Imperfection, humility, confidence, harmony, service - and Story
What’s your vision of leadership?
Leadership is of primary importance in everything we do as human beings, in business and far beyond. I truly believe the relevance of this topic extends beyond the pivotal element of company culture, into leadership as we think about it and apply it to our own, personal lives - leadership of self, first. Which has full reign over how much and what we are even able to be, produce, and create in our lives.
And it extends into the framing of would-be ‘leaders’ in political arenas, campaigns, and the much troubled and erratic elections we’ve been seeing in many parts of the world the last few years. The Netherlands being a prime example, and up for a new round of weird elections just next week.
If we look at it like this, leadership envelops our lives, from the innermost to the entire outer environment we live and breathe in, every waking moment of every single day. It determines our present and our future.
What is the story of the future you’d like to be a part of?
And what kind of leadership do you think we need, to get to that future?
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What do you think of when you think of a ‘leader’?
[There is, in my mind, for some reason, the image of a baby in a bathtub, frowning very angrily, shouting tyrannically with flushed face, teary eyes, and waving its little pudgy fists around. Near the end of this piece I think is where you’ll find him, too.]
I never thought of myself as a ‘leader’.
Multiple times throughout my working life though— and in my private life — I’ve been reminded that people view you differently from how you view yourself, often.
In some of my earlier jobs, I’d be asked if I wasn’t interested in leading a team, maybe managing a few. In private situations I was told — and am still being told, daily — I exert a relatively calm, background confidence and a fairly heavy dominant energy, though mostly not annoying or too forceful.
Mostly.
(Except back in the day, when my band regularly called me ‘Herr Führer’, halfway jokingly. And except with my wife, these past 10 years — when two relatively confident, dominant first-borns meet up and team up… what would you expect?)
I realize a lot of the people that have worked with me over the past 10–15 years or so — would not necessarily all recognize the same in me. Although in various places I’ve imagined myself pretty impactful. Visionary. Deciding. Responsible. Knowledgeable. Sometimes nobody else would think the same. And sometimes people would see those attributes in me, while I wasn’t seeing it at all.
Funny how that works, right?
The past few months I’ve been none of that. I’ve been failing a lot. Flailing, trying to find my bearings yet again — first falling into, then slowly crawling out of a deep, soul-crunching burnout. And I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership and what it means. What it means for me. Why it matters so much.
Why I am thinking about and preparing to dive into it — but in a different way.
And why, oh, why — I named my company Neo Alpha all those years ago.
What Leadership means
Thinking so much about the concept, one obviously comes back to a single, fundamental question many times over.
What does leadership even really mean?
Leadership — looking at it through both an etymological lens (because; where does that word come from? Why Leader- ship?) — and a multi-cultural/historical one, it turns out the word doesn’t necessarily mean what we usually tend to assume.
So, what does leadership mean, if you research it from various different cultural, historical angles?
If we look beyond the West, and beyond the past, say, 200 years — and we look at not only old Rome, Greece, Germanic tribes, and the Northmen; but also Jewish, Islamic and Arabic concepts and cultures? And if we include Sub-saharan African cultures, East-Asia, and North-and South America; industrial, sea-faring, agricultural, and hunter-gatherer societies? What would they all more or less agree on as a broad definition of what leadership is at its core? Well, what we end up with for a definition of leadership, is something like this:
Leadership means to guide, to see the way, to go first, to hold responsibility, to serve, and to ‘weave the people’.
[Side note: “To see the way” —what does that mean? What does “vision” mean to you, in the context of leadership? For me, it means to see some future place or time where many things are much better for a lot of people. It means seeing potential. And that automatically also means seeing potential in people. Including self.]
The emerging human archetype for leader
A true leader, from humanity’s collective, historical, cultural perspective, is apparently a lot of things. A leader is like a humble, visionary sheperd; a person who sees, shows and leads the way; a person who goes first into the breach; one that takes and holds responsibility; someone with the humility to serve and put the wellbeing of the people first — and someone who helps generate and maintain harmony. I’m thinking of a couple of people I’ve worked with, or know up close - you know who you are.
Now. Is that the kind of leadership we see a lot of around us, today?
When and where you have been a leader — is that what you have mostly portrayed or embodied? I know I haven’t.
The Lowest form of Leadership: Hierarchical power & authority
There’s this, more or less more ‘jumping to the foreground’ kind of leadership, that pops up when you first think of what it means. At least - this is what I find. What’s your experience?
What is the first thing that pops up into your mind, when you think of the word ‘leader’?
What have you seen most? What seems to be selected for, in leadership positions - or what seems to have been selected for, over the years? And where does that come from?
