Neocharismatic Leadership: A Comprehensive Self-Coaching Model [1st ed.] 9783030554859, 9783030554866

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Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xi
Introduction (Ghadah T. Angawi)....Pages 1-4
Front Matter ....Pages 5-5
Conceptualizing “Neocharisma” (Ghadah T. Angawi)....Pages 7-18
Front Matter ....Pages 19-19
Prepare for Your Neocharismatic Leadership Journey (Ghadah T. Angawi)....Pages 21-40
Front Matter ....Pages 41-41
Start Your Neocharismatic Leadership Journey (Ghadah T. Angawi)....Pages 43-67
Start your Neocharismatic Leadership Journey: The Search for Opportunity Stage (Ghadah T. Angawi)....Pages 69-81
Front Matter ....Pages 83-83
Share Your Neocharismatic Leadership Journey: Formulating a Shared Vision Stage (Ghadah T. Angawi)....Pages 85-91
Front Matter ....Pages 93-93
Walk your Journey to Neocharismatic Leadership: Devising Means to Achieve the Vision Stage (Ghadah T. Angawi)....Pages 95-110
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Management, Change, Strategy and Positive Leadership Series Editors: Satinder Dhiman · Joan Marques

Ghadah T. Angawi

Neocharismatic Leadership A Comprehensive Self-Coaching Model

Management, Change, Strategy and Positive Leadership Series Editors Satinder Dhiman School of Business Woodbury University Burbank, CA, USA Joan Marques School of Business Woodbury University Burbank, CA, USA

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15772

Ghadah T. Angawi

Neocharismatic Leadership A Comprehensive Self-Coaching Model

Ghadah T. Angawi Neocharismatic Leadership LLC Brookfield, WI, USA

ISSN 2662-3080     ISSN 2662-3099 (electronic) Management, Change, Strategy and Positive Leadership ISBN 978-3-030-55485-9    ISBN 978-3-030-55486-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55486-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword

The plethora of leadership books on the market and frequency of online articles are evidence that the topic of leadership is of general and widespread appeal. As an organizational leader and more recently as a practitioner of leadership development, I have read many such titles. While each book has its own unique point of view, and most are worthwhile reads, rarely does one title tower over others in content and value. I would list about five books that have done that for me over 20 years. Well six now, with Dr. Angawi’s work. As a practitioner of leadership development, I find a common shortcoming of leadership books is they get us really excited about what we could do if we believed we could lead and yet leave us wondering how. How can this be learned? How can these concepts be applied? How can my skills be developed? It has long been established that leaders are made and not born. More and more people today believe they can lead, which is true. Practical leadership books, articles, and coaching methods then must also have something to satisfy the many aspirants from this general and widespread audience. Leadership is no longer a topic for the few. We have noted how wave after wave of industrial revolution changes the way much of the world sees itself, defines itself, and interoperates as a community. Power, most recently and substantially, helped by the democratizing force of personal computing capability and access to information is now spread more evenly among the population. Worldwide, more people have access to a cell phone than have access to an operating toilet. Power though demands responsibility. Responsibility to maintain a life balance that most of us would consider acceptable. That level of responsibility is now personal. Power is wielded much differently today than it was just 50 years ago. Everyone needs to understand the concepts and skills of leadership as if it were traditional topics such as mathematics or reading comprehension. Consider writing a complaint to an airline 50 years ago. It would be most likely a letter, and there may or may not be a satisfactory response within about 4 weeks. Today, an angry customer can post on social media and get a response which still may or may not be satisfactory within minutes. But they got a response. This may be a trivial example but consider something not so trivial – awareness and its impact on us as leaders. v

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Foreword

A person in a developed nation read about a village in a developing nation through a social media post. It was a very short post but it caught their attention. The village of 30 people only received water once a day after one individual in the village had walked 8 miles and carried containers of water back to the village. That is, every day they were able to get through on the road and when they weren’t sick. The reader had seen, on television, simple kits that helped people move water in rural areas. They got a few neighbors together, told the story and showed the posts, contacted the original poster, pooled some cash, and bought some kits. These kits were bought over the internet, shipped from India, assembled by the villagers who now had more reliable water delivery with far less effort. The leftover cash was donated and transferred over an internet money transfer provider to the village elder. Neocharismatic leadership? I would say so. None of this would have been possible 20 years ago. We all relied on big charities back then. We would never have seen such a social media post. We would never have been able to purchase a kit from India. We would never have been able to transfer the leftover money without it taking weeks and most of the money lost in bank fees. Now however, we can act. The reader of the post saw an inequity, gathered others, formed a solution, and enrolled neighbors to help. Leadership in action. Small, local but leadership nonetheless. At the recipient end, a villager grabbed the offer of help, organized a kit building effort, and delivered what to the villagers would have been a high impact life improvement. Leadership in action. Does this mean the end of big charities? Of course not. Does this exemplify how Neocharismatic leadership is open to us all? Yes, absolutely, if we practice and develop our skills every day. Dr. Angawi’s work brings together the sum of past research and adds two vital and key aspects. The first is the integration of ethics into the leadership equation and the second is the practical development steps and techniques she presents. While integrity has long been recognized as a cornerstone of leadership, integrity and ethics are different. Integrity, among other things, means a person doing what they said they would do. Ethics means the person doing the right thing that they said they would do. Too many of the leadership books of the past 40 years have focused on individuals rather than the principles. Any individual can be a good example of leadership, but every one of us has flaws – leaders and non-leaders alike. Basing a leadership topic on an individual tends to encourage a hero mentality, only to have hopes dashed when the hero falters. I don’t find this helpful at all. The addition of ethics into the leadership question is overdue and correctly righted in this book. The second welcome aspect is the large, practical section of the book which gives us usable, simple to grasp aspects of leadership development, with a coherent plan that any reader can follow to the extent that they wish to. In this respect, the book is a form of leadership coach and all the more valuable because of it. Essential components of the guide to development are the repetition of simple activities and the documentation of progress. This is exactly what the best, practical leadership coaches encourage every day. It is exactly the skill and awareness that allowed the reader of a chance social media post to lead to a life-changing solution for a faraway village.

Foreword

vii

Many people I come across in coaching believe they are leaders because they have attended a course or a program. While these are important steps in the process, they are but 10% of the work that needs to be put in. I will usually ask people who believe a course or program made them a leader, how many people are willingly following them? It’s a humbling question and one we should all ask ourselves from time to time. We are not leaders because of a position in an organization – that’s management and organizational dynamics. We are leaders because people are willing to follow along with us and we have engaged their hearts and minds in a shared purpose. I have been most fortunate in that I have experienced living and working in many countries. As a leadership coach, the prior ability to travel widely provided fertile ground for fascinating observations. I feel I have gained incredible perspective on the leadership needs of the world – and they are very different to what is described in the common leadership book or post. The impact a leader has at the top of a major organization to make it successful in the “developed” world is totally different from the impact a successful village leader in the “underdeveloped” world has. But the attributes and skills of leadership are fundamentally the same. Dr. Angawi also has benefitted from multicultural experiences and as a result I feel she has written in a way that any leader anywhere can become better, day by day. I would encourage widespread dissemination of her ideas to make the entire world a better place. Martin Hedley Managing Director, Vision Achievement Limited 

Preface

This book presents a practical Neocharismatic leadership framework, accompanied by 32 coaching sessions for leaders to coach themselves. It will serve visionary leaders who want to achieve a transformation within their organization through leadership, as well as high performing teams. The ethical dimension is an integral part of every role a leader plays in the Neocharismatic model, whereby leaders are altruistic and motivated by a purpose. This book is also written with executive and leadership coaches in mind, as a practical framework that aligns leaders’ behavioral roles with their visions and empowers them to embody them by implementing the model. For leaders – this book will allow you access to pertinent knowledge and research without diving too far into the academic depths, but still providing just enough understanding of the relevant theories to propel you forward. It will give you a practical model you can adapt to your unique leadership context. It will serve as your executive and leadership coach. Moreover, the book can be read as a thought-provoking, creativity-challenging, and status-quo-disrupting stimulus. This is especially the case if you are seeking transformation across all spheres of your leadership practice. It can also be read as a sequence of coaching sessions with which to navigate through the maze of your particular context to make the most of the opportunities that present themselves, and to learn and experience exponential growth. For coaches – the questions and stages built into each of the sessions that follow will focus on a particular aspect or role of leadership that you can use as a starting point to develop your own sessions from. There is also a sequence to help you build your coaching strategy in any specific leadership role. The sequence provides coaches with the crucial first steps that need to be taken before a leader can perform or effectively succeed at any given stage. It is, in short, a much-needed framework for coaching executives and leaders at all levels – individuals who are an integral part of any transformative and strategic shift in any organizational context. Besides benefiting from the structure and content contained within, this book can serve as inspiration for your own sessions.

