My new Quiet Leadership book is published this week: it explores leadership in the smallest of actions, and specifically four central ideas of ‘humility’, ‘kindness’, ‘fairness’, and ‘grace’. It’s very much about ‘self’ – how we each individually act, what we can collectively achieve, how culture is formed, and where the shadows lie.
When Organisations describe leadership, or change, they often talk about dramatic journeys, and monumental systems, about travelling ten thousand steps. Quiet Leadership is the first three: the steps that you take today, and the conversation that you have with one other.
The work takes place against a background perspective of the Organisation as an Ecosystem: under this view, we look across a landscape, part of which we can influence and care for directly, some of which is within our sight, and parts of which are hidden from view.
Central to the practice of Quiet Leadership is the recognition that we each, through our actions in every day, both enhance and degrade this ecosystem – we all make things ‘better’, and we all make things ‘worse’, we all breathe in and breathe out. We do not deliberately degrade the system, and yet it may be degraded, through out inaction, or beyond our sight. Hence: how do we ensure the heath of the ‘system’ that surrounds the ‘self’, if nobody individually has the power to make it ‘healthy’.
Based upon the global research programme running through 2021, and from the experience of guiding twelve cohorts through this landscape, it provides both reflective space and a call to action.
The core work focusses on eight key questions, which are posed as you progress through the book, and i share some insights from what others have to share as their answers.
The Quiet Leadership book is currently available as a free eBook here, and will be available to buy on Amazon, in paperback, later in Q1 this year.
Quiet Leadership is about leadership in the smallest of actions: if you are interested to explore this further, you may wish to join a guided journey, which is a free programme lasting four weeks, where i guide groups through this landscape, around those eight questions. You can learn more about the programme here.
julianstodd
Julian Stodd's Learning Blog 