Type leadership style on Google and you will get confused quickly. Authoritarian, participative, delegative, transactional and transformational leadership. But wait there’s more. Servant, Bureaucratic, laissez-faire leadership.
It has been a long quest of mine to find a leadership model that was 1) easy to remember 2) integrated different styles 3) led me to take actions.
In Trustworthy Leaders, Tasshin has created that model by focusing on three skills: wisdom, love, and power.
- Power is the ability to hold to our own perspective, and to get people to do what we want them to do.
- Love is the ability to see and embrace the perspective of others, hold their perspectives, and act accordingly.
- Wisdom is the ability to let go of all perspectives, holding to no perspective whatsoever.
How I use it
- Personal relationship: Let’s say I have an argument with my girlfriend about where to live. I might want to rent a house and she might want to buy a house, having the impression that she is throwing money away. Using this leadership model, I am able to convey my argument, but also understanding the perspective of my girlfriend. We are able to discuss where our perspectives come from and what might have influenced them. We are able to let go of our perspectives, discussing factual elements. Finally, we are able to take our perspectives and factual element to come up with a decision that will benefit both.
- Client facilitation: When I do facilitation for strategic planning, the stakes are high. A decision coming from a conversation might result in the business succeeding or failing. First, I need to use my power so that everyone can share their perspective. Some executives are loud and they typically get other people to do what they want them to do. The challenge is that some executives are shy and usually don't have the opportunity to share their perspective, leading to subpar decision making. After, the group has heard about all the perspectives, I need to make them check their assumptions, suspending their belief for a moment and consider things that were not said.
How I sharpen my skills
- Wisdom: journaling, acceptance and commitment therapy, internal family systems (IFS), weightlifting coupled with meditation, dopamine fasting.
- Love: circling and authentic relating, the bio-emotive framework and the NEDERA process, listening and conversation skills,
- Power: Peer coaching, skill-specific training e.g. productivity/strategy/negotiation, leadership and management roles.
These might seem like a complex list of skills, but they are quite easy to learn and apply.
It’s my belief that following Tasshin model makes me a better human and a better leader.