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Preface

And for the dualists among you, that is to say the leaders who also coach, reading this book will open doors for you to become a more effective coach for your own followers and teams. It will provide a framework for the growth and development of your own leadership capacity, and will align you with a global community of conscientious future leaders across the world, all working towards a more sustainable future. There is one more category of people that can benefit from this book; the self-led individuals or entrepreneurs who are starting up a business and hoping that it will grow to become an organization. The buildup in momentum of the following sessions will benefit them too, as it will build a solid foundational knowledge, covering the basics of personal and interpersonal leadership to allow a gradual and smooth transition to more complex roles at later stages of their endeavors. Whether you are a social entrepreneur who seeks to be a part of the political and social change cycle, or just an ambitions business-driven individual, this model is your best shot at achieving leadership development. If you don’t decide to expand, you will at least gain a well-researched and comprehensive understanding of the principles of ethical and influential leadership which will undoubtedly benefit you on both a personal and interpersonal level. Finally, this book consists of five parts. The first attempts to situate the Neocharismatic leadership model in the literature, highlighting what differentiates the theory from other leadership theories. It sheds the light on the ethical dimension in the model. It ends with a full description of the model and its 10 behavioral roles. If you are an individual who loves structure like I do, then this chapter is for you. If you care more about using the model, then move to Part II. Part II brings you face to face with your personal and interpersonal leadership qualities. In this part there are 15 coaching sessions that you can come back to over and over at different stages of your leadership. Part III addresses the Neocharismatic leadership journey at stage one; the “Search for Opportunity.” Here there will be three leadership scenarios. You can choose which one applies to your context. Part IV invites you to share your leadership journey through the stage of “Formulating a Shared Vision.” Part V is all about implementation; “Devising Means to Achieve the Vision” takes place in five different roles. In all these stages and roles, you will have coaching sessions ready for you to take alone or with a leadership coach. I am sure that if you picked up this book, chances are that you are looking for some enlightenment in the field. That curiosity represents a monumental doorway to knowledge and learning. Good luck with your journey. Brookfield, WI, USA  Ghadah T. Angawi

Contents

1 Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   1 Part I The Neocharismaitc Leadership Concept 2 Conceptualizing “Neocharisma”��������������������������������������������������������������   7 Part II  The Neocharismaitc Leadership Prerequisites 3 Prepare for Your Neocharismatic Leadership Journey��������������������������  21 Part III  Start the Journey 4 Start Your Neocharismatic Leadership Journey������������������������������������  43 5 Start your Neocharismatic Leadership Journey: The Search for Opportunity Stage ����������������������������������������������������������  69 Part IV  Share the Journey 6 Share Your Neocharismatic Leadership Journey: Formulating a Shared Vision Stage����������������������������������������������������������  85 Part V Walk the Journey 7 Walk your Journey to Neocharismatic Leadership: Devising Means to Achieve the Vision Stage��������������������������������������������  95

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Chapter 1

Introduction

If you have the same passion for the future state of humanity as I do and want to practically live leadership through every breath you take, then I promise you this is not just another irrelevant leadership book. As you venture into the different stages, roles, levels, and constituents demanded by your position, the last thing you need is repetitive, generic advice and theoretical approaches. It would be a total waste of your time and resources. I hate long introductions, and I usually skip them to get straight into thick of the book, to the real information and knowledge that can add value to my work. So, here is a very short introduction about how this book came to be and why  – with a quick scan of the relevant history of leadership in two paragraphs. The topic of leadership has been the focus of many researchers in the fields of management and organizational studies over the past few decades. The field of leadership was born of the need to differentiate between what leadership is and what management is  – to advance a new paradigm in organizational development and effective leadership. Eventually, the leadership field grew and separated from the larger field of management. Today, leadership is not just about businesses organizations, it represents the sustainable future of humanity and the world at large. It extends further than just the city, country, or continent a particular leader operates in. Thus, leaders are accountable for their actions and decisions, regardless of where these actions take place. In the English language, leadership is a combination of the word “leader” and the word “ship.” The combination indicates “control” and the quality or ability that makes a person a leader or the position of being a leader [1]. Leadership on its own can provoke images of a separate class of human beings, with qualities that only exist in that class – and they are called leaders. It defines and separates a leader from the group and erodes the common ground between them and other human beings. As leaders take charge, they use power. Power exposes a leader to potential arrogance. Through arrogance, a leader can lose the qualities needed for mobilizing the followers through motivation and relation to a greater cause, just by the rise to the © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. T. Angawi, Neocharismatic Leadership, Management, Change, Strategy and Positive Leadership, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55486-6_1

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position or role. The attribution of leadership then becomes confused with control, and a leader becomes just another individual using power to control instead of influence. Continuing with the scenario above, leadership often creates resistance among followers, because it challenges others’ desire to control and leverage power to become leaders themselves. The position of leadership therefore often segregates and promotes social injustice and inequality, though it is indispensable for organization and cohesion. The mere idea of leadership can create envy, jealousy, and competition. It is a paradox. With more leaders discovering they can lead and the qualities of leadership becoming available to the ordinary person – in fact individuals are now trained in every stage of their lives and level of their education to lead – more resistance is created naturally by the process and discovery. As our population on earth increases every day, the opportunities to lead is higher; nevertheless the bureaucracy of the organizational structure has not changed much, thus limiting leadership to an elite who fulfill specific performance competencies plus years of experience. When leadership at the top of the hierarchy is only available for a select few in any given organization, competition becomes inevitable and dichotomies are created leading to new rising leaders separating from the group with another baseline of followers acting as a threat to the actual leader, implicitly and with good intentions. If arrogance is not involved, as more and more of these groups rise, official leadership attempt to silence or contain them with the best of intentions. In the process leaders inevitably move away from their original mission at large and become distracted by competition. This causes them to lose the most important feature of their leadership: “the purpose and vision.” This cycle feeds on itself, and eventually leadership falls into demise, leaving the social and cultural environment in a worse state than it was to begin with. The position is then inherited by the next cycle of leadership that soon realizes they have lots of enemies to conquer, and so the cycle starts again. This is the foundation of my theory of what happens when leadership is not infused with morality and ethical decision-making. It exists in the bulk of research literature as the dark shadow of charisma. The earliest documented exploration of leadership came from Plato, as an answer to the question, “What qualities distinguish an individual as a leader?” [2]. Although this may be a very common question, one that has been tackled by hundreds of books and researchers, it is still the same question that every leader asks when they speak with me during a coaching session. A more pivotal question that this book aims to address is far more specific. The answer to it will make it possible to stand out from other leaders, to be unique and exemplary in influencing the quality of work and results a leader creates. That question is: What thoughts, emotions, and behaviors distinguish a leader as a unique moral being? This book is a simplified practical version of my PhD thesis on the roles of leadership in strategic decision-making in higher education [3]. At the beginning of my research in 2007, my supervisor [4] presented to me “ethical leadership” [5], as a seminal read on leadership in the business field. His suggestion for me was to test

References

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out the theories presented by it in higher education. The book was the last in a series of books on the subject by the authors and was recently released. Not only was I inspired by the content and depth of its application worldwide, but I was also intrigued by how it was labelled “ethical leadership” instead of its original name “charismatic leadership” or as the authors argued Neocharismatic leadership [6]. I was close to a decade into my career as a leadership trainer and coach across the Middle East and Arab world at the beginning of the Arab Spring movement. When I started my PhD and was concerned about the morality of the time we live in, I chose this theory to test in higher education because the organizational outcome was focused on people rather than profits. Higher education is different in this respect. Usually the cycle is longer than any profit-driven business cycle, so there is less urgency. I tested the theory with effective leaders who had already achieved positive outcomes over a 10-year period, and none had any idea of what kind of leadership they were practicing, neither their followers. Later in my work of coaching leaders and executives in business and corporate organizations in the Middle East and the United States, I further developed the detailed elements of the leadership roles in the model. In early 2019, I published my work in Arabic [7]. I was then asked to write a book on the subject by many of my English clients in the United States, who have never heard of the term “Neocharismatic leadership” let alone the practical components of it. I decided to start in 2019 but this time infused with my personal executive and leadership coaching experiences. For me, this book represents a steppingstone towards a global transition towards social justice, peace, love, and harmony through Neocharisma. As an advocate for our global sustainable future, my mission is one of fostering the growth of leadership across all fields and disciplines worldwide. In the pages of this book, you will find a great deal of my personal journey as I reflect on my leadership. I will also include some of my clients’ stories, though some details have been changed to preserve their anonymity due to clients’ organizations privacy regulations. I may have not had personally experienced the exact situations you are facing in your own leadership journey, no one else ever will, but the stories we tell can help us see the parts of others’ journeys that overlap with our own. Generations have been influenced through the process of storytelling. I encourage you to share your own story with me through email and let me know how my own or others’ have impacted you.

References 1. Cambridge dictionary online: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/ leadership#dataset-cacd 2. Takala, T., 1998. Plato on Leadership. Journal of Business Ethics 17, pp. 785–789. 3. Angawi, G., 2012. The roles of leadership in strategic decision making in higher education. London: British Library

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4. Sir David Watson, one of the UK’s leading higher education authorities and ex-principal of Green Templeton College, Oxford, died in Feb 2015. He was a member of the Dearing review of higher education in the 1990s and professor of higher education at the Institute of Education (now part of University College London) between 2005 and 2010. As a prolific and influential higher education commentator, he was knighted in 1998 for his services to the sector. 5. Mendonca, M. & Kanungo, R.  N., 2007. Ethical leadership. McGraw Hill/Open University Press, p. 165 6. This was my first encounter with the term and later in other references 7. Angawi, G. 2019, Ethical leadership Roles in Higher Education, Dar Bayan Publishing, Egypt.

Part I

The Neocharismaitc Leadership Concept

Chapter 2

Conceptualizing “Neocharisma”

Neocharisma is a term that expresses the combination of ethical and transformational leadership lending itself to the idea of purpose and vision. The word itself is derived from the combination of “Neo” which is a new way of looking at and “Charisma” a Greek word meaning a gift of. This contemporary way of looking at charisma in leadership is not about the superpowers or exceptional sanctity [1] that leaders wield to influence followers but rather the behaviors that allow them to influence. This chapter deals with three issues. The first leadership and how it was viewed over decades of research and inquiry, the second is around the origin of Neocharismatic leadership and what defines it now, and the third is a dive into the ethical and moral positions that Neocharismatic leaders develop as they navigate through their roles and decision-making processes. The chapter can be helpful in gaining an in-depth understanding of the past and the now of Neocharismatic leadership. Though if you would prefer to move directly to the practice and experience what the model can do for you, skip to the next chapter.

