The land of uncertainty; cradle of mankind

As you will remember from my communication last month I intend to share with you some leadership ideas, something about the practice of development and something in the context of an African Renaissance dream in a monthly communication. If you don’t want to receive this communication you can unsubscribe.

This month I would like to share with you an extract from Robert Quin’s book Deep Change – Discovering the leader within. After explaining the difference between incremental change (usually the result of rational analysis and a planning process with limited scope) and deep change (requires new ways of thinking and behaving with major scope) he writes: ‘Most of us build our identity around our knowledge and competence in employing certain known techniques or abilities. Making a deep change involves abandoning both and “walking naked into the land of uncertainty.”…It is therefore natural for each of us to deny that there is any need for a deep change.’ Looking at the quote, I certainly know what he is talking about and I’m sure you also know. The problem is that for us to grow in order that our organizations can grow, we need from time to time to ‘walk naked into the land of uncertainty’ – I suppose it is part of leadership courage!

Development

More than one of the leaders I have recently talked to about my leadership development/coaching process admitted to the fact that 360 degree leadership assessment for top management is ‘scary’. I don’t deny it. The fear of being exposed is human. However, at the same time we will all admit that we would like to be more effective as leaders. To grow the organization we need to grow the leaders and to grow leaders we need to assess our leadership effectiveness. A 360 degree assessment, when correctly handled and used in coaching, remains the most powerful and effective way of stimulating new personal and
leadership growth. It furthermore has the potential of creating an environment of mutual accountability for leadership behavior.

African Renaissance

My paragraph on Africa is this little bit of information regarding human origins. If we would follow our footsteps back into history, we will end up in Africa once again. At a time when talk of an African Renaissance is so topical, it is interesting to note that findings of genetic, archaeological, geological and linguistic research indicate that Africa is the cradle of mankind. The existence of modern humans can be traced back to Africa over 150 000 years ago. From there a group migrated for the first time through Egypt and Israel about 120 000 years ago from where they spread out to the rest of the world some 50 000 years later. Next time I will move on a bit in time.

Hope you will enjoy spring and be successful with your current challenges.

Kind regards