Leadosophy

Episode 46 This episode is a philosophical thought experiment designed to tease out the relationship between our understanding of leadership in reality on Earth and our creative imagination: delivering leadership code to an alien species on another planet.

The Thought Experiment...

At 26 light-years away… You’ve been tasked to travel to the newly discovered planet Gliese 486b. This planet is "a super-Earth with a mass 2.8 times that of our home planet" and "30% bigger than Earth," and has a "gravitational pull that is 70% stronger than what we experience on our world" (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy).

What is your task: Deliver a hand-written message to the alien species that provides five lines of leadership code, i.e., five lines of leadership wisdom code.

References

https://www.mpia.de/news/science/2021-05-gliese486b

Season One: Foundations of Leadosophy Leadosophy is the fusion of leadership and philosophy. We use philosophical thought to deepen our understanding of leadership together.

Episode 45 Leadosophy examines the topic of human flourishing and introduces the GUPS MODEL. GUPS stands for "Give, "Understand," "Pursue," and "Show." It's a model that might look a little different for everyone but serves as a template for self-development and the development of others.

Questions for this episode:

1. What is human flourishing, and is everyone's idea of human flourishing different?

2. Can we flourish collectively, and if so, how best might we accomplish this?

References

https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/about

Season One: Foundations of Leadosophy Leadosophy is the fusion of leadership and philosophy. We use philosophical thought to deepen our understanding of leadership together.

Episode 44 Leadosophy examines the topic of mental models and their connection to leadership. How have your experiences shaped you as a leader? How do you view new opportunities, new relationships, new challenges, and new opportunities to learn from others? What is a shared mental model, and why are shared mental models so important to the team or organization, and to the objectives, you are trying to achieve?

Our mental models influence how we approach new tasks, but they are also continuously influenced by new experiences: inputs and outputs. Leadosophy examines how leaders can promote shared mental models or common operating pictures and what the benefits might be.

Season One: Foundations of Leadosophy Leadosophy is the fusion of leadership and philosophy. We use philosophical thought to deepen our understanding of leadership together.

Episode 43 Defined broadly, a “cadre” is a group of people having some unifying relationship. Do you have a cadre? Do you have a nucleus of individuals that you frequently consult to help you make decisions, serve as a sounding board, or provide you with an unfiltered pulse check of the organization? Leadosophy examines the benefits of a cadre in the leader's life.

Season One: Foundations of Leadosophy Leadosophy is the fusion of leadership and philosophy. We use philosophical thought to deepen our understanding of leadership together.

Episode 42 Often, two people stare at the same situation; one sees very much, the other very little to nothing at all. Everyone sees something different, too. Two people will filter a leader's actions differently, react differently, explain away differently, judge the leader differently. What reaction do you get from certain experiences? Watching a symphony? Listening to Tupac? Catching a sunrise? The reactions or qualitative experiences we have with different leaders are similar. Not a one size fits all. This creates many problems for analyzing and understanding leadership. Each of us has unique experiences in our interactions with individuals: leaders and followers. No two interactions are the same. But, I think we can learn about leadership from observation.

In this episode, Leadosophy walks through the benefits and power of observation, identifying things we can hope to learn about leadership and followership, i.e., the accrual of leadership knowledge through observation.

Season One: Foundations of Leadosophy Leadosophy is the fusion of leadership and philosophy. We use philosophical thought to deepen our understanding of leadership together.

Episode 41 Leading Others Towards Happiness: Is this a job of the leader? Aristotle devoted pages towards trying to pin down a definition of happiness. Happiness has been the subject of philosophical examination for millennia. What does it mean to be happy? How would you define happiness? Who owns the happiness burden: others or ourselves? Is there a link between happiness and leadership? In this episode, I will not assume there is a link, but rather, we will simply examine the nature of happiness while asking more questions than giving answers.

Leadosophy examines an article written by Alex Liu and titled "Making Joy a Priority at Work." What's the link between joy and happiness, and where do leaders play a role in the pursuit of individual happiness versus collective happiness?

References

https://hbr.org/2019/07/making-joy-a-priority-at-work?

Season One: Foundations of Leadosophy Leadosophy is the fusion of leadership and philosophy. We use philosophical thought to deepen our understanding of leadership together.

Episode 40 How much of leading is intuitive, difficult to explain, or utterly unexplainable? How many people have never held a position of leadership but can confidently and quickly recall someone who is a great leader? Maybe it was someone they worked for or someone they read about in a book. The point is that people tend to know, intuitively, who can lead well and who cannot lead well. How can this be?

Is it possible that a person can lead well or lead effectively yet not know how to lead? By not “knowing how to lead” I mean that they cannot explain how to lead?

Season One: Foundations of Leadosophy Leadosophy is the fusion of leadership and philosophy. We use philosophical thought to deepen our understanding of leadership together.

Episode 39 (Part 2 of 2) Leadosophy examines the worth of formal leadership training sessions, courses, workshops, etc. In short, do formal leadership training events accelerate the learning curve of leader effectiveness? What benefit do they serve? How do we measure the effectiveness of a formal leadership course? Should we train leadership broadly or narrowly gear leadership courses towards a specific end goal in a specific skill set? Let us examine more deeply the worth of leadership instruction.

References

Kellerman, B. (2012). The end of leadership. HarperCollins.

http://www.cognitivefitness.co.uk

http://www.cognitivefitness.co.uk/documents/2019/Poster%20-%20Why%20Leadership%20Development%20Fails%20and%20How%20to%20Fix%20it%20Jan%202019.pdf

Season One: Foundations of Leadosophy Leadosophy is the fusion of leadership and philosophy. We use philosophical thought to deepen our understanding of leadership together.

Episode 38 (Part 1 of 2) Leadosophy examines the worth of formal leadership training sessions, courses, workshops, etc. In short, do formal leadership training events accelerate the learning curve of leader effectiveness? What benefit do they serve? How do we measure the effectiveness of a formal leadership course? Should we train leadership broadly or narrowly gear leadership courses towards a specific end goal in a specific skill set? Let us examine more deeply the worth of leadership instruction.

Season One: Foundations of Leadosophy Leadosophy is the fusion of leadership and philosophy. We use philosophical thought to deepen our understanding of leadership together.

Episode 37 Tim tells a story about the first time he was positively impacted by someone's leadership aboard his first Coast Guard unit, the Coast Guard Cutter Courageous. The mighty Courageous was decommissioned in 2001, but she now proudly serves in the Sri Lankan Navy as SLNS Samudura (P621).

The Leadership Bottom Line: As leaders, we never know what sort of positive (or negative) impact we can have on others even if an encounter with another human seems small or insignificant to the leader.

Season One: Foundations of Leadosophy Leadosophy is the fusion of leadership and philosophy. We use philosophical thought to deepen our understanding of leadership together.