Leadership in the Literature There are many definitions of leadership in literature. Most definitions involve a process describing how influence is exerted over others to guide, structure, and facilitate activities and relationships in a group or organization [2]. But what concerns us here as we bring leadership to Neocharismatic is the influence and the forward movement towards achieving goals that Neocharismatic leaders bring. Attainment of that achievement requires certain behavioral roles and effective

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. T. Angawi, Neocharismatic Leadership, Management, Change, Strategy and Positive Leadership, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55486-6_2

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communication to be present. Most of this is common knowledge as we will see in this brief literature review but will be expanded on as we further explore Neocharismatic leadership. Leadership theories were first concerned with attributes and personality traits until research in the field provided no evidence that they contributed to enhancing leaders’ performance and therefore their effectiveness. Weber’s theory of charismatic leadership belongs to this category [1]. The focus then shifted to the behavioral theory that studied what leaders did and how they did it and looked at leaders’ behaviors in two main categories: people orientation and task orientation. Later, researchers identified a third category that took into consideration contextual contingencies and called it “change behavior” [2]. The model kept adjusting itself over the years as more research was conducted, and the leadership style was thought to be an interaction between leaders, followers, and situations (context) [3]; these were called the contingency theories. A fourth set of theories were concerned with social power and exchange. They are summarized in these two directions: the influence on the followers (social power theory) and the mutual influence between the leaders and the followers (social exchange theory). They suggested five bases of social power: (1) legitimate power earned from a position; (2) reward power, be it material or mental reward; (3) coercive power by using physical and other types of threat; (4) referent power, which comes from liking someone and being inspired by them, as with charismatic leaders; and (5) expert power when one has knowledge or expertise [4]. Usually in organizations a leader gains status and influence over the followers in exchange for task competency and loyalty to the group. On the other hand, a leader looks after the followers’ needs, be it through financial rewards or social recognition, in exchange for compliance and work. A major contribution to this paradigm is found in the transactional versus transformational leadership style. The transactional leader emphasizes social exchange, keeping things as they are without change or improvement. They rely on normal behavioral transactions, such as: “in exchange for reward, I would like to get this and that done.” The transformational leader focuses on challenging the existing paradigm and engaging followers in a new level of thinking concerned with values and vision. The purpose of transformational leadership is to transcend the higher need of self-actualization – hence the term transform comes into operation. While the transactional leader accepts the organization’s culture, the transformational leader reinvents and proposes a new culture. The transformational style of leadership appeals to the moral values of its followers as it raises consciousness about ethical issues and mobilizes energy and resources to reform a situation. The transactional leader mobilizes followers by appealing to their individual interests in exchange for benefits using values relevant to the exchange process [5].

Neocharismatic Leadership Theory

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Neocharismatic Leadership Theory It is important at this point to see why Neocharismatic leadership is different from other forms of leadership and examine its relationship with transformational leadership. Mendonca and Kanungo refer to transactional and transformational leadership styles in dealing with the influence issue by relating this to a leader’s ­altruistic/ egoistic orientation. In the transactional style, leaders ensure the compliance of followers using rewards and sanctions. The focus is on the leader’s needs and interests or objectives. This has a short life span that results in a feeling of avoidance by the followers because of decreasing trust levels and frustration due to the lack of sincere communication between the leader and their followers. It also exhausts organizational resources as the leader tries to maintain the status quo and avoid the risk and uncertainty that is inherent to innovation and change [6]. It is important to note here that the Neocharismatic theory is viewed as a form of transformational leadership by many researchers, including myself, but include the element of moral and ethical orientation which differentiate it. Originally Neocharismatic leadership theory developed by Conger, Kanungo, and later Mendonca, focused on a set of behavioral roles attributed by the followers. Previously most of the research was done on charisma as a leadership style by many researchers in the field [7]. Others followed their footsteps elaborating and researching the influence of charisma on the followers. Some called it Neocharismatic without attempting to define what it means and differentiate it clearly from its previous charismatic theory adding to the confusion [8]. Many modern writers on leadership agree with this interpretation of transformational leadership. Kouzes and Ponser’s model encompass five exemplary practices of leadership that have at their core the transformational model components: modeling the principles and values; inspiring a shared vision; challenging a process; enabling others’ actions; and encouraging the heart of the followers to carry on. Under the five components are ten behaviors that are considered as commitments from the leader to the followers [9]. Some of these components are part of the model I am about to present in this book. Nevertheless, both theories, the charismatic and transformational, have been deployed heavily and are still used by corporate and public organizational leaders across the globe. Even the transformational theory that is supposedly based on values and ethics is used as a concealment [10] of dark charisma [11], for organizational profit and gain. It’s worth noting here that the correlation between transformational leadership and ethics is still unclear [12], as to whether transformational leaders are more ethical than transactional leaders or vice versa. There is an overlap between the Neocharismatic leadership theory and the pre-­ Neocharismatic-­charismatic theory – as the distinction was blurred. Until Conger and Kanungo’s final contribution in their book Charismatic Leadership in Organizations [13], there was no indication of the Neocharismatic leadership as a

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differentiating model from the previous bulk of research, the way we know it today. Even then, Conger and Kanungo called it charismatic leadership. Not until Kanungo and Mendonca wrote their book in 2007 [14] “Ethical Leadership” that they called it Neocharismatic. Their Book truly expresses the Neocharisma that encompasses the model that was fully researched and presented in their previous book. I took their work and further researched and developed the behavioral roles that I am presenting here to the reader. The question of ethics has been the scope of my research and was put to test in all the cases. Next I will elaborate on why it is so integral to the Neocharismatic model.

The Ethical Dimension in the Model Many of the large corporations across the world have found ways to exploit ethics in many implicitly unethical ways. To the public and perhaps even many of middle and front line leadership in these organizations, the boundaries are blurry and undefined. This gives a sense of false credibility to leadership identity, when in fact there are clear violations to the ethical and moral standards of ethics in play. Moreover, followers may feel valued and taken care of, while the c-suite executives are exploiting them further to double and triple their financial gain. People in large corporate organizations are treated as commodities in exchange for compliance. They are the transaction in an illusory ethical bubble that is promoted by organizational culture and rewarded by the system. Are ethics on a higher strategic organizational level being practiced, or are they just claimed to be implemented? Are organizations really about the written vision and mission they claim to want to achieve? Are these the values they bring to the stake holders and the consumer market or the values they bring to the future generations that will inherit this? These are questions that you as a leader in the pyramid might never be able to answer. It gets complicated as organizations enter into a realm of unknown ends when dealing with government clients across the world. The ethical stance starts to be traded and justified as greed replaces conscience. I will be asking some of these challenging questions in every coaching session, and I hope that you give yourself time to ponder them as you take into account your ethical values and positions in every decision you make as a leader with purpose. It is time to invite Neocharismatic leaders to implement ethical and moral behaviors in a transparent, authentic, and purposeful way. I hope you are one of them. It is important here to understand how leaders make decisions based on their orientation. By orientation I mean do they see life as an opportunity for personal gains? Or, do they see it as opportunities to benefit the greater good for all humans? Between these two ends, there is a spectrum of colors that will influence their moral codes and ethics.

The Ethical Dimension in the Model

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Ethics are defined as “moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity” [15]. “Standards of business ethics cannot be achieved in any organization without the continuous commitment, enforcement, and modeling of leadership” [16]. Mendonca and Kanungo agree with this definition and explain that ethical leaders distinguish between right actions and wrong actions when making decisions [16]. Thus, the ethical dimension influences how leaders make decisions and react to their context. The authors use the term altruistic. Altruism is defined as a selfless concern for the well-being of others. Mendonca and Kanungo identify altruism as a “behavioral construct” rather than just an intention, as this includes intentions and actions, where a leader strives to place others before themselves and acts upon this. This ethical behavioral construct facilitates and guides decision-making and is an integral constituent of a leader’s behavioral roles during the process. In a study of the ethical dimension of leadership in a power-related frame, the researchers identified two types of charismatic leadership with respect to the use of power and its effect on the success of M&A [17]: (1) personalized charismatic leadership and (2) socialized charismatic leadership. At its core, this distinction deals with the nature of a leader’s power motive or the extent of an individual’s desire to have an impact on others or the environment. The latter deals with the extent to which an individual has a strong responsibility orientation, beliefs, and values reflecting high moral standards, an obligation to do the right thing, and concern about others. In the case of socialized charismatic leadership, it is more self-­controlled or restrained and directed towards the achievement of goals and objectives for the betterment of the collective entity, rather than for personal gain. In contrast, personalized charismatic leadership uses power largely for personal gain and is somewhat exploitative or manipulative of others, as well as narcissistic in nature. The researchers in the study explained that to understand such phenomena, we need to carefully delineate the behavior of a personalized charismatic leader compared with that of a socialized charismatic leader. As a caveat, there may be more of a continuum between the two types. Thus, the personalized/socialized charismatic leadership distinction may be one of degree, and actual leaders may show signs of both in their nature. This confirms what Mendonca and Kanungo were conveying about the personal and institutional power base [6]. Earlier in their studies, Conger and Kanungo conveyed that “no ‘pure’ types exist.” They also stated: “Observations of leaders in organizations suggest that their behavior reflects varying degrees of the negative and positive forms of charismatic leadership” [13]. Waldman and Javidan agree that this variation in the altruistic and egoistic orientation at varying degrees can appear in one leader and that both can be charismatic. They also see the behavior changing, depending on the contextual factor and its variables. In fact, it could be healthy and essential to have a degree of egoism in leaders, which contributes to their own survival and confidence. It can also give them protection from the urge to

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give up their own needs, ensuring they maintain balance between their personal and professional lives. Nevertheless, Mendonca and Kanungo later in their studies confirmed that effective leadership must come from an altruistic institutional power base [6]. Because the correlation between charismatic leadership could not be found in any of the dimensions of ethics [16], the idea of charisma as a gift or a supernatural phenomenon, where leaders are able to influence followers, is not what the scope of the Neocharismatic model is about. Charisma on its own is an empty shell and does not add value to the idea of effective leadership. In my research findings, I discovered cases where the leaders where remarkably charismatic and influential but lacked the full degree of altruism that binds them to be Neocharismatic leadership where ethics are an integral component as I stated in my research. The ethical dimension governs the behavior of a leader and determines their position long before any leadership decision they make [18]. Shakeel at el. are of the view that ethical leadership choses a style depending on the context and thus can be transformational in their approach. They also presented an in-depth analysis of what they refer to as classical and contemporary ethical leadership theories with a shift in focus from managing the rules to mentoring others to follow the rules. Yet in their view, both are not sufficient in how they focused on a leader personal morals and negative reinforcement. They stated the previous paradigms lacked definitions of stakeholders, consideration of empowerment, normative appropriateness, role definition, role of clarification, and environmental sustainability. They also emphasized the need for leaders to possess knowledge that enable them to lead effectively and adapt constantly to changing environments [19]. These are all important aspects of how a leader translates their altruism to identifiable and actional ethical standards. In my view and the results of my research and coaching practice, these issues come out in observing how the leaders navigate and set the boundaries of ethical decisions. Thus, you will find in the fold of the coaching sessions, a question or two that will bring your attention as a leader to the ethical dimension of Neocharismatic leadership. In my view, ethical orientation towards altruism and egoism is non-­fixed, but rather it is the adaptable to the context and culture or the angle by which we view arising issues. I therefore ask leaders and coaches who use this book and its sessions or questions to avoid passing judgment and boxing themselves or their leaders in any one particular frame. Each individual leader must come back to their own being and ask themselves to choose who they want to be in every unique situation. My invitation to you is always to consider being altruistic but strike the balance of maintaining your own self-preservation. Meanwhile do your best to empower others to speak their opinions and learn from their views.