Something like the following, perhaps;
I’m writing from the perspective of the West, because that’s the history and culture I know most about. Now, if you would; take a broad-strokes look at the history of the West, from bands and tribes to kingdoms, empires; agriculture, feudalism, colonialism, more and more war-and-military-based organizational thinking, then industrialism, and then late-stage capitalism . Think about, and feel into the power-based hierarchy associated with all of those . My hunch is that then you will start to understand how and why ‘leader’ means something different for most people, today.
What leadership seems to mean, or seems to be viewed as often, is something like:
“The person with the hierarchical authority, who tells others what to do and how to do it, so as to get the most results the fastest, most efficiently; and win, and/or beat the competition.”
Fast-moving. Decisive, Commanding. Dependable; the person we can trust to get it done. But also authoritative, myopic, and with too little care or space for the broader picture and the long-term.
Leadership — in its lowest, most base form. I believe. The kind of leadership you need in a crisis. Under attack. At war. Yet simultaneously the kind of leadership that, when unchecked, necessarily and inherently breeds those same exact circumstances for which it is needed.
The vicious cycle of fear and urgency — and the War Chief
Did you know that in various cultures, spanning as widely as from Native American tribes to Northern European, Germanic ones, there existed a concept of dual chiefdom? There would be at all times a War Chief and a Peace Chief, working together — with a council deciding for a given period of time, who would have the final say in important matters, given the level of immediate threat perceived in the environment.
It seems to me that a baseline level or urgency and fear — and the way our human biology and brain treats them, with the utmost priority — over millennia has helped us select for a clear dominance of the one kind of leader and leadership, over the other.
Who would you rather trust with the power to safeguard the survival of humanity in an all-out war with aliens bent on our total eradication?
Socrates or Caesar?
Shaka Zulu or Mandela?
It seems clear to me that urgency and fear are reinforced by a certain type of leadership (in turn connected to a certain state of the nervous system). And vice versa — in an ongoing vicious cycle. If left unchecked.
And that, in my view, is the kind of leadership that is still often recognized, selected for, accepted, and elevated.
The necessary change in leadership
Exactly the type of leadership that was needed, because of circumstances that have long gone. The world has changed. Our capabilities and technologies have changed. Our way of organizing ourselves and our resources, overall, has not.
I saw a clip of Mo Gawdat the other day, where he says — and I loosely quote;
“You could eradicate poverty and hunger in the world for a fraction of our current military budget. You could allocate resources to combating global warming significantly, with the money we spend on explosives and other weapons used for wars. The only thing standing between us and a Human & AI utopia, is our holding on to a capitalist mindset. Ego. Greed. Fear. Sad, really.”
I feel like the leadership most of us think of when we hear the word, is exactly what got us here. For better or worse — and I do mean that in the literal sense; all of the good and all of the bad we have, is what it got us.
And that type of leadership is exactly what we don’t need to get us from here, to the next stage in our story. Well, then what is the kind of leadership we need for the next step in our evolution? And how do we start building and cultivating that?
Leadership starts with knowledge of self
Let’s look at the definition of leadership above one more time, as an amalgamation of what various human societies and cultures would all more or less agree on as characteristics and traits of a good leader:
Leadership means to guide, to see the way, to go first, to hold responsibility, to serve, and to ‘weave the people’.
Now, if we start from there, and we assume a leader who leads like that, and we assume that some group of people actually follow and trust someone to lead in that way - then the next must also be true:
Leadership is about trust as much as confidence— and both of those are based on self-knowledge, humility, and openness.
Leadership starts with knowledge of self; and that knowledge of self is not some fixed end-state, but rather; a continuous process.
Not ‘Perfect and fully Healed’, but ‘Continuous Healing and Growth’
“You can still be healing and still show up for leadership.”
One of the most beautiful quotes I saw on the interwebs somewhere these past few months, which stuck with me.
Leadership, or — to put it more clearly; good leadership, in terms of the cross-cultural, timelessly human, archetypal definition we found above, is not about being perfect. Has nothing to do with not making any mistakes, or having it all figured out.
It does have to do with knowing oneself. Knowing, trusting in, and expanding one’s strengths; working with and on the accepting, integrating, and carefully risk-mitigating of one’s weaknesses and one’s shadow.
We all carry trauma. The weak leader, the one that gets everybody stressed out, feeling chopped down and/or micro-managed, left burnt-out — is the leader who isn’t adequately invested in understanding their own wounds and weaknesses.
The process of understanding the machine and the spirit within it
You can’t guide people if you don’t understand the machine. The sensors, data generators, analysis processes, biases; the computer itself, that pretends to tell you the vision of where you need to guide yourself or your people to. And that tells you how to get there.
Which is to say; You can’t lead properly, or effectively, for a significant amount of time, without knowing your own heart and your own mind. You can’t build trust and harmony among a group of people sustainably, if you can’t build trust and harmony within yourself.
