Leaders today are asked to make big decisions. Or small decisions that have big consequences.
How is it that we find leaders and pension fund managers making decisions that have dyer consequences, repeatedly? Where, for example, they will choose to go with big ‘safe’ brand names even though the brand cost is multiplied and they intuitively know that the value proposition is far less than if they went with the small boutique firm? Or where the politician will run with the large corporate, even though they know that most of the money will end up outside of the community that the investment is supposed to serve, with little if any even making it into the tax pool?
I have written many times over the years about the principle of little atrocities…how good people can end up doing very bad things, one very small step at a time.
In my lifetime of experience working with people I actually believe that most people are good…very few are evil or really rotten. What makes people do bad things is a mix of environmental factors and what appears to them at the time like limited choices.
How do we steward the stewards?
How do we ensure that the decision makers are connecting to the core impulse of the decision and the field effects of this decision, and ejecting the greater pull of egoic sub tendencies (the need to be liked, right, seen as smart, seen as part of a particular tribe..etc); the pull of revoking their intuitive and sovereign choices to a perceived ‘authority’, be that an ‘expert’ consultant or smooth talking snake oil salesman; the pull of the status quo…which can be massive…”this is the way it has always been done”;…the pull of reflex…which allows for zero deep reflection and consideration of the consequences…where someone will simply accept it as it is because they have never asked why; and the pull of other pernicious agenda’s like our own self serving ones…more money and fame…?
Leaders and stewards are humans. We make mistakes. Always will.
To have a steward of stewards…a someone who has the ability to hold the space for the most whole and integrous unfolding of your choices and your business, a person to bare witness to your thinking process and ask the right questions to keep you on the track that is most right for you and your business, while also being able to comprehend the complexities of the greater systemic whole…this kind of relationship is not only extraordinary and necessary, it is also one that is likely to save you and the company you lead and inordinate amount of money and time from making bad decisions that are not aligned. (Not to mention the savings around things like potential divorce, relationship breakups, lack of health/illness..)
If you are interested in this type of relationship then let me know. I work with a very limited number of leaders and stewards in this domain. Plus I have access to a small pool of colleagues who do the same.
Photo credit:
Tristan Martin via Compfight