W hat Constitutes the Neocharismatic Model

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What Constitutes the Neocharismatic Model Neocharismatic leadership can be translated practically into a model whereby a leader plays specific roles and deploys specific behaviors at specific times. We experience leadership through the roles that leaders take and act upon. These roles include specific actions that we call behaviors. Some of these roles do not include exhibited behaviors, like strategic thinking. Only leaders experience the role, and we only see its effect as applied strategy. Nevertheless, it is a component of a bigger role that we call vision and planning. If we are to define the behavioral role in a systematic way, it would be “an observable behavioral process that can be described and analyzed in terms of a formal model” [13]. Therefore, it’s not just one behavior, but a series of behaviors when collected together will reveal a model of handling a process, to achieve a purpose though a series of goals and objectives. The behavioral components can be identified and measured. The main point is that a role remains more general in describing a leader’s actions and activities. The beauty of a model such as this is that it can be learned as a set of behavioral roles that a leader willingly adopts. Nevertheless, these roles demand prerequisites that are related to personality and, most importantly, to the ethical orientation of a leader that must have its roots in the theory of Neocharismatic leadership. Therefore, the model cannot exist or be actualized without a leader being altruistic with high sensitivity to a moral code. Moral codes are vital to human beings’ survival and prosperity. Our developed brain that differentiates us from other species sets this code. Our DNA carries it from one generation to the next; we are wired to be humans with ethics and morals regardless of our faith, religion, or belief system. We defer to our basic animal drives when we chose not to be who we are and not to utilize our brains as a resource for directing those drives. Neocharismatic leadership is an application of the ethical leadership theory as we intuitively chose to live it. It is a choice that supports our being wherever we are and whatever situation or choice we face. Here is my own definition of Neocharismatic leadership: “A sequence of behavioral roles that influence the followers and reflects an idealized unique vision through altruism and ethical standards.” – Ghadah Angawi

The model developed through my research contains ten behavioral roles. In my latest definition above, I substituted the word attribute with influential as the first implies awareness and intention from the followers’ part. In reality the followers do not have a clue of the leaders’ style but are influenced highly by their behavioral roles in the organization. Altruism is integral to the idea of ethical leadership, while ethical standards govern decision-making. The vision is sequentially reflecting ideals and is unique to mobilize and transcend followers. Although the model is meant to understand effective leadership at an organizational level, the idea of making it available for leaders at all levels to learn and implement is why this book is written. Over the years I came to realized that lead-

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ers arrive there through a path. It is worth noting here that the evolution of a human being changes how they relate to others and connect to their environment. A human being goes through phases in their lives before they can become leaders [20]. The first phase is the dependency phase in infancy and childhood, where an individual physically and emotionally needs other beings to survive, live, and prosper. The better the environment they inhabit during their upbringing and the better their experiences are in relation to self-worth and recognition of identity, the sooner they will become independent. When they do become independent in their second phase as teenagers, they are able to physically survive and manage their day-to-day living but still need mental and emotional attentiveness to mature and navigate intellectual challenges to be able to make meaningful life decisions [21]. The last phase is interdependency where an individual can co-create [22] and synergize to achieve innovative solutions and ideas that serve the purpose of their being. This stage is where leadership happens. In the first phase, leadership is very personal and sometimes interpersonal. In the second stage, leadership is interpersonal and sometimes personal. In the third stage, leadership moves to empowering others and making sure a purpose is fulfilled through inspiring and mobilizing. It is the start of Neocharismatic leadership. Unlike what Conger, Kanungo, and Mendonca elaborated that this is a form of organizational leadership that transforms and changes individuals, I found out that those same leaders reported specific childhood and young leadership experiences [23] that contributed to the final exhibit we observe at an organizational level. This is why Part 2 “Prepare for the Journey” is integral to the practical implementation of the Neocharismatic leadership model at later stages. The model presents, in its final visible and influential form, mature leaders as they take the journey within a team or an organization and transform from their current state to a future more desirable state. If there is no transformation taking place, the organization or team still needs a Neocharismatic leader who empowers others and develops their leadership skills in preparation for succession. Succession leadership is a topic that is under researched in Neocharismatic leadership. Nevertheless, my research revealed that due to their altruism, they are keen to grow other leaders that would replace them. The model encompasses three stages: (1) a leader’s search for opportunity; (2) a leader’s formulation and articulation of a shared vision; and (3) a leader’s achievement of the vision. In each stage, there are behavioral roles. By fulfilling these roles, leaders progress to the following stage. The stages are not always linear, but rather leaders move back and forth between them depending on the progress achieved and the need to reassess a situation or an opportunity. Some of the behavioral roles in each stage are common to all styles of leadership but are important to set the stage for other behavioral roles unique to the model. Leadership takes place in a context where there is a group of followers who exist or have con-

 What Constitutes the Neocharismatic Model

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Fig. 2.1  Dr. Angawi – Neocharismatic leadership model – all rights reserved to author. Stage one: The Search for Opportunity, (1) Assessing the Environment, (2) Sensing People’s Needs, (3) Challenging the Status Quo, Stage two: Formulating a Shared Vision, (4) Formulating a Shared Visions, (5) Articulating the Vision, Stage three: Devising Means to Achieve the Vision, (6) Taking personal Risks, (7) Unconventional Behavior, (8) Motivating and Inspiring, (9) Encouraging Collaboration, (10) Developing People

vened to achieve a purpose. Without followers, leadership moves back to personal and interpersonal and reverts to independency – awaiting another cycle of interdependency. Synergy and co-creation are interdependency between two or more people to achieve a purpose. The illustration (see Fig. 2.1) shows the model in action, while the table below gives a quick view of the behavioral roles included in each stage (Table 2.1).

Stage two: Formulating a shared vision Formulation of a shared 4. Formulating a shared vision vision 5. Articulation of the shared vision (motivation and inspiration)

3. Challenging the status quo

2. Sensitivity to people’s needs

Defining the stage Behavioral components Stage one: The search for opportunity 1. Sensitivity to the external Assessing the environment and sensitivity to environment externally the internal culture and internally in the search for opportunity

Transmitting stage one to followers to help them gain a sense of perspective on the challenges facing the organization Help followers be aware and anticipate change Expression of a personal leadership vision reinforces the followers’ collective identity through invitation to participate Arriving at a shared vision agreement in a clear, open, and participative Aligning behavior, actions, and values with the chosen vision The followers are encouraged to place the interest of their organization over their own interest, role modelling their altruistic Neocharismatic leader The leader gains credibility and is attributed Neocharisma

Realization of deficiencies in the status quo Realization of limitation in resources Realization of the need for a cultural shift Defining and clarifying options and objectives Identifying the follower’s deep concerns and intrinsic values of what it means to be part of the whole Developing mutual liking and respect in the process of gaining clarity and understanding Redefining options and objectives in the light of people’s aspirations Expression of aspiration to a vision that is greater than the follower’s aspirations but within the latitude of acceptance Defining the parameters of success and continuation

Outcome of behavior

Table 2.1  The Neocharismatic leadership model stages and behavioral roles

16 2  Conceptualizing “Neocharisma”

10. Developing leaders (empowering followers)

9. Encouraging collaboration and participation

8. Motivating and inspiring others

7. Unconventional behavior: Novel (original or new) and surprises members of the organization (unexpected).

Stage three: Devising means to achieve the vision 6. Taking personal risks The leader engages in activities that demonstrate the ability to achieve the organizational goals to achieve the vision Exemplifying trust building behaviors in communications and actions Being present and attentive Role modelling personal risk and sacrifice for the greater good Demonstrating disinterest in self-gain or gratifications Exemplifying moral codes and ethical decisions Demonstrating expert referential power Evoking followers’ emotional response of surprise and admiration in predictable situation by behaving unpredictably Announcing in humility publicly shortcomings and lesson learned Awaken intrinsic motivation through personal values and beliefs Clarifying leadership intentions through honesty and transparency Role modelling desired behaviors Walking the talk Creating opportunities for sharing, bonding, and connectedness among people Using social equity and justice along with moral values to mobilize and motivate Clarifying roles and deliverables and how it relates to the vision Coaching teams’ culture and performance across the organization Designing tasks and process for team collaboration Rewarding collective efforts Co-creating opportunities and work processes Engaging the whole in system design Fostering trust and transparency, courage and consideration, and respect to differences Empowering through delegation of control over resources, contextual change, and removal of barriers to their capable followers constantly Mentoring and coaching individuals as succession leaders Sharing decision-making in a participative mode Encouraging expression of thoughts and creative ideas Rewarding individual contribution with a balance between the individual and collective

