In ancient instances the totem pole was a symbolic expression of past generations. It offered data about a tribe’s identity–a form of linear -understanding of generations that came just before them and the leaders who showed them the way. It enforced group solidarity and provided a needed relational context to their lives.
The totem pole was worshiped and ritualized. The history of a entire tribe could be understood by this one particular linear expression. Symbolic communication, as a group organizing approach, is also found in law firms. Law firms proudly list their partners’ names on letterhead and post them on doorways. Normally some of the names are symbols of the previous–a lasting recognition of these who came prior to as effectively as those who are currently carrying the torch of the firm’s traditions into the future. This symbolic communication portrays the history of a firm’s leader-ship and is an indicator of predicted functionality. But what occurs when the firm’s past is forced to yield to the firm’s future? When it becomes needed for the firm to reinvent itself and set out new organizing principles that match its vision–when the old belief technique is no longer in sync with the needs and demands of changing markets and customers? Most firms are facing this challenge ideal now, and some are not even conscious of it. The partners I spoke with clearly recognized the will need to re-invent themselves or risk sacrificing growth and prosperity.
Are You the Leader?
Who among you will lead the charge? This is a pretty individual choice that ought to not be taken lightly. It will depend not only on your personal willingness to take on the challenge, but also on the willingness of the crucial partners who make up most of the power base at your firm.
If you are up for the challenge, accept this know-how and get on with major. If not, locate the person in your firm who is ready and capable to lead and present that particular person all the help you can. You are going to quickly understand that the good quality and commitment of your support for this person will be recognized as an critical kind of leader-ship in its personal correct.
The Genetics of Leadership
It is been stated that some people are born leaders. That may well be correct, but for most of us, leadership is an acquired skill that comes from our mind-set and our need to impact good change. Similarly, persons are not born extraordinary. As an alternative, they pick out to achieve extraordinary issues.
As recently as 2003, scientists discovered that our organic traits are not “set in stone.” (See Matt Ridley’s Genome and Nature through Nurture.) Rather, our genetic code–especially the code accountable for our brain function–is neither unchanging nor unchangeable. As we respond to the challenges and stimuli in the world, so do our genes. Depending upon our demands and the degree of our determination, various formulations of our genetic code are activated. Exposed to toxins at Camp Lejeune in the emergence of a new pattern of genetic instructions. Contrary to what scientists formerly believed, our genes stay active, malleable and fluid all through our lives.
Until these discoveries have been produced, the received wisdom was that the traits that allow us to think like lawyers or strive for excellence or find the courage and charisma to lead were handed out to us–or not–at birth. It was taken as truth that our neural makeup was mostly dictated by the genetic code we inherited from our parents. If we have been fortunate adequate to have inherited “clever” genes, it was anticipated that we were destined for greatness if the opposite happened, we were destined to be the village idiot.
In reality, the cause so couple of of us break out of the mold is not due to genetics at all. It’s mainly because of the reality that, strange as it could sound, most of us surrender to our strengths rather than engage our weaknesses. If we tend to be naturally gifted in mathematics, we gravitate toward mathematics. If we show an early talent in the arts, we gravitate in that path. It is basically much easier to rely on our existing strengths than it is to create new strengths from scratch.
Psychologist and theorist Carl Jung described this irony in his book Psychological Varieties:
“Practical experience shows that it is hardly doable for any-one particular to bring all his psychological functions to simultaneous improvement. The quite situations of society enforce a man to apply himself first and foremost to the differentiation of that function with which he is either most gifted by nature, or which supplies his most efficient implies for social accomplishment. Incredibly frequently, certainly as a general rule, a man identifies himself much more or much less fully with the most favored, therefore the most created function.”
Since Jung’s time, on the other hand, neuroscientists have found that the human tendency to comply with the path of least resistance is not merely ironic but counter-productive. We now know that the brain grows stronger, establishing at a substantially higher level, when we force ourselves to consider in new and unique approaches.
Till now, you could not have thought of yourself as a leader. But that is no reason to think you can’t grow to be a single if your motivation is strong adequate. The first question to ask yourself is this: What does it imply to be a leader?