Thinking and feeling about leadership

In April i spent some time with some “emerging leaders” thinking about leadership in general, how we learn to lead and what gets in the way of us being the leaders we want to be. It was a fascinating learning workshop and I wanted to share some insights from it with you, in particular the different perspectives you get when considering leadership from a “thinking” perspective or a “feeling” perspective. So, let me ask you two questions:

1. What words do you associate with “leadership”?
2. What does leading feel like? (You don’t need to have leader in your job title to be leading – consider whatever context makes sense for you)

You can see the groups answers below.

How do these compare to your words? What do you notice is different between the different images?

We also talked about different models of leadership that we’d heard of, including “authentic leadership” and “inclusive leadership”. Underpinning all of these was the idea of leading according to your values. So I left the group with an exercise to do on values. You can do it too by visiting the DIY coaching page on the SendThemSoaring website. When you’ve identified your values, you can use these to help you be the leader you want to be.