 What Constitutes the Neocharismatic Model 17

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References 1. Weber, M., 1978. Max Weber Economy and Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 2. Yukl, G. A., 2010. Leadership in Organizations. London: Pearson. 3. Vries, M. K. D., 2006. The Leadership Mystique. London: Pearson Education Limited. 4. French, J. R. P. J. and Raven, B. (1968). ‘The Bases of Social Power’. In D. Cartwright and A. Zander (Eds), Group Dynamics: Research and Theory. London: Tavistock Publications. 5. Burns, J. M. (1979). Leadership. New York; London: Harper & Row. 6. Mendonca, M. & Kanungo, R. N., 2007. Ethical leadership. McGraw Hill/Open University Press, p. 165. 7. House, Robert J. is considered a leader in the field of charismatic leadership from 1977– 2004 in the scholarly collaborative GLOBE project where he and other colleagues studies the influence of culture on charismatic leadership. 8. Winkler, I., 2009. Neocharismatic Leadership. In: Contemporary Leadership Theories. s.l.:Physica-Verlag Heidelberg, p. 107. 9. Kouzes, J. M. and Posner, B. Z. (2007). The Leadership Challenge. (Fourth Ed.). San Francisco Jossy-Bass. 10. Gregory, Scott. “Transformational Leadership: It’s Not What You Think: Don’t be fooled by the name; transformational leadership is charismatic leadership with fancy title.” Workforce, vol. 98, no. 5, Sept.-Oct. 2019. 11. Nigel Nicholson is professor of organizational behavior at the London Business School in “What’s the big idea?: Charismatic leadership.” Management Today, 1 Feb. 2011, p. 14. 12. Turner N, Barling J, Epitropaki O, Butcher V, Milner C, 2002. Transformational leadership and moral reasoning, Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(2), p. 304–311. 13. Conger, J. A. and Kanungo, R. N. (1998). Charismatic Leadership in Organisations. London: Sage. 14. Mendonca, M. and Kanungo, R. N. (2007). Ethical Leadership. Glasgow: Bell & Bain Ltd. 15. Oxford: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ethics 16. Krishnan, P. B. &. V. R., 2000. Ethical preferences of transformational leaders: an empirical investigation. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 21(8), pp. 405–413. 17. Waldman, D. A. a. J. M., 2009. Alternative Forms of Charismatic Leadership in the Integration of Mergers and Acquisitions. The Leadership Quarterly, Volume 20, pp. 130–142. 18. Angawi, G., 2012. The roles of leadership in startegic decision making in higher education. London: British Library. 19. Shakeel F., Kruyen P. M., Van Thiel S., 2020, Development of a Broader Conceptualizing and a Measurement Scale of Ethical Leadership, Journal of Value-Based Leadership, Volume XIII • Issue I • Winter/Spring 2020. 20. Covey, S. R., 2004. The 7 habits of Highly Effective People. NY: Simon & Schuster. 21. Freeman, J., 2012. At the Heart of Leadership: How to get results with Emotional Intelligence. s.l.:Six Seconds. 22. Glaser, J.  E., 2016. Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get extraordinary results. UK: bibliomotion inc. 23. Angawi (2012), Neo-charismatic Leadership: A New Theory for Effective Leadership in Higher Education, Research Paper, Educate Journal, Vol 12, No 2 (2012). Online: http://www. educatejournal.org/index.php/educate/article/view/358

Part II

The Neocharismaitc Leadership Prerequisites

Chapter 3

Prepare for Your Neocharismatic Leadership Journey

This chapter is focused on the prerequisites of Neocharismatic leadership, which I will expand on here. I will use the metaphor of a journey in exploring the different practical phases that Neocharismatic leaders go through. It is important that a leader take a deep dive into personal leadership competencies and skills. If you have already done life or personal coaching, you can skip this chapter and proceed to the third, where you will begin the journey of Neocharismatic leadership. There is a check point that will help you assess your readiness for organizational transformation as a Neocharismatic leader later. You can always come back here when you feel that you want to do some personal leadership coaching sessions. You can use the sessions in this chapter to coach young leaders or individuals in your teams. The sessions will give you tools for mentoring as you become a leader with coaching skills. Leaders as coaches are growing in number as more organizations realize the importance of coaching competencies. From this point on, coaching sessions are introduced after each role or segment. This chapter contains 15 sessions. After each group of sessions, I will share personal stories in my own journey. The syllable “neo” means that the research on early charisma of Weber [1] is advanced and that it is no longer for religious or political movements or institutions [2]. I would add to Winkler statement that it also no longer confined to organizational level but applies to other leadership levels. To advance the Neocharismatic leadership practically, it required that we start thinking about leadership in a multidimensional way. From this point the style of writing will be addressing leaders and not researchers. I will start speaking to you as if you were here with me in a coaching session and we are interacting. From the above sentence, you already see that leadership requires you being in the world, as a part of it, in every thought and action. The awareness of space and place does change how you perceive yourself, your teams, your organization, and the interrelatedness between all. Neocharismatic leadership is both a state of mind and an intention to remain committed to who you want to be and to behave in that way throughout your leadership term.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. T. Angawi, Neocharismatic Leadership, Management, Change, Strategy and Positive Leadership, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55486-6_3

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Bringing ethical and moral behaviors into the equation, leadership becomes a social responsibility. Many people have been successful in making money and achieving status; many have earned respect through wealth, fear, and fame, but few are real leaders, leaders who have managed to earn others’ trust and admiration through their behavior. It takes a huge amount of conscientiousness and authenticity to live by universal ethical and moral standards. We are not talking here about what is legal or within the regulatory framework that is implied by a leaders’ presence in a country or affiliation to an organization. It is those who do that and then go further and live in accordance with their own moral and ethical judgment. Sir Tim Wilson1 elaborates on the gap which many people fail to bridge: I think that gap is the difference that separates those who are considered as leaders from those who are just successful. If you are going to lead an organization, a diverse group of people, over a sustained period, respect is not enough, you need trust. Unless you can apply a consistent set of ethical and moral behaviors you will never get the trust of people no matter how successful you are. (Tim Wilson, 2010)

At the core of the Neocharismatic model is leading in the moment as you relate to your surroundings, from the core of your being. Neocharismatic leaders come to the act of leading only after becoming thoroughly self-aware. This means they understand who they are and how they affect and influence the world around them. If they can do this, as well as consider the environmental variables without disregarding their intuition and purpose, then they will be able to make exceptional decisions. It is the state of connectedness that is sought through their sensitivity to people’s needs and the surroundings [3] as we will see later in the three Neocharismatic leadership stages: the search for opportunity, formulating a shared vision, and devising means to achieve the vision. Nevertheless, that state is not consistent. Therefore, as a leader you require coaching to bring you to that state in moments of stress or overwhelming circumstances. Alternatively, you can do that coaching session yourself. If you set the stage for it, set the time, go through the questions in this book, and even write the answers to help focusing or record it; with some discipline, you can coach yourself out of a state and into a higher self-actualization state. Suffice to say that any system requires a set of constants to sustain it. One of the constants of leadership is altruism. If this starts to change and a leader is concerned with their own benefit, status, and personal gain, the system begins to suffer and eventually destroys itself or gets destroyed by something more consistent and better aligned with principals of effectiveness, as is the case with leadership and service to others. You as a leader have risen to the responsibility of leading. Morality and ethical standards are an integral part of Neocharismatic leadership. Without this position, Neocharismatic leadership falls back to the charisma which was personal traits that draw people around it for good or bad. If you arrived here after skipping the previous chapters, you must be a pragmatic leader who wants to test the model through implementation. If the model (or part of

1  Sir Tim Wilson thankfully gave the permission to publish his quotes and one of the stories after reviewing it and also was generous to review the book.

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it) worked for you, you may find it intriguing to come back to chapter one and go through the ideas and theoretical history of charisma and how did it end up here. I always believed that leaders are professional walking books, who contain so much knowledge and expertise that it would be a bore for them to sit in a training room or lecture hall without taking an active part in disseminating knowledge. I also believe that reading books can be painful for leaders unless they know that the content is practical and will make a difference in their area of concern. When coaching leaders, the number one rule I advise coaches to abide by is to be curious and open to learning from the leaders as they coach them. With all the above in mind, there is a prerequisite that cannot be ignored. Many times, I sit with great leaders who bounce ideas off me to gain clarity and knowledge of exactly what needs to be done. During this process I often spot their inner doubt and uncertainty. I also spot regression in basic self-awareness with the rapid progression of their career. Self-awareness is a thinking pattern or a habit that once you are disengaged from for any reason, you will have to build it up again. I have also spent enough time with executive coaches to learn that the number one enemy of good leadership is the lack of self-leadership. This means as a leader, first and most you need to keep your self-leadership in check all the time if you wish to remain focused and balanced as you climb higher and connect with more followers. The idea of observing your own thoughts and of recognizing what you first need to be, in order to lead others, is absent in many leaders who are under stress to perform and achieve. They might have started out as balanced high self-awareness beings, but over the years, they slid into thinking habits that became obstacles. Addressing this is imperative if they wish to return to being as sharp and focused as they were when they started. Leadership skills and preparation are widely available for the current generation, far more so than in the past, with considerable emphasis being placed on emotional intelligence and empathy in the workplace. Therefore, a leader who is lacking in this department, no matter how purposeful they are or how much experience and knowledge they possess, will be recognized as such by younger generations. The moment they observe their leaders sidetrack is when they follow someone else or decide to leave the job and join another organization. This generation is about leadership. The time has passed when individuals joined the workforce just for the sake of income or survival. There are more choices now, and you as a leader better embody one of them. Being unable to fulfill the above leadership requirements for a young and intelligent workforce not only backfires on leaders by damaging their ability to retain talent but also means that the vast movement of leadership will leave them outdated and unneeded even if they are an asset with valuable wisdom, experience, and guidance to offer. Among some of the leaders I coached are excellent coaches, but they need to hone their skills to be able to offer their expertise as they approach retirement to become mentors and better coaches for the young leaders that are going to replace them. Unless you as a leader upgrade your communication, skills, and thought processes to match the skill set that is around you, you will soon fail. This

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book and the following coaching sessions and structures will facilitate this transformation. The methodology I use in this preparatory leadership section has worked for the past 20 years of training and coaching with hundreds of leaders. I start with examining thoughts and emotions, along with beliefs and perceptions. I look at the intrinsic values that motivate a leader towards self-growth. I make sure they have a vision or an end goal in mind for their life purpose. Finally, I make sure they possess the necessary skills for effective communication to coach and team coach. In answering the questions in the following 15 sessions, you will not only gain insight to yourself but to others around you. If you commit wholeheartedly, then the rest of the leadership model will function as a calibration of your inner compass. If you are truly committed to Neocharismatic leadership, you must have your own purpose that you lead yourself towards first. It is unfortunate that many leaders arrive at leadership before they are prepared. The reason for this relates to the assumption that leading only happens when there is a group of people who require it. On the contrary, to be fully prepared as a leader, you must have been personally preparing yourself through a long process of trial and error – by overcoming the challenges that life throws at you for a very long time. Traditional schooling and education do not prepare you for that, unless it was consciously planned through the creation of opportunities and assisted by the provision of a professional coach or mentor. Work does not prepare you unless you walk into it with a clear development plan of your personal skills and competencies and a mentor or a coach is assigned to work with you. Life is the only platform where opportunities present themselves to you until you learn all lessons needed for this present moment. Nevertheless, you can’t always state that on your resume! In this mini personal leadership journey, I will coach you through some of the above. You can also coach yourself, or if you have a personal coach, get them involved to support you. I must caution you, however, that the boundary between the two, personal/interpersonal and team/organizational leadership, is blurry and they constantly overlap and intertwine. In other words, you think you are done with your personal/interpersonal and all of a sudden, a situation arises where you are thrown back to the basics and find yourself swimming in personal leadership issues or tangled up in interpersonal issues. Inevitably, there will always be one or two of these challenges involved as you lead others through new situations. If you are coached through your personal journey well and if you develop the self-awareness to recognize behavioral patterns and can reflect on your own to coach yourself out of them smoothly, then you will have acquired the skill of coaching and be available to your followers to coach them through their journey with you. The one competency that you will consistently need until the day you die is self-­ awareness. This is why the following session is so integral to your leadership. It is the first prerequisite of any leadership quest and any coaching journey.

