8 July 2005
Successful Intentions Newsletter
Hi ,
What the world needs now is…
Wise leadership!
The lessons of history repeat themselves endlessly in what the late American historian, Barbara Tuchman called, "the march of folly".
It's no longer enough to be smart. Leaders may have admirable academic or work-related credentials yet make poor judgments about their own lives and for the lives of others.
Rapid technological change and globalisation have created a state of "permanent incompleteness" for business leaders. Strategic decision-making is not enough. They have to make operational and moral decisions in the face of unprecedented complexity.
Business leaders need wisdom
Wise Up!
"The function of wisdom", said the Roman political philosopher Cicero in 50 B.C., "is to discriminate between good and evil".
Yet wisdom is more than moral judgment. Wisdom implies a mature integration of appropriate knowledge, a seasoned ability to filter the inessential from the essential, and a way of thinking about the fundamental pragmatics of life.
Professor Paul Baltes, Director of the Center of Lifespan Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin has formulated seven general criteria of wisdom:
- Wisdom addresses important and difficult questions and strategies about the conduct and meaning of life.
- Wisdom includes knowledge about the limits of knowledge and the uncertainties of the world.
- Wisdom represents a truly superior level of knowledge, judgment, and advice.
- Wisdom constitutes knowledge with extraordinary scope, depth, measure, and balance.
- Wisdom involves a perfect synergy of mind and character - an orchestration of knowledge and virtues.
- Wisdom represents knowledge used for the good or well-being of oneself and that of others.
- Wisdom, though difficult to achieve and to specify, is easily recognised when manifested.
Wisdom is the end state of human development. It represents the highest personal and common good.
The Getting of Wisdom
But wisdom isn't just a by-product of age. Some aging baby-boomers can act pretty stupid and some Gen Y'ers can be pretty savvy! Research shows that wisdom-thinking and wisdom-related performance can be taught to year 9 students! And business leaders can be taught wisdom through the medium of executive coaching
A "curriculum of wisdom training" incorporates a progressive understanding and application of the 3 components of wisdom:
- The cognitive dimension of wisdom is the desire to know the truth and attain a deeper understanding of life, including knowledge and acceptance of the positive and negative aspects of human nature, the inherent limits of knowledge, and the unpredictability and uncertainty of life.
- The reflective component of wisdom represents self-awareness, self-insight, self-examination, and the perception of phenomena and events from multiple perspectives, transcending personal subjectivity and projections.
- The affective aspect of wisdom consists of sympathetic and compassionate love for others and a desire to achieve the "common good".
Coaching for wisdom© deliberately facilitates the emergence of wisdom in business leaders through emphasis on tolerance of complexity and wisdom-based decision-making processes.
It is the highest form of leadership coaching intervention and demands strong cognitive and processing abilities in the client. Find out more about this type of coaching here.
Coming up in the next edition of the Successful Intentions Newsletter - Ethical Corruption©
Keep your intentions clear,
Peter Webb
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