Clear Leadership
February 1, 2004 by admin
A friend of mine, Gervase Bushe, wrote a very useful book: Clear Leadership. The insights and framework are based upon his career as a professor and business consultant
Clear Leadership is full of practical and immediately useful mental models and advice. Organizations are beginning to use it as a framework for leadership training at all levels.
After reading this book, I created a mnemonic and a drawing that help me keep a few of the book's key points in mind and handy for my use. I give them to you with Gervase's permission.
SOFTeNeD stories and maps.
Sensing–what is my body telling me? Am I poised for a fight, to flee, to hear, to learn, to have fun, etc.
Observing–what would others agree happened, what was objective, what data can we agree upon and share?
Feeling–awareness of feelings is very useful early on, as feeling color everything else.
experience, each person has a different one
Need (want)–what do I want to happen, what do I want in the way of agreements.
experience, our stories come from our experience, we can share these and ask others to share their's. Experience is subjective and has numerous aspects (SOFTND)
Do–what will I do and what will I agree to do?
This little graphic represents for me Gervase's four profound senses of self and matching sets of skills:
Appreciative self–the halos, understand what you and the other have done that you would like to see more of. It is a kind of “assets based” approach or “appreciative” approach and comes form the appreciative inquiry framework.
Aware self–the recursive loop, suggests that we spend time first going over the SOFTeNeD algorithm personally, before trying to tell others or ask others.
Descriptive self–the arrow from my mouth to the other's ear, suggests that I must describe my SOFTeNeD stories and maps to the other in an appreciative frame and expressing understanding that it is only my experience, not all facts.
Curious self–the arrow from the other's mouth to my ear, suggests that I must have skill in asking and hearing about their experiences and if possible their SOFTeNeD stories and maps. I try to hear in an appreciative frame.
It has been about a year since I read this book and I have not reviewed it for this post. I hope you will pick the book up and work with the concepts in it. We can all do our parts to reduce the “interpersonal mush” in our organizations and communities as well as at home.
