LIFE LEADERSHIP DOMAINS

MOOD MANAGERS
– Facing Facts
– Exploring Possibilities
– Embracing Uncertainty
– Seeking Growth

REALITY CREATORS
– Emotioning
– Presencing
– Relating
– Languaging

MOVIE MAKERS
– Inner Producer
– Inner Director
– Inner Scriptwriter
– Inner Actor

ENERGY PRODUCERS
– Inside-Out Energy
– Outside-In Energy
– Top-Down Energy
– Bottom-Up Energy

How to engage and meet resistance by making offers and requests that are hard to resist.

Top-down energy comes from a unique vantage point from which a bigger picture can aid the alignment of technical actions with possible solutions. The legal system is a good example. There are rules to be followed, but they can also adapt to new changing times. By combining these energy sources, we might motivate ourselves (with inside-out energy), engage an institution (with top-down energy), involve a pressure group (with bottom-up energy) and respond positively to customer demands (outside-in energy). We have the authority to determine the rules that will ensure the cooperation and collaboration of others to energise and combine actions to tackle a shared complex problem.

No group can function effectively when all possible truths are in play and conflict with each other. As a result, the person(s) with power and authority must come to a tacit, or sometimes explicit, agreement about which truth will serve the best interests of the stakeholder at a given time, and have the power to influence decisions and how others will react and interact.

Finding authority and control

You can use your authority to demand compliance or exert control. But it can fail if the situation is complex and requires creative solutions when people need to think for themselves and take full responsibility for their personal actions. Your task then is to communicate, and coordinate effectively.

This Top-Down Energy comes from knowing that there are many possibilities, but the truth is contained within one best way of doing things. It stems from the belief that no group can function effectively when all the possible truths are in play and conflict with each other. As a result, the people with power and authority need to come to a tacit, or sometimes explicit, agreement about which truth will serve their shared interests.

“The leader’s goal is to induce followers – transform them – to come to accept the leader’s values – his or her standards of what are acceptable goals, behaviour and overall conduct – as their own. It is an intimate, personal life-transforming task”. – Gilbert W Fairholm

Top-down energy is embedded in systems created to control other subsystems (such as human beings) in organisations, groups, networks, and communities. These systems impose a way of relating that places one individual (or a divine being) personified as being responsible for ensuring adherence to the system’s rules or principles, to ensure its continued viability and direction. For example, your body can only be a viable system if the brain does

Traditional command and control

For example, your body can only be viable if the brain does its job effectively. For you, it could be your god, a prophet, boss, father or any form of authority that can obtain your commitment and cooperation. It could be a legal or political system that has leaders and managers whose role is to maintain a viable society. Kevin Wilber refers to this as the “IT’S Quadrant”. I refer to it as “THEM” because they seek to impose their will on “US”. Clare Graves saw these values as “Blue vMemes” where the thinking is concerned with imposing procedures, routines, order and the correct way of doing things to secure compliance.

No matter where we sit, there will usually be someone judging us. Someone to whom we feel accountable. Even in our own body, we have a brain and our conscience to energise us.

The Life Leader philosophy holds that we have the capacity as free thinkers and human observers to take more responsibility for our lives and see ourselves as creators of change and not victims of unconscious habits and bigger systems that seek to dominate the way we live. We are human beings with minds, consciousness, and thought, with which we can energise ourselves to access the energy around us. Instead of relying on others, we need to own our own experience and trust our intuition.

We all tend to defer to authority figures from time to time. We grew up with them after all. Even our approach to learning involves deferring to what the experts know rather than questioning how we know what we know. I want you to check out what makes sense to you, so you know it from your own experience of being and doing. This is what the website is all about.

Thinking Strategically

Below is a list of questions that emerge when a business is engaging in a highly competitive disruptive market.

Your Energy Producers

Seen from the bottom-up, top-down energy is about “them” getting “us” to comply when we share culture and can collaborate. Seen from the top-down, energy is about getting compliance with the system, where rules and ethical codes are required. We all have experienced leaders, heroes, managers, family, etc., who seek our compliance with their will, wisdom or power.

Top-Down Leadership

Leadership is often linked to dominance, power over others, and a certain quality of strength. The ontological approach adopts a different view, drawing on the original meaning of the word power, as it has been used for centuries in Buddhist traditions or even in the French word ‘pouvoir’ which means to be able to have a controlling influence over others.

For example:

• to be able to choose how to respond.
• to be able to influence.
• to be able to respond spontaneously to what comes unexpectedly.

To be able to lead for life all three of these characteristics are important as they allow choice, influence and spontaneity. Our capability to succeed in a context where we are expected to comply with the rules placed upon us requires the inside-out energy that comes from aligning our inherent capacities to the values and priorities of those who enable us to move through life and space by offering stability and support.

My approach to learning is to focus on techniques that will help people access and see their own knowledge as their most valuable asset. That’s why I call my learning material “guides” as nobody knows you better than you know yourself. I am not trying to impose an ontological perspective on you, just to raise your awareness of its potential.  It seems that the age of the guru and a command and control culture is on the wane. Today’s young people expect to be motivated, energised and engaged. You have to take yourself on a learning journey towards widening your perception of who you are and empowering yourself as a human being in order to have power over others. Authority can come from being truthful, trustworthy and committed to a shared vision.

Our language, moods, emotions, and body are uniquely our own, yet we share the same humanity. As human beings, we will always display similarities and differences as we make different interpretations of what we “see”. This makes us more conscious of a wider reality than those in authority might sometimes want us to have. We are challenging authority more and more as we make our own judgments about our engagement, accountability, and productivity.

