{"id":35858,"date":"2024-02-15T09:54:59","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T17:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=35858"},"modified":"2024-02-16T06:43:06","modified_gmt":"2024-02-16T14:43:06","slug":"are-leaders-born-or-made-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/are-leaders-born-or-made-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Leaders Born or Made?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Created in Canva by Nancy Blackman<\/p><\/div>\n

I would never have connected the dots between leadership and blacksmithing so it\u2019s fascinating how Dr. Eve Poole did that in her book, Leadersmithing<\/em>. After watching her TEDx talk, I appreciated her metaphor of \u201cpearls\u201d and \u201cperil,\u201d both offering a sense of grit. The pearl is created through peril when the oyster thinks it\u2019s going to be invaded by an irritant (which it is) and then proceeds to cover itself for protection.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Being someone who appreciates visuals, I very much liked Poole\u2019s use of the Resistance Wheel when faced with their own fear. [2]<\/a> \u00a0I grew up facing a lot of change, which is one way that Poole connects fear and resistance, but it didn\u2019t stop in my childhood. I would safely say that most of my life has been one cesspool of continual change, which is why we say in our house, \u201cthere is never a dull moment!\u201d<\/p>\n

What I have learned in the last few years is that I didn\u2019t realize how much grief was attached to my fear of change. When I have introduced the catalyst of change, it doesn\u2019t remove the fear, but I notice a bit less stress. When the change has been induced by life situations, then there is a level of grief, and, over time, I have not dealt with the grief and my physical body finally gave out. It took me several sessions of therapy and Spiritual Direction to uncover this.<\/p>\n

Returning to the Resistance Wheel, Poole points to three variables where there is deficiency or lack:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Understanding<\/strong>: As a leader, when you are feeling misunderstood, it might be because people don\u2019t see things the way you do.<\/li>\n
  2. Skills<\/strong>: When there is no training, there is a skills gap and people will react in ways that are considered as \u201cdistracting behaviour.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Motivation<\/strong>: Often, there can be a lack of motivation when there is no passion. People are better motivated when they enjoy what they are doing.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In connection to my personal grief and continual change, I would have to say that perhaps the lack of understanding came from not understanding myself and what I needed, nor did I have the tools and skills to navigate some of those changes. Therefore, there was a severe lack of motivation, which caused me to fall into a state of depression.<\/p>\n

    And all of this points to a baseline of fear. Crazy, right? I love, love, love how Poole says in the video that \u201cthe one thing you have to remember is that there are some things that are more important than fear.\u201d[4]<\/a> I interpreted that as remembering who I am and how God made me.<\/p>\n

    As someone who is hoping to create a safe, inclusive, and welcoming community for creatives, I realize, though I consider myself more as the talent, I can\u2019t just let that be the answer and walk away because people in the community need someone to look toward. Often that person is the founder. This is where my brain says, \u201cWhat are you getting me into?!\u201d<\/p>\n

    In the video, Poole shares a story about 20\/20 hindsight that involves a man wandering in the woods who meets a wizard. The overarching question that comes from the meeting is, as a well-traveled leader, what would you want to know or do differently now that you know what you know?<\/p>\n

    That forces me to look at who I am. Where is the beauty within the grit? Poole says that when you know what is to be expected then you won\u2019t fear it. Here is where I would give some pushback. As someone who puts her faith in a God who doesn\u2019t tell me what to expect I must rely on a level of trust. That means there will be a level of fear on my part, right?<\/p>\n

    From my experience, my leadership and life skills often kick into gear when the sh*t hits the fan, but if I want to be a transformational leader, how do I move from imposter syndrome to a leader who leads with some level of confidence and compassion? Is anyone else asking themselves this question?<\/p>\n

    When Poole gets to the point in her TEDx talk where she mentions the brain and the amygdala, I sat up in my seat because my therapist has been chatting with me about how I can move through my PTSD responses, which, if I think about it, also affect my leadersmithing. At the core, the PTSD has deeply affected my mental well-being.\u00a0\u201cIn addition to its role in fear acquisition and extinction, the amygdala plays an essential role in fear generalization, arousal and processing of rewards, all of which may be disrupted in PTSD.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

    That ties into leadership development and the role of neurobiology. If my brain operates a certain way because of past experiences, then I need to learn how to be the leader I am called to be given my neurobiological requirements. It is not healthy to stay in a heightened stress state, \u201cbut it is where your brain is at its keenest. And now we know that if you can spot where you are under-resourced, you can keep extending this high-performing space, by systematically resourcing yourself to cope.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

    This slow-ramping approach, or, as one of my friends likes to say, \u201cletting things occur organically,\u201d does seem countercultural to my PTSD survivor response, but, as I have been \u201cslowly\u201d practicing, has helped me tremendously.<\/p>\n

    What about you. What helps you serve the community more effectively rather than the work?<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a> Eve Poole, \u201cLeadersmithing,\u201d April 12, 2017, produced by TEDx Durham University, YouTube video, 18:00, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=73L1613KDnw<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a> \u2014\u2014\u2014, Leadersmithing: Revealing the Trade Secrets of Leadership<\/em>\u00a0(London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 111.<\/p>\n

    [3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

    [4]<\/a> \u2014\u2014\u2014, \u201cLeadersmithing\u201d YouTube video.<\/p>\n

    [5]<\/a> Olga Therese Ousdal, Anne Marita Milde, Gertrud Sofie Hafstad, Erlend Hodneland, et al., \u201cThe Association of PTSD Symptom Severity With Amygdala Nuclei Volumes in Traumatized Youths,\u201d Transitional Psychiatry<\/em> 10, no. 288 (August 17, 2020), https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41398-020-00974-4.<\/p>\n

    [6]<\/a> Eve Poole, Leadersmithing<\/em>, 48.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I would never have connected the dots between leadership and blacksmithing so it\u2019s fascinating how Dr. Eve Poole did that in her book, Leadersmithing. After watching her TEDx talk, I appreciated her metaphor of \u201cpearls\u201d and \u201cperil,\u201d both offering a sense of grit. The pearl is created through peril when the oyster thinks it\u2019s going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2967,35,2091,2090,769],"class_list":["post-35858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03","tag-leadership","tag-leadersmithing","tag-poole","tag-transformational-leadership","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35858"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35914,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35858\/revisions\/35914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}