Category: Openness

History of the Heart

Recent­ly, Louise Alt­man encour­aged me to write about the notion that “we know what we were by what is show­ing up today,” a throw-away line I left in a com­ment to one of her beau­ti­ful posts on The Inten­tion­al Work­place blog. Her inspir­ing arti­cle, about liv­ing with per­ma­nent uncer­tain­ty, evokes the dilem­mas we col­lec­tive­ly and… Con­tin­ue read­ing His­to­ry of the Heart

Leadership and Shame

Shame is that ter­ri­ble emo­tion that iso­lates us in a par­tic­u­lar­ly nasty way. To expe­ri­ence shame is to be con­demned and, in part at least, it is we who are doing the con­demn­ing. In the end the expe­ri­ence just leaves us to hurt. Brené Brown, the writer, speak­er and researcher cur­rent­ly most asso­ci­at­ed with the… Con­tin­ue read­ing Lead­er­ship and Shame

Two Types of Leadership Action

In a recent con­ver­sa­tion with an exec­u­tive I found myself explain­ing the dif­fer­ence between what I spon­ta­neous­ly called “Type I” and “Type II” lead­er­ship action. Type I is when a leader inquires infor­mal­ly about the expe­ri­ence of peo­ple, say over a cup of cof­fee or part of hall talk, wel­comes a gen­uine­ly open exchange, learns… Con­tin­ue read­ing Two Types of Lead­er­ship Action

Lessons in Snow

Late­ly, I’ve begun to think about the cul­ture of orga­ni­za­tions a lit­tle dif­fer­ent­ly than I used to. I once believed a medi­um or large size orga­ni­za­tion striv­ing to induce a major shift in the way things are done would have to do a great deal of ana­lyt­i­cal work, then set up and admin­is­ter rather large,… Con­tin­ue read­ing Lessons in Snow