Personal Leadership 1: Self-Awareness

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Personal Leadership 1: Self-Awareness Self-awareness is about noticing what is going on inside you; it is about understanding yourself and being able to mindfully choose how you act. The idea of choice is at the center of self-awareness. We make choices all the time. We choose to act or not, think or distract ourselves from our thoughts, and feel or numb our emotions. In the process, we influence everyone and everything around us. I am writing this paragraph while I sat in a coffee shop. It is early in the morning and I am feeling calm and reflective. I am observing my emotions and thoughts while consciously selecting words. In the process, I am choosing to ignore some of the conversations that are going on around me. The woman who just finished her coffee and waved goodbye to the barista, for example, was beside me the whole time I was here, but I chose not to interact with her as my task for this morning was to write and not to socialize. Nevertheless, there was another woman across the table who looked very familiar. I noticed that I had a slight inclination to speak with her and ask her – have we met before? But I realize that I have a task to accomplish and so weigh the possibilities of time against the benefit of speaking and socializing. I chose to continue writing and be open to a future conversation once I accomplish my task, if she is still there. I look at my coffee, it’s delicious, and as my emotions of desire to sip increase, I choose to act. I reach to the cup and take a sip. My taste buds are submerged in the experience; I savor the moment and continue to write. This goes on and on, all day long, until I chose to sleep allowing my mind to relax and my eyes to close. A single moment in our day is packed with thoughts, emotions, and choices to act. We are surrounded by stimulus. Some of it is very sensual, and others are thought provoking and intellectual in nature. But the stimuli that act the most on us are the ones that provoke our emotions, thereby creating a chain of “stimulus-­ response.” Suddenly, we cross the boundary from conscious choices to unconscious reactions. But why do we get emotional about some thoughts and stimuli while we don’t with others? There is more to a stimulus than meets the eye. Each stimulus is connected to our unique personal preferences, which we call values. Values are the importance we place on things, people, meanings, and ideas in life. Why are they so important to us? We usually inherit this importance through our social programming as we are growing up, through our parents, extended family, education, social sphere, culture, and locale. We inherit specific sets of values that we are unconscious of. Some of these values are so deeply embedded in us that they become our belief system. The beliefs are not just about the meaning of life and God, they are also our theory of how the world works. We find comfort in surrounding ourselves with like-minded people, as they support these beliefs. We identify with a group and see ourselves in a specific way. We also avoid those who are not aligned with our belief system and create boundaries of acceptance and non-acceptance for who we are and who we are not. Our identity becomes solid and strong.

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This used to work for human beings as they grouped together for survival. But the social fabric has changed, and we are no longer as dependent on being part of a group. We live in an interconnected intercultural world where we live and interact constantly with all sort of people and ideologies physically and through other mediums of communication. We swiftly move between cultures throughout the day, while being physically in one spot in our offices, sometimes between groups as we brows our communities in our own devises. Our instinctual affiliation is disturbed or disrupted, constantly clashing with reality. We start to question who we are and how to survive. This pressure increases, and we are not equipped to handle the constant change of cultures throughout the day. We become stressed. Stress causes mental and physical symptoms. The good news is that our incredible brains are wired to form norms and habits. They are also wired to adapt to new habits and relinquish old ones by unlearning them. All we need to do is establish habits of thinking and surviving that are suitable for the new environment we find ourselves in. The habit for this era, and in the time of VUCA2, is self-awareness. Self-awareness has become the most important single competency that can help acclimate and acculturate us as we move through places and concepts and meet different people. It’s a reset button we press as we enter a new situation or exit an old one. Once we learn where the button is and how to reset it, the skill becomes automated and habitual, so we don’t think about it anymore. When we are skilled in doing so, we become adaptable, flexible, and in control of who we are and where we want to be, both mentally and physically. We become our own script writers and can influence our health and well-being greatly so that we experience vitality and prosperity, while operating in a VUCA world. In the following pages, you will get to ask yourself questions and hopefully practice some of the exercises that will bring you closer to self-awareness and becoming the leader you want to be. It is important here to start a journal to log your thoughts as we move through this session and other sessions. This journal can be paper, electronic, recording, or even art and sketching. Commitment to this will yield better results from any coaching including self-coaching. If at any point you felt the need to reach out to a coach, please find one who is experienced with emotional intelligence (EQ), or neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), or the gestalt methods. Someone who can work with your values and belief systems and in the process help you become aware of your thoughts. The intention of this session is exactly that. Let’s begin.

 Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity

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Session 1: Developing a Full Week Log The first task I usually start with is a full week log. It consists of logging three times a day your emotions, thoughts, and what actions they led to or resulted from. A simple log like this at regular times of the day describes what you are feeling as well as why or what the thoughts are that are behind this emotion and if this has led to any reaction or choice of action. Let’s try this now. Answer the following questions. 1. What do you feel now? What else do you feel? 2. What are the visuals, or sounds/voices, or sensations, or smells that are accompanying these emotions? 3. What are the thoughts that run through your mind as you recall all or some of the above, can you verbalize them? 4. How did you respond or act in response to these thoughts and emotions? Or what do you intend to do about them? 5. Was anyone affected or part of this? What did you observe as you interacted with them? 6. Does this emotion exhibit in any part of your body? 7. Some people experience specific body symptoms with emotions. 8. What can you learn about yourself from this emotion or feeling? 9. What did you learn about yourself from the interaction or lack of interaction? Remember my writing in the coffee shop example? That was exactly what I did. Reflect. Most probably, trying these questions now, while you are calm and in a state of learning and reception, will only result in feeling calm contentment or excitement. You will learn about yourself and realize that you can be in a state of learning and excitement whenever you want. You will learn that you can induce this state by simply replicating the stimuli that first started it, if you know what it is. You will learn that learning requires focus and concentration and that you have that now. You can write a whole incident out in detail, or you may choose to briefly respond to these few questions. Whatever your method is, keep logging for a week. Every time you log, notice what you learn about your behavioral patterns.

Session 2: Challenging Yourself with the Findings Whatever your personal style is, come back in a week and make notes on the following: 1. What were your emotions/thoughts and behavioral patterns? 2. You are here trying to notice repetitions and common threads. 3. How did they affect your week in general? 4. How do they align with who you are or with what you would like yourself to be? 5. What are you noticing regarding your behavioral patterns? 6. This is where you can evaluate these patters as negative, positive, or neutral.

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7. What are your reactions to your observations? 8. Notice what you feel having observed how you were all week long. Are there any thoughts emerging? More emotions? Or a realization about you? If you come back with answers like; “I am noticing that my emotions are constantly negative when this or that situation is happening”, or “I am finding my emotions are affecting or impacting the way I communicate with (mention who) in a (describe your satisfaction level)”, or “I am not fully aligned with (vision, mission and who you want to be)”, or “my behavioral patterns are (fluctuating between…. or unsatisfactory or not aligned with….), and I am not happy, feeling confused or (negative) about my findings”, then you should move on to the next session. Results: If you experience any of the following: • You are aligned with your vision and who you want to be in life. • Your emotions tend to be calm and quiet as you analyze them and gain clarity around them. • The people who are affected by how you manage your emotions and thoughts are positive or at least neutral. • Your behavioral patterns are satisfactory and had not negatively impacted you or your week in general. • You are content with yourself and observed no discrepancy or out-of-norm reactions; in essence you were mindful and present with yourself most of the time. Then you don’t need to continue the self-awareness sessions and you can move on to the next which is your personal leadership vision’s sessions.

Session 3: Focusing on Specific Goals 1. Define in a few words or sentences what it is that you want to achieve after observing yourself over the past week? 2. Ask yourself why is it important to achieve each goal? 3. Is this importance something you inherited or is it a deliberate choice as a result of your values and beliefs? 4. When you arrive at your desired goal(s), what will you experience or get? Remember we are talking about self-awareness goals related to your own thoughts, emotions, and behavior. 5. What efforts are you committed to make in order to reach these goals? 6. If you are not fully committed, then what is in the way? How are you going to handle these challenges? If you are not fully committed and there are challenges in the way, you may consider a personal coach to support you overcoming these challenges. If you are fully committed, then move to the next session.

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Session 4: Advancing Your Self-Awareness Log In this session I would like you to commit to journaling. The incidents you will journal must be those in which you find yourself diverting from your personal goals or are negatively impacted by them or are affecting others around you. This will be done throughout the day/7 days of a week starting today. You will meticulously observe and notice all your negative emotions. You will add the following to the list of questions in session 1: • What needs to change here? • Why is this important to me? And why else? • What needs to happen next time? (In detail) Your log should be extensive regardless of the method you use, as long as these questions are answered every time. If your day is busy, make time during lunch and after work to reflect. Alternatively, take quick notes as the events occur so you don’t forget the emotions and can come back to them in the evening. Whatever you do, commit to it. Remember your goal and reason for getting this book and why in the first place you chose to invest in it. If this style of coaching does not suit you, find a coach, invest in yourself, and come back when you are ready to self-coach. All of the following sessions will rely heavily on this skill. It is vital to your Neocharismatic leadership.

