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Showing posts from July, 2013

* Intimacy as a tool for Authentic Leadership

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When thinking of leadership per se, what comes to me first is the Biblical illustration that describes the relationship between shepherds and the sheep – leaders and followers. It’s their strong bond and intimacy that constituted the vivacity of their daily business. The shepherds named their sheep, gently communicated to them each day, and patted them on the head to settle them down each evening. Rather than distancing themselves and monitoring their followers by some other means, (if, at all, they had any) they ensured that they stayed close enough to observe their followers’ activities. In short, referring back to these illustrations would enable us to see that staying amicable, vulnerable and intimate with their followers were the crucial leadership tools leaders implemented to attaining their goals then. Can't we use these models, today? I bet we can.   One might say that for the 21st century leaders, patting their followers on the head may be taking things a bit too far.

* Attitude

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Attitude as defined by the Dictionary.com  as a manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc., with regard to a person or thing; tendency or orientation, especially of the mind : I believe my disposition with regard to a person or thing matters whether I would succeed in what I want to achieve in life. If my mind believes that I could really do a certain task despite its challenges, I am sure I would attain it…. maybe it could take more time than I first thought, but eventually, I would succeed. This is because I set my disposition in the direction of success, so the force that attempts to push against my will doesn’t have the power to crush the building stones I gather toward my destination. On the other hand, if my state of mind, what we actually call ‘attitude’, toward that particular task I mentioned above considers that I don’t have the guts and will to do so, I could easily be defeated. This is because my attitude was originally crippled. In this case I'm defeated even be