DEMO: Developing Your Wise Advocate

How can you develop far-sighted leaders throughout your enterprise? How do you find the inner voice of strategic leadership? We’ve been researching these questions, drawing on insights from neuroscience, organizational learning, social psychology, coaching, and the study of values. There are two types of leadership common today at all levels of an enterprise: transactional (making deals, solving problems, pleasing customers and your boss) and strategic (challenging existing ways of thinking, accomplishing things that others consider impossible, galvanizing people around the organization to transcend limits). Each is linked to a different pattern of mental activity and an associated brain circuit—transactional to the low ground of the mind and brain and strategic to the high ground. Both are habit-forming. Both are necessary for the leaders of today and tomorrow. By focusing your attention, you can become more effective at both. A great leader balances the low ground and high ground, moving by choice between expedience (solving problems) and strategy (making a better world). With this practice, you draw on the wise advocate within your mind. This is the inner voice of strategic leadership: seeing yourself as others might see you, with full compassion and care for your success. Calling on the wise advocate changes people; it helps them become more capable leaders, speaking with that voice in the organization around them. This helps them overcome the deceptive messages that travel through an organization’s culture and hold everyone back. With enough people embodying the inner voice of strategic leadership, an organization can take on a wise advocate role in society at large. Learning to draw on your wise advocate will provide you with three things: 1) the ability to balance the low ground and high ground by moving between expedience (solving problems) and strategy (making a better world) 2) the emotional intelligence to see yourself as others may see you, with full compassion and care for your success 3) the confidence to help overcome deceptive messages traveling through an organization’s culture holding everyone back.