Session 5: Moving to Third Week Logging When you have logged for a full week and made it a ritual, you would have done 2 weeks of logging. The first was a general log, the second was a log of negative emotions, and the third is going to be focused on noticing your strengths and positive emotions. It is time to notice the new you. Move to a new section of your journal. Label it “Being.” You will now start logging your positive and desired “Being” state three or more times a day, for a week. You will log the incident during which you were the most connected with yourself and aware of it. These can be neutral or positive, but do not log negatives anymore. If you feel that your negative logging is stopping you and occupying your mind, seek a personal coach to support your growth in that area. If you can let go, accept your own flaws, and are able to navigate the emotions arising from the negative state of being in some of your daily challenges, then here is a set of questions you should attempt to answer as you log your strengths and document the positive “Being.” 1. Why do I feel connected with myself now? What happened? What are my thoughts? 2. In what way I am connected? Physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, intellectual (and mention any other way you found connectedness).

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3. What is the impact of this connectedness with myself on my own thoughts, emotions, and the resulting (or absence of) actions? What is the impact on others (if any)? 4. How does this align with me now and me in the future (desired state of being)? Coaching with strength is an important skill that you need to develop. It will become handy when you are faced with greater challenges as you transform organizations and coach teams.

Session 6: Challenging Yourself with the Findings Come back here after a week with the outcomes of the previous log of strengths, capabilities, and connectedness with your “Being.” Attempt to answer the following questions which will complement your self-awareness sessions: 1. What did you find out about yourself? Your abilities? Report any observations or changes. 2. How did that influence your week? Your relationships with others? 3. What did you learn about yourself? What changes need to happen for your future leadership potential to become actualized? 4. What is your next step forward? When you are satisfied with your answers and feel less of a need to reflect daily, you can reduce the journaling to once a day and move to the set of sessions on your personal leadership vision. Remember your self-awareness skill is freshly acquired or revived, which require you to continue reflecting. Old habits can come back easily if you do not keep the momentum going and continue being self-aware and reflective through journaling. If one day you skipped, come back again and log the previous day. It’s the only way; there is no other way to build that habit. We will use the journal again for future reflections. Thank you for your perseverance. Now you are ready to move on. Personal Story I started serious journaling in 2007 because my supervisor asked me to as I started my PhD research. He asked me to write my thoughts throughout the day on my research and how my daily events were reflected in my work. I wrote and reflected few times a day, but sometimes only once. In the beginning, I had nothing to say except: “quiet day,” “crazy day,” “I am worried about,” and “I am not sure if this data fits in.” After a while, my writing became more descriptive of my emotional state as I reflected on my day and the conversations I am having with my kids or my research peers or subjects including the leaders I am working with. In 2011 when I was writing my thesis after finalizing my data collection and analysis, I went back

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and used my journal to write my methodology chapter. I saw the strengths I had and learned about myself so much from reading my own stories. I continued reflecting and I made a point to do it three times a day, this time not for the research but to empower myself. I then developed the habit of writing at the start of everyday as I had my morning coffee, even if only a few lines. No matter how negative I was, my journal never gave me advice or lectured me on my actions. It was always calm and collected. It took me in without judgment or ridicule and with all the love in the world. It listened attentively and I was able to coach myself out of negatives and into positives always. The words I heard every time were: “this is another hump, if you fall today you will rise again tomorrow stronger.” I then started using my journaling to reflect on my emotional being without any negativity or sadness. I then moved to journaling with water coloring. I cleared my mind as I drew, sketched, and painted. By the time I became focused on coaching as a profession in 2014, I journaled everything and every moment I encountered as I coached, got coached, and reflected on coaching. Not only did this refine my coaching skills, but I became two people in one by observing myself in the moment as I coached, trained, or facilitated any interaction in my professional world. I could read situations from different angels and travel in time and space to see different viewpoints. My actions were delayed and came out of choice rather than reaction. I also learned to reflect without writing or drawing when I needed and wanted to. I can now pause and think before I react, because I can see the other “me” who is struggling and experiencing life whilst I remain the wise conscious “Being” who supports her. I wanted to share this with you so that you know where this skill can take you. It develops a sense of global connectedness with first “you” and then “others,” regardless of who they are or what they do. You become compassionate and merciful despite their inabilities or incompetence instead of getting angry or frustrated. Writing this book is another kind of journaling for me. I hope that my words inspire you, too. Ghadah

Personal Leadership 2: Vision Neocharismatic leadership requires that you lead mindfully. This means you must be fully present to comprehend your direct and extended environment in every moment to decide what path you want to take. Your vision and ability to foresee “you” in a future desired state, its compatibility, and applicability all play an integral part in leading others through the Neocharismatic leadership model. Your personal vision will be reviewed at different stages of your life and is an ongoing process. Your personal vision is integral to the model as the whole idea of Neocharisma is based on visionary transformational leadership. To find a direction, you must first have clarity of vision. The more comprehensive and detailed your view of yourself and the different levels of environmental layers you live in, the better your chances are to find where you are and the direction you want to take. To see well, you must remove all that is blocking your view.

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Internal obstacles are some of the first roadblocks many leaders encounter as they step forward in the discovery process. Therefore, it is advisable before you decide who you are and what you want to do for others as a leader that you go through the previous self-awareness process, on your own or with a coach, if you have not done so yet. This will mean identifying your limiting beliefs, what values are important to you, and if it is important to prioritize them or leave them as they are. It also means knowing your identity and how you define yourself, the character you have, your personality traits, your skill levels and competencies, and if you want to work any of them. When you have passed the personal leadership vision process and are ready to develop your leadership of others, the first vision of who you are and what you want to achieve in life will still look a little hazy. That is normal, as you need to examine the context within which you will actualize your vision. This is what “the search for opportunity” stage is all about, the first stage of the Neocharismatic leadership model. Your personal leadership vision for the group you lead will change and adapt as you perform further assessments and learn about the group’s vision. Vision is related to perception and as you learn you adjust. But you must start somewhere. If you already have a personal vision and have constructed a noble goal in life, please move on to the next chapter and the sessions within where we explore “the Search for Opportunity” stage of the model.

Session 7: Drafting Your Personal Vision To draft a personal leadership vision, you must first see the end in mind as Steven Covey described [4]. One great exercise he used is the “the funeral: writing your own Eulogy.” The purpose of the exercise is to get you to examine what matters most to you in life and define your higher values and purpose [5]. Do this exercise on your own or with a personal coach or find another way to support you in seeing the end in mind. When you are ready, come back to the next session.

Session 8: Putting Your Belief System to the Test Having gone through the previous exercise, you now have a better idea of what your beliefs around yourself, others, and life in general. You would have identified what matters most to you in life which are the values that govern your personal decisions in any given moment. If you uncovered some negative beliefs that kept impeding your thought processes like “no, you’re not good enough” or “really you want to be influential?” or “why do you see yourself as so important? There are many people like you out there,” then you need to work though these thoughts and uncover the beliefs that underpin them. If your thoughts are centered around who you are,

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h­ ighlighting to you even more negativities, then there are a series of negative thought patterns you need to deal with. Most of our beliefs are inherited and not deliberately acquired. To be able to lead others, you must first know yourself well. Part of knowing yourself is identifying your belief system which governs deeply how you react to others and make your daily decisions. Our upbringing and what we inherit from our past experiences determine if our beliefs are optimistic or pessimistic. Don’t go blaming only your parents; some of our beliefs are inherited from friendships or even the media. Other times beliefs are formed through our own experiences and the emotions attached to them. It does not matter where they came from, what matters is what we do about them. These negative interruptions can prevent you from becoming a Neocharismatic leader. To do that I invite you to take a journey through the “limiting beliefs exercise” which I find very useful with my clients [6]. For best results use your personal coach over few sessions to support you in digging deeper. If you are satisfied with your beliefs, then move to the next session.

Session 9: Prioritizing Your Values In this session you will work on your values by first identifying what stood out for you and what you value the most in life from the “funeral” exercise and from your belief exercise. If you are happy with how your values are aligned with who you are, skip this session; otherwise do jot down answers to the following questions. The first question is about materials, meanings, people, and ideas that are important to you. 1. If you had an unlimited amount of money or resources, what would you like to have? 2. When you think of what you have if you acquired the above, how does all of that relate to who you are? In other words, who are you when you have all of that? If this question did not sit well with you and you would like to review your answer to the first then go ahead, try again. Maybe they will become more aligned. Describing yourself when you won all of what you want to own can help you examine if this will change you to someone else? Why ownership of these items is important? But even more important is: Here is the question again: at the core of your being, who are you? How do you describe yourself?

3. Having decided what you want to have on your journey to the future, and who you are as you do that, describe what means are going to get you there? The means are the methods, tools, vehicles, and, to be more precise, the path that will take you to where you want to be. Yes, I did ask you about what you would like to have, and now it turns out to be an actualization of arriving at a destination. You

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are now thinking about reviewing the first question and changing your answers to it. Please do go back and reflect again on what you want to have and then move on to who you are currently and end by who you want to be and how you are going to get there. Now you have a draft of your vision. In the last question lies your ethical and moral values as you craft your way towards where you want to be and what you want to have. Then move on the next session.

