms are distractibility, inner
frenzy and impatience. People with ADT have difficulty staying organized, setting
priorities and managing time. These symptoms can undermine the work of an otherwise
gifted executive. Edward Hallowell - Overloaded Circuits: Why Smart People
Underperform
A successful approach to sustained high performance, must consider the person as a
whole. An integrated theory of performance management addresses the body, the
emotions, the mind, and the spirit. Each of its levels profoundly influences the others,
and failure to address any one of them compromises performance. Loehr and Schwartz –
Making of the Corporate Athlete - Harvard Business Review
Meditation, typically viewed as a spiritual practice, can serve as a highly practical
means of training attention and promoting recovery. Practiced regularly, meditation
quiets the mind, the emotions, and the body, promoting energy recovery. [Loehr und
Schwartz – The Making of the Corporate Athlete in Harvard Business Review]
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12. MINDFULNESS IS INCREASINGLY PRESENT IN THE BUSINESS WORLD
Quotes from Leaders
“When the 75 members of Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Advisory Council were
asked to recommend the most important capability for leaders to develop, their answer
was nearly unanimous: self-awareness.” - Bill George - Discovering your Authentic
Leadership, Harvard Business Review
“Meditation has been the single most important thing I have done to improve my
leadership. It has helped me become more self-aware and more compassionate toward
myself and others. It has also enabled me to remain calm and clear-thinking in the face of
pressure and uncertainty.” Bill George – CEO Medtronics and Author of “Authentic
Leadership”
Contrary to popular belief, cultivating the capacity for mindfulness is not just a nice-to-
have or something to be done for private reasons: it is actually essential for sustaining
good leadership. It can be one of the most important things we do, resulting in a stepwise
change in our effectiveness as leaders. Mindfulness – An essential aspect of resonant
leadership – Harvard Business Review – Boyatzis and McKee
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13. AGENDA
Our goals for today
Research: Mindfulness and leadership
Authentic leadership: A Journey
Exercises
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14. WHY AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP?
Demanding times
• High competitive pressure – Globalisation, Speed, Saturated markets, and high
expectations of return.
• Focus on financial goals and associated loss of other values, de-humanisation of
companies and weakening of leadership
Courageous and authentic leaders necessary
• Leaders are required to contribute to growth in values in their companies and
also societies
• Realisation that success is more than financial/material returns – but material
well being is crucial to survival for companies.
Inner work is necessary
• Tremendous internal fragmentation of leaders (attention deficit disorder) –
focusing and raising of energy necessary
• Mindfulness, personal discipline and ethics as path to cultivate inner strengths
and appreciation
• Proper vision and values brings energy and strength
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15. WHAT IS AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP?
In order to develop oneself as a leader, one has to train body, heart and mind
• Body: Strength, vitality and presence.
• Heart: Passion, Ability to motivate and emotional intelligence
• Mind: Inner peacefulness, Wisdom, clarity of understanding
• INNER PATH as well as ACTIVITY IN THE WORLD
Congruence of vision and values
• Personal, team, organisation values supporting societal values
• Without vision it is not possible to motivate people – money alone is not a
vision
• Without values one cannot realise the heart of ones vision
Harmony of being, action and results
• Mindfulness, thoughtfulness and reflection as part of leadership process
• Ability to take decisions to the benefit of all (people, results)
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16. AGENDA
Our goals for today
Research: Mindfulness and leadership
Authentic leadership: A Journey
Exercises
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