Again; not fixed, end-state, but as a continued process.
You can’t lead without actively investing in self-knowledge. Building it, consistently. Re-writing the Story of You, rhythmically, continuously. Humbly accepting and expanding your strengths, talents, gifts. Being open to criticism or feedback telling you where you still have room for improvement. Or which immense qualities you have, that you are still missing out on. You can’t be a great leader without graciously and bravely delving into your own shadow and light.
You can’t lead well, for long, if you don’t do these things. I know, because I’ve studied it; I’ve seen it, I’ve felt the stories of others — and I’ve lived it. Recently, even.
You also can’t wait for when the perfectly rounded, “done-growing-and-healing” leader, shows up.
“You can still be healing and still show up for leadership.”
In fact, most of the time, you’re gonna have to. And that’s right, it really does start with you.
Leadership starts with leading Self — and ‘Self’ is a Story
Whether you’re thinking about “leading” as a corporate-structure-mandated authority. Or as a brand. Or as a person.
Leadership starts with command and leadership of self. Which starts with applied knowledge of self. And ‘self’, or identity, — again, if you research the concept, and I have, extensively — is more often than not, and more so than not, a story.
“Your identity or sense of self is a narrative. A story, that connects your understanding of who you have been in the past, to the vision you have of who you will be in the future — through your view of who and what you are now.”
[ — Roughly after Peter Weinreich, Identity Psychologist].
Through my work as a brand strategist and coach, and my learnings in and around psychology and in business and technology, I’ve come to see that this is as much true for individual human beings as it is for entrepreneur or artist personas, personal or commercial brands, and companies.
Well if that’s true, then how do we get to that story?
Through self-reflection. Alone, and together with others, you start by asking yourself some fundamental questions, and by trying to really sit with those questions and feeling into, next to thinking about them — to come up with answers that become more and more true. Where do you begin?
Some guiding questions to help get you started:
- Where are you headed? How clearly and inspiringly can you define that?
- How will you get there? What are the steps, the building blocks needed?
- What strengths do you bring to the table?
- What are your weaknesses and blind spots?
- How will you continue to grow and improve yourself? What processes, checks, will keep you on track?
- How do you and how will you continue to hold yourself accountable?
- Why — do you want to go where you want to go? What drives you to it?
- Why — given that the thing you are here to do, or to change, indeed has to be done — why must it be you?
All of these questions are answered in what I have come to develop and call “Transformational Storytelling”; a practice and a method for understanding and developing your story of ‘Self’. Either as an individual, growth-minded human being; professional, leader, founder, or team - or from the perspective of a brand or organization.
Funnily enough, the concept grew from my work in first content then brand strategy; mixing insights and applied learnings from brand identity and management, deep research into and learning about technology, the future, innovation, and business growth and transformation, and (developmental) psychology, which, for a long time, I thought I had studied for no particular reason.
New Leadership and the Meaning of ‘Neo Alpha’
I called my company ‘Neo Alpha’, 13 years ago when I first registered at the Rotterdam Chamber of Commerce. With a nod to my son’s name, and to The Matrix, back then I meant it as;
“Neo Alpha”; A new word, A new Story, For new results.
- Decent enough name and slogan for essentially a young man offering copywriting and content marketing services, right?
But I have come to see that Neo Alpha also means “A New Story, A New Beginning; A New You.”
And; “A New kind of Leadership.” All in the same vein. And right from the beginning, though unbeknownst to me. Do you see it?
I truly believe in a better world. And I also firmly believe that to get to that new, ‘More Beautiful World We Know in Our Hearts to be Possible’, we need a new story, and a new kind of leadership.
And that’s what I’m building, in myself, in my work, and in my business, now.
What I do and how it relates to leadership?
I reflect. I listen, question, observe, feel, and analyze. I help transform lives through the creation and sharing of beautiful, useful, applicable truths. Often in the form of story.
I do art, spoken word, leadership coaching, and brand identity consulting. I help you re-write your Growth Story. So you can lead with more purpose, more clarity, more confidence and calm — firstly, leading yourself. And then, and only then, also others. Whether that’s a team, a community, or a market.
I call what I do Transformational Storytelling: Breath, ritual, story, strategy, myth, brand and communication — woven together, for growth.
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*A final note on the War Chief: the ‘old’ style of leadership I’ve described in this piece.
I do not believe we need to eradicate all elements and attributes of this type of leadership altogether. Apart from that being incredibly dangerous (because what if a crisis does emerge?), it would also mean a dramatic slowing down of development, healing, and growth — including in areas, spaces, and moments where speed is needed.
The War Chief and his or her attributes need to be integrated into the New Leadership, along with the Peace Chief — which is something I myself am still learning and figuring out how to do. Let’s not throw the (probably tyrannically shouting) baby out with the bathwater.