1.) Developing a leadership roadmap starts with mismatching the status quo. This means identifying what is not working and understanding how is it holding back the organisation. Mismatching is about identifying what is no longer awakening potential. These deterrents create cultures, behaviours, and systems that do not work on behalf of the possibility of the anyone’s potential.
2.) The second step is to become aware of the cultures and their origins that are driving and maintaining the status quo. Once you can see the enculturation that holds the current state, you can begin the process of moving past it.
3.) Next, you need to start having conversations that identify the stagnation. From a quadratic perspective, culture attempts to maintain values and identify structures. People hold onto culture because they fear change. It is this fear that causes so many organisations to resist change.
4.) The fourth perspective is to embrace resistance. Here you need to identify the structures and strategies that are in place even though they are no longer productive for the individual or the collective. Start to have conversations that engage people’s resistance by identifying the counter-frameworks that are fostering the status quo. These are the counter-commitments that stop people and organisations from shifting and leaning towards difference.
5.) From there, it is time to have people look at the possibility rather than the probability of themselves as individuals and the collective force toward an emergent vision. This can give rise to a vision that mismatches the status quo. It awakens people to the possibility of themselves and takes them to the next level of growth and development. It facilitates teams coming together differently to solve problems they never thought existed in new and innovative ways. This is the emergent property of having a vison.
6.) Step six is awakening the vision which brings us to the emergent process itself. This is when people think about how to do things differently and allow that thinking to creatively facilitate the emergent properties of possibility. This mismatches what currently is to the potential of what it could be. It is not something you do; rather it is something that emerges through the process of thinking differently.
7.) Step seven involves the management part of leadership. Here, you need to hold each other accountable to thinking differently as a means to awaken the possibility of creative expression and innovative ideas. Implement this new way of thinking person by person, action by action, behaviour by behaviour. Actualise it by taking different actions, having different conversations, and asking different questions of people to awaken each and everybody’s individual capacity to look at themselves, situations, and the organisation differently. With this comes the development of new systems, process, and procedures that have never been contemplated before in service of the collective possibility.
8.) Now it is time to identify where, when, and why the organisation is pulling themselves back. Having fierce and difficult conversations is necessary to move forward and not shy away from change. This is when managers who call themselves leaders start to come up with excuses as to why they should not continue following the path or vision. They may say that it is dangerous or will never work. This opens a conversation about their own possibilities and fears. If the vision were not possible there would be nothing to fear; it is only fearful because its possible.
9.) Once the vision is constructed, you can start the process to find out what is actually possible. The vision is not real because the way you envisage it is never how it happens. The vision is simply a construct to cultivate ideas and innovation, making it an emergent property of itself. Where the process takes you is an outcome of many outcomes because of the possibility of you which is always unfolding. Enlightened leading is about having a vision of the possibility to mismatch the status quo.
10.) The final step is understanding that leading is about the process itself, not the outcome. It is an unending process that never stops. When leaders stop, they go back to managing and perpetuating a fear-based strategy that seeks to maintain homeostasis. The point of leading is to constantly seek innovation.
As you follow the leadership roadmap, you will find that the emergent property of leading is discomfort. It is normal for this discomfort to facilitate fear. Learn to lean into it because that fear is your potential and possibility. It is pointing to the possibility of you rather than a signal to maintain the probability of you. This means awakening your true potential.
