if a PPT, than this PPT

August 2010, I was invited for the ODWS, the World Summit of the Organizational Development Network in Budapest (Hungary), to give a workshop about Mindful Leadership. I was surprised to find so many continents in the same room.

Hungarians of course, but also people from the US, Canada, Finland, Australia, Israel, The Philippines, Austria, Argentina. I talked about the common notion of Leadership as something personal. And about my doubts: if there are more than 23 million hits on Google Images on ‘books on leadership’, what is wrong? The same counts for the more than 18 million hits on Google Images regarding: ‘Leadership model’…

I felt the inner need to share the urge to undo Leadership of its most common asssumption: leadership as a personal quality. The kind of  thinking : ‘If you don’t have it (like Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Mandela…), you just fix it…’

I say no. Leadership is not a personalized quality. It lives in any system. The notion of personalised leadership deprives an organization to really listen. And most of all to listen to the inherent wisdom of the system itself.

I did not use this PPT at the conference itself, but it might give you some idea:

ODWS Mindful Leadership Budapest

the metaphor of the pier

• • 
  • Any organization is based on people. Like this pier is based on its wooden piles. If you take a closer look at the picture: would you dare to go here and back on its walkway? You might see the piles and think : oops, every pile is different, some are so leaning, others even chopped off….. ! Or you might look at the whole structure and think : wow! it seems quite solid. Maybe it even listens to the present moment.  To the sun and the water, their rising and falling, the people on the walkway…. and it adapts itself.

The difference of perspective highly matters

and it is all about Trust