A635.1.3.RB – 21st Century Enlightenment
In
the 21st century, organizational leaders are in dire need to be able
to deal with the chaotic world that is full of diverse
competitors and innovative advancement. According to Canfield and
Smith (2011), for organizations to
compete in the 21st century, they must innovate and to innovate they
must be open to change, doing new things and stopping processes and procedures
that are no longer helping the company to be
competitive. In short, deciding to
innovate and improve are now business imperatives. Two fundamental strategies that can
contribute to improving our organizational performance are process improvement
and consistent development of leadership team.
Innovation in the 21st century is apropos of actionable creativity. For me, 21st-century
enlightenment starts whenever we discover that there is a better way to enhance
our current processes, thinking, behavior and business operations. The realization to innovate or change comes
from different directions or sources such as recommendations from team members
that would add valuation or significance to the organization. It may also come from complaints received
from clients, team members or stakeholders that experienced personal
frustrations or dissatisfactions with the current business operations or
processes. Indisputably
enunciating what we are trying to create, resolve or accomplish is the first
fundamental shift for the 21st-century
enlightenment because it allocates the focus or core for everything else.
When
Mathew Taylor said “to live differently, you have to think differently,” my understanding was that when we are faced with a problem or situation
that is challenging and complex, or when we
feel a presence of unclear direction, we cannot just dive in to resolve complex
and demanding issues. It is at this time that we need to take
things slow, reflect, assess, and approach the situation by utilizing our
innovative thinking. Innovative thinking does not depend on current
facts or past experiences. Innovative or creative thinking is open to any possibilities; it is intuitive, and it is more
advantageous to be ambiguous allowing us to ask the question of “what if?”. Innovative thinking enables us as a human being
to present new ideas and brings in new energy as an individual finding
resolutions to challenging issues or situations we encounter on a daily basis.
Taylor (2010) argued that we need “to
resist our tendencies to make right or true that which is merely familiar and
wrong or false that which is only strange.” Taylor’s argument is relatable to mindfulness.
According to Brown &
Ryan (2003), mindfulness is a criterion of consciousness presumed to promote
well-being. It secures a quality of
consciousness defined through vividness and
quality of present experience standing in contrast to the mindless. When clarity and vividness experience is
present or added, mindfulness contributes to one's happiness and well-being directly. As a perceptual presence, mindfulness is not
in regards to attaining well-being.
Mindfulness is immediate attention and awareness of the ground where the
mind’s contents materialize by themselves at the moment.
Mindfulness or self-awareness
enables our autonomy to develop and change who we are. Gaining better awareness or comprehension of
ourselves gives us greater experience as a unique human being. As a leader, self-awareness is crucial to our
effectiveness in the workplace. It is of utmost
importance that we recognize not only our strengths but most importantly our
weaknesses. Throughout the years that passed, I have
learned to find time reflecting daily about my experience and encounters either
at work or home. Honing and cultivating
my skills in self-awareness or emotional intelligence helped me to improve and
continuously develop my leadership skills.
Pretending to know everything and not conceding to the truth that I made
mistakes only resulted in my demise. By
learning to get honest feedback from my team, learning just to listen without
justifying my decisions and actions, and asking the right questions, made me a
better leader. Self-awareness made me
step back when I recognize that my emotion strongly influences my decision
making.
Eschewing the elements of pop culture
that degrade a human being is possible by teaching ourselves to practice empathy
and to be authentic in truly having the desire to listen to what the person has
to say and we need to have the open mind to see the individual’s humanity. It will require a great effort and discipline from
our part to succeed in our self-discipline of imagining ourselves being the other
person, because we will need to overcome the pleasure of feeling righteous when
we write-off the other person to make ourselves feel more superior, more human and
making our space more protected through eschewing others.
Taylor’s
talk about atomizing people from collaborative environments
and the destructive effect on their growth boils down to our ability to practice self-awareness or self-evaluation. In my workplace, as a leader, we are provided with
self-assessment tools to evaluate our skills and capabilities to be an effective
leader. There were times that I have discovered that I can be a better and
efficient leader after taking the annual self-evaluation/assessment. Performing
an annual self-evaluation allowed me to understand my innermost self, the
talents that I have and discovering my personality tendencies. Most
importantly, with self-evaluation, I was gaining a clearer vision of the best
direction that I would like to pursue professionally or personally.
Understanding
the different Elements of Thoughts is very beneficial to my personal and
professional growth. Understanding the effects of my different
concepts of certain ideas and theories is certainly critical to my self-growth
and stability of my relationship with others. Questions like am I able to
expand the reasoning behind my thinking, action, and decisions? Will my
interpretations and inferences on certain situations I face logical or factual?
Results to those questions begin with self-awareness. Self-awareness enables our autonomy to
develop and change who we are. Gaining better awareness of ourselves gives us
greater experience as a unique human being. As a leader, self-awareness is
crucial to our effectiveness in the workplace. It is of utmost importance that
we recognize not only our strengths but most importantly our weaknesses. We do
not always have the right answer to a question, but most especially, we do not
have the best excellent idea for innovation and to be lean in our workplace
processes.
My takeaway from this exercise is that as a leader in the 21st
century, we cannot only possess grit or self-determination and self-awareness
without courage. Leaders need to have
the courage to admit their weakness and their need for help, assistance or
support from their team. It takes the courage
from a leader to have difficult conversations with their team members, making
decisions that are very unpopular, as well as promoting new workplace
initiatives. It is a courageous act that
the most important tenets of effective leadership are built and developed. I have learned that a leader, validates his/her commitments to
the values of a) showing humility; b) showing mercy and belief to the actions
of his/her co-workers or staff, and c) controlled self-discipline. A leader in the 21st century creates
and sustains peace in the workplace and the community – not lack of conflict
but a place where peace grows in the entire duration of the existing relationship.
References:
Brown, K. and Ryan, R. (2003).
The Benefits of Being Present: Mindfulness and Its Role
In Psychological
Well-Being. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology Association,
Vol. 84. No.4, 822-848.
Canfield,
J., and Smith, G. (2011). Imagine:
Ideation skills for improvement and innovation
today.
Holland, MI: Black Lake Press.
Taylor, M. (2010, August 19). RSA Animate: 21st Century
Enlightenment. Retrieved from
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