Leadership Takes Balance

The Wheel of Life is a workshop I have taught for years. It’s a
personal assessment tool of the balance in your life, and your satisfaction and
development in each of eight areas of your life. My eight areas are: Career;
Money & Life Planning; Health Physical, Emotional, Spiritual; Family
& Friends; Significant Other; Personal Development & Contribution; Fun
& Relaxation; and Physical Environment. The idea is to develop all these
areas equitably to meet your needs.

Likewise, in business, you have eight areas of leadership effectiveness.
As the leader of your organization, even an organization of one, you need to
balance all eight areas, all the time. My eight areas for leadership are:
Self-awareness, Managing and Building Relationships, Learning and Developing,
Self-Expression and Communication, Mentoring and Coaching, Team Building,
Self-Care and Contribution. All leaders excel at some of these areas. I also
know leaders who ardently avoid or deny some of these areas.

I heard a Fortune 1000 corporate consultant advocate for balance
in leadership. She bundled all the pieces into just three areas. Ginny O’Brien
[www.columbiaconsult.com] simplified all these areas of leadership development
into three categories: Self, Others, Work.

According to studies at major universities here (Harvard,
Stanford, Duke) and abroad, Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is far more critical to
long term career and business success than IQ in the 21st century. Strong
leadership no longer suggests but requires a balance between both traditional
masculine and the more inclusive feminine strengths in leadership.

It is like the juggler at the circus trying to keep all those
plates spinning on poles. Some you can keep going without much effort. Others
you struggle to keep spinning and a plate falls and crashes occasionally. But
just like the juggler, you start again in that area. You keep practicing to get
better at balancing all the plates at the same time. In your organization and
in your own leadership, you must develop a balance between traditional
masculine models of leadership on one hand, and the more inclusive feminine
models on the other to keep the organization balanced.

Masculine Model