Welcome to this first part on "Demystifying Leadership with Neuro-Semantics." In this part, we will be exploring the myths surrounding leadership. In the subsequent parts, we will be exploring:
What is Leadership
The Neuro-Semantics of Actualising Self-Leadership
Five Essential Leadership Skills
and we will summarise them all in the final part
(click here to view the video)
Hi! I'm Marzuki. I help people like you to systemically develop skills in leading, communicating and coaching to bring out the best in yourself and others. By actualising that you can experience an exceptional quality of life filled with happiness, creativity and fulfilment.
Do you want to know how to actualise your leadership potential?
Do you want to become more effective as a leader and get results?
According to best-selling author and world-renowned leadership expert, John C Maxwell, "Everything rises and falls on leadership." The fortunes of nations, societies and families rise and fall on leadership. Your personal fortunes rise and fall on your leadership. Leadership is as important to an individual as it is to nations and the world.
Why aren't more people actualising their leadership potential? One of the many reasons is that myths surrounding leadership confuse and frustrates people from developing their leadership ability.
Myths
What are myths? Myths are merely thoughts, ideas or concepts that people believe to be true. Beware of myths! They trap your thinking and abilities. That is why you want to debunk these myths to free yourself from their clutches. Let's just take on a few myths and explore the truths behind them.
MYTH - Leaders are born, not made. TRUTH - Leadership is learned, developed, cultivated, nurtured, groomed, and unleashed!
MYTH - Leaders all have certain traits. TRUTH - Leadership is about the state, not traits. It encompasses many different traits.
MYTH - Leadership only exists at the top. TRUTH - Leaders exist at every level.
MYTH - Leadership is a rare experience. TRUTH - Leadership is a common experience and everyone has some potential for leadership.
MYTH - Leaders are charismatic. TRUTH - Leaders are authentic with many different styles.
MYTH - Leadership is about position and status. TRUTH - Leadership is about functioning, about leading.
MYTH - Leaders control and manipulate people, exercises power over people. TRUTH - Leaders facilitate and empower. Leaders empower others, power with others.
MYTH - Leadership is about you. TRUTH - It is not about you, it is about those you lead and the mutual vision.
Myth Busting
How you recognise and debunk a myth? The Meta-Model of Language is a precise model of how you structure language in your mind. From this model, you have the Meta-Model Questions that you can use to shine the light of specificity that can bust myths. Here are the Basic Meta-Model Questions:
How do you know?
Says who?
How specifically?
When specifically?
What are you assuming?
A strategy that I frequently use is to question if the inverse is true. "Does this always happen? What about Y event?"
Let's take the example "Leaders know everything." Asking the question "Does this always happen?" quickly revealed the answer to be "NO!" because I recalled a specific event where I was facilitating a brainstorming session for an organisation. They were looking for ideas to boost sales. The best answer that was adopted by the organisation did not come from the leader. It came from the Tea Lady! The leader did not know everything. Myth busted!
What’s the problem with “Leadership”?
One problem with "leadership" is the word itself. It is a nominalisation. A nominalisation is a behaviour or a verb that became frozen when we put a category label or noun to it. In doing so we lose sight of the original behaviour. Then we use our imagination as to what it meant.
What is the image that you have about “Leadership”?
For me, for many years, it was the image of people in positions of power -- Positional Leadership. I think of a person being a manager therefore that person is a leader. A person is a CEO. Therefore the person is a leader. A person is a prime minister or a president. Then the person is a leader. Others are not leaders. I was stuck in that belief, in that mindset. Since I wasn't in a position of power, therefore I wasn't a leader. That was the paradigm that I was stuck in for so many years.
The key to developing leadership is to break it down into behaviours associated with it. Then identify the component skills to perform those behaviours. The next step is to diligently practice each skill to become more and more skilful when performing those behaviours.
In the next part, we will be discussing "What is Leadership?"
Note:
The Neuro-Semantics Models mentioned in this article were developed by Dr. L. Michael Hall, Director and Co-Founder of Neuro-Semantics.
More information about Neuro-Semantics Models: https://www.neurosemantics.com/ns-its-models/