The choice is yours

The ultimate responsibility for what happens in your life is down to you. There will always be constraints as you make choices, but you always have the freedom to change those choices if you are aware of life’s abundance of possibilities. Respect your inner wisdom and intelligence and see them, not as a source of power, but as work in progress.

No matter where you are or how high you rise there is always someone who will have authority over you. Your parents, your boss, your god, your stakeholders, your voters, your trustees, your board, the law, etc.  There is always someone to whom you are accountable, formally or informally. But remember, the rate of change and unpredictability of events means we are all learning.  Nobody has a monopoly on power.

“Change changes itself”   – Kevin Kelly ‘Out of Control’

We now live in an age of growing uncertainty where loyalty is seldom rewarded, yet always expected from those in authority. Values, strategy, policy, programmes, projects, and priorities get handed down. Even when you are your own “boss” you are still accountable to someone for your honesty and your taxes.

It seems that as soon as the direction and goals are agreed, circumstances can change and promises get broken. There are numerous examples in business, politics and the media where trust is lost when the people they rely on for their legitimacy feel betrayed.  This undermines authority to the point where integrity is questioned. Transformational change is no longer realistic when a world of increasing complexity demands greater adaptability, mitigation, and agility.

Being of help to others

There is always the chance that you will respect someone. Usually, they will help you find out more about yourself. It is not a good idea to accept an assessment made by anyone else you trust their evidence.  Indeed, you should not make assertions yourself without grounding and being satisfied with the evidence.

Even in a helping relationship, there can be top-down energy at work. Your behaviour has the power to influence those who observe you, just as others have the power to influence you. Leadership can come from accessing this top-down energy, but it is most effective when it is based on the high standards and integrity when being yourself.

“The person being helped is one down and therefore vulnerable; the helper is one up and therefore powerful. Much of what goes wrong in the helping process is the failure to acknowledge this initial imbalance…. although the imbalance is clear, the social economics of how to fix it is not.”  – Edgar Schein

Tension can be felt between the four sources of energy, especially when there is an imbalance. This website explores how intuition is the quickest energy flow as it can bring about a change in an instant. The thinking process is the next quickest energy flow in the mind of a master. Emotional energy is even slower. Even when you start to think about something else it persists. The slowest energy flow, surprisingly, is the physical body. All energy flows are registered in the body tissue and nervous system. Any imbalances appear as “aches” in the body and “concerns” in the mind. They often result from unresolved dilemmas and feelings, mental blocks, dissatisfactions, and breakdowns.  You will discover these for yourself. In this website, you will find strategies for addressing them.

Detach yourself from your ego and hero

Our over-identification with celebrity and charismatic leaders seems to be damaging society. The values of the media are being challenged. The hero-worship is fueling great disillusionment as many celebrities fail to come up to our expectations of them. Maybe it is unrealistic to expect leaders to be consistent, to do what they say or to lead by example. Leading in this complex and unpredictable world is always going to be a messy business and you have to develop a thick skin to protect your compassionate heart.

If there are heroes, then it is likely to be you, if you are prepared to take responsibility for your life and not be a victim. When you are prepared to give thanks to others and not expect it for yourself. You may be expected to perform miracles, yet it is more important to you have productive conversations, negotiate realistic expectations, gather support and hold on to what is doable.

Discover ways in which you can go beyond ego by letting go of the past as it no longer exists except in your thoughts and not worrying about the future as it hasn’t happened yet. Try refocusing on your thoughts in-the-moment and pay attention to how you can be your best self in the way you speak, relate and behave.

Influence through stories

Different people can get different messages from the same story. What was intended isn’t always what is received. You look at things from your own personal perspective. Those at the bottom can hear a different story from that which was intended by those in authority. When you make a declaration, such as asserting your intention, making a promise or explaining a strategy the story has to be told in a way that makes sense to those receiving it. If not frustration, wasted energy and a failure to act can result.

If you give lots of detail to those who just want a general sense of what is expected they will switch off.  The opposite is also true. Before you make a declaration it is helpful to ask yourself the simple question before someone else does.  So, what do you mean by this? As the speaker, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the listener.

Explore how “open listening” can help you blend your story with your ontology. This means turning your story into more of a conversation that poses and answers the questions your “followers” are likely to be asking themselves. Effective leaders learn from the feedback they get. Even failure is useful feedback. But when a story strikes a chord it is retold over and over again by followers.  This is the way people show their loyalty with the top-down message.  Not to do so is to be “off message” and not a member of the “tribe”.

I have listened to a number of speeches recently, made by political leaders in the UK elections. They contain similar threads.

1. This is who I am, where I come from and what made me who I am today

2. What we are here for, what we stand for and who would miss us if we didn’t exist

3. What we have achieved and what we should be proud of

4. How our values shape how we relate to others and what we have still to overcome

5. What we want to be known for and how we can get there

These “stories” seem to have two audiences. Members of the “tribe” and the wider public. If the context that makes the story powerful continues, then the story will be retold and a sense of history is created. This makes the story even more relevant and powerful. In times of great uncertainty, the stories will lack detail as they are about promoting hope and aspiration without creating unrealistic expectations. Ring any bells?

Some leaders counter this accusation by challenging the top-down dynamic and try and engage others in developing the story to make it “our” story and make it real by injecting some bottom-up energy that can link the “thinkers” with “doers”. Declarations are then shared in the hope of resonating with the best interests of the followers.

References

Out of Control by Kevin Kelly. Basic Books 1995

Organisational Culture and Leadership by Edgar Schein. John Wiley & Sons 2017

The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore. OUP Oxford 2000