Session 10: Finalizing the Vision It will be helpful if you share your vision if you have a personal coach. Or share it with your friends and family and get feedback. This will give you a 360 view of how people see you and your potential to achieve your vision, how realistic the vision is, and if your way of getting there is practical or possible. Moreover, when you try to explain to others, if something is not setting well inside you, you will notice this feeling. Do stop and ask yourself why you are experiencing discomfort or hesitation. Take time to reflect. Keep working on your draft. Review your draft and enhance it every year. Keep being open to being influenced and to adapting your vision to the results of the assessment of the environment you live in and experiences you learn, as you work with your followers’ vision in the coming chapter. Make sure you align your vision with what you do in your professional leadership role. Congratulations, you have a life vision that grows with you and will flourish as you flourish in your future Neocharismatic leadership. Personal Story In the year 2000, I was struggling to pursue a career in leadership training that I was passionate about but had little to no opportunity of succeeding in, as a woman in a male-dominated society (Middle Eastern culture). I met my wonderful coach in the USA, in Florida, at the ASTD.3 He was from the same culture I was from and understood exactly what I was going through without me saying a word. He recognized me as a woman with ambition and knew instantly that I would need a coach to accompany me on my journey to take the path I wanted to take. We continued coaching after I returned from the USA regularly for 6 months. The first thing he supported me with was finding my purpose and personal vision in life. I walked out with a strategic plan for life that I kept reviewing every year that led me to this moment and writing this book. My whole life fell into place; my decisions were aligned with who I was and who I wanted to be. In the journey there were months and even whole years when I diverted form my plan and took another detour, thinking my plan was only related to my career and limited to my professional work. It

 Now Association of Talent Development (ATD) https://www.td.org/

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was painful when I did that; I was not committed to my vision on a personal level and followed opportunities that were not rooted in my values or related to them. The consequences were severe, and I paid the price for some of those decisions I made. I finally got myself together and committed wholly to what I vowed to become. I made sure that all areas of my life were aligned. On this day, I stand as a witness to the power of vision and strategy. I am committed in all directions, not just in my career or professional work. My personal life turned out to be a crucial piece in my commitment to vision. Ghadah

Interpersonal Leadership: Empathy As soon as you leave your solitude and encounter another being, you are in an interpersonal leadership space. If you are interacting, then you are leading, whether you choose to or not. You lead with words, body language, and how you handle your surroundings. When you are in the presence of others, you are role modeling to those who look up to your leadership behavior. If you have a partner or a family, then you are leading in that context; if you are with friends, acquaintances, or peers, you are leading. This will continue to reflect your Neocharismatic leadership in your current role and later when you are in another leadership role as a team/organization leader.

Session 11: Acting Your Vision The self-awareness log now becomes a serious tool that helps you build consistent behavioral patterns for your communication with others. Keep logging once or more a day. This time, noticing how you choose who you want to be from the moment you encounter others. Keep logging the emotions that come up, especially if you observed yourself reacting in a way that does not align with your chosen values and beliefs. Analyze these occurrences and plan a strategy for next time to act differently. The more you catch yourself in the moment, the better your chances are of liberating yourself from reactiveness and moving into mindful action. As time passes you will become insightful and start pausing and choosing before you act. This is a basic competency for Neocharismatic leaders.

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Session 12: The Collaborative Intention Intention plays a big role in communication. For you to work with others collaboratively, you must hold inside you the willingness to do so for as long as you are interacting with them. Moving back to personal gain and “what’s in it for me” can serve you for your own personal goals, but it will not be the case as you lead others to a collective goal. Part of the Neocharismatic leadership model is altruism and the ability to move beyond your own benefits and navigate creatively what serves the greater good of your followers. You can’t be appointed to lead a team for the first time and expect yourself to have that ability right away all the time. If you were not exposed to teamwork and collaboration as you were growing your personal and interpersonal leadership competencies, and if you spent most of your life as an individual contributor in a culture that promotes competitiveness and individualism, it’s very likely that you will need to put your mind to work on how to be aware of collectiveness and collaborative intention until it becomes a habit or a mindset. The most difficult times to put that to action are when you are emotional. Take a step back and observe how your intentions are during those difficult times. All the previous sessions so far were setting you up to develop this competency. Be assured that others will read you before you even speak a word. Body language and tone of voice speak volumes; therefore bring yourself to examine carefully from this session on what your intention looks like as you leave your personal space and interact with others. Start by checking in three times a day with your intentions as you log your previous behavioral patterns. Be creative about how you will remind yourself to hold that intention as you communicate. Use visual and kinesthetic reminders. For example, certain colors, shapes of things, or even the feeling of something in your pocket can be used to bring you back to your collaborative intention. When you have mastered collaborative intention at least 70% of the time, move to the next session. Do not relax and let go of this habit, as there will be future situations where this skill will serve you well, and it is an integral part of your coaching role as you lead.

Session 13: Master Empathy – Part 1 Empathy is the one skill that is a building block for all other competencies and behavioral roles of the Neocharismatic leader. In the Neocharismatic leadership model, the role of “sensitivity to people’s needs” asks you from the first stage of transformation to hone the skill of empathy. Some call it active listening, others call it understanding what another person is feeling and what their world looks like. Let me walk you through the skill gradually. In the process, I will ask you to go away for a few days to practice parts of the skill and come back here to reflect and take another chunk, until you are an expert empathetic listener.

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Start by observing how you react when you are listening to people. Log quickly your reactions, and at the end of the day, look at that collection of reactions and sort them into the following groups: 1. Opposition and objection reaction: refusal and complaints, accompanied by anger and resentfulness to what the other is asking or implying 2. Agreement and compliance with passivity and inner resentfulness, saying little but crying inside or coming back at yourself saying you “deserve” this treatment 3. Telling others how wrong or right they were and projecting your own judgment and your own belief and value systems onto them 4. Giving advice, lecturing, storytelling, and historical data relating to the speaker situation 5. Conspiring with others through gossip, backbiting, and agreeability with their negativity, becoming negative in the process 6. Asking questions and propping them up with the intention to arrive at a solution with further investigation 7. Pitying others with sympathy and/or minimizing their pain through giving reminders of all the other blessing they have 8. Relating to your own experience and deeply feeling sorry for yourself 9. Objectively listening for information to learn more how the situation impacted the speaker If you chose to do the last, then you are on the right track; if a lot of your reactions resemble points 1–8, start moving more towards number 9 until you are there 70% of the time. Then move to Part 2.

Session 14: Master Empathy – Part 2 Let’s build on number 9; the ability to objectively listen and look for information and data that will help you understand clearly. When you have finished listening, it’s time to make sure you have the required clarity and have captured the perception of the speaker accurately. You may sound a bit robotic here or like a parrot if you decide just to rephrase the words. Therefore, you should only attempt to rephrase if you are listening in a professional coaching role or in a business meeting or during a conflict resolution session. People will find it strange if you start mimicking the words and speak back to them in order to make them feel you have captured everything they said. You are only allowed to rephrase if there is a possibility that the other person needs you to do so, and then you should seek their permission by asking them if you can do so and clarify why you think this will be helpful. For example, you may respond by saying: “There were few ideas here that you threw on the table and if you allow me, I would like to rephrase the ideas just to make sure I understood all of them and heard you well”? That is the only situation to rephrase in

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a casual nonprofessional conversation with friends and family or even peers or even sometimes in a business meeting. The reaction you are about to give should be a response to how you perceived what they told you and how it landed on you in terms of pure data. Later you can start examining the other person’s emotions that are attached to the data and how they feel about the data. Finally, you look at the significance of the data and the context they are experiencing then clarify that to them. Here is a detailed step-by-­ step process of an empathetic response: 1. Finding the meaning of the information that you received from the speaker and expressing those meanings so that the speaker can confirm to you that you understood what they meant. Step one does not involve any emotions or elaboration. 2. Finding the significance of this information to the speaker and reflecting in your own words this significance to them, while allowing them to respond by confirming or offering further explanation. You are still a step away from the emotions. 3. Finding the attached emotions to this information they shared with you if there are any, and when you get something, reflect it back to them in your own words as you saw it along with what you understood or just on its own. In all of the above, you are still holding your own thoughts and emotions around the data, its significance, and the emotional part of the conversation, if any. In doing so, you are delaying your own reaction and spending more time with the other, listening until the other feels they have nothing else to add. Whatever response you choose out of the three above, make it concise so that they are not overwhelmed with the amount of information you are reflecting. Give them a chance to clarify by constantly pausing for 6 seconds (or two long breaths). Many leaders fail to pause for enough time to allow introverts who require longer than others to contemplate and start responding. To help yourself pause for a sufficient amount of time, examine each person’s body language, and send a message of “I care about your response and I want to hear it, please give it to me,” which takes a minimum of 6 seconds. Other will give you a signal that you got it right or they will clarify. Try to capture at least two to three points out of ten and summarize it back to them in the above three forms. Be authentic and real. If you are providing one of the one to eight responses, it means you were not listening. It means you were in your own thoughts and emotions while they were trying to tell you theirs. From the above you will need to log what happened within you as you practice empathetic listening day in and day out to build self-awareness of your listening skills. It can take anything from 1 week to a few weeks until you start building a habit. Remember it is all about self-awareness and planning a strategy for your won communication with others as you move into the interpersonal leadership space. When you are ready to move on, read the next session.

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Session 15: Master Empathy – Part 3 In this part you will start expressing your own thoughts with clarity and direct communication. For listening to be useful, you need to respond, and it is not enough to respond to the speaker with clarity and empathy as an end in itself; if you stop there, you will sound empty and have no substance to add. As you engage in a conversation, you will want to express your thoughts and emotions so that they can listen to you. After you listen and empathize fully and the other feels, they have no more to say about themselves or their views on a subject, usually with collaborative intention by both, it is your turn to speak. Before you say a word, it is important to bring your collaborative intention to the forefront, so that your thoughts and emotions are aligned with the purpose of the conversation. The second role of “Sensitivity to People’s Needs” in Neocharismatic leadership requires it. It is a bonus to state the purpose before you speak so that the other person can align their intentions and purpose as well. This will enable others who are listening to you to stay tuned in and let you articulate your thoughts fully. It is also helpful here to remind the other that you expect them to listen to you and clarify their understanding by checking with you as you did with them, especially in situations where there is a decision to be maid or a conflict to be resolved. Establish eye contact and give the listener your full being in the moment as you start speaking. If there is more than one listener, distribute your eye contact between all of them. Be brief and specific. Speak slowly and check in occasionally (every 30–45 seconds) and stop every 1–2 minutes to make sure they are responding physically with body language or with words. When you go into a lengthy explanation, it is likely that your listener will lose interest and get into their thoughts and emotions. You want them to stay present and therefore be able to reflect and empathize. If you arrive at this point, and you were able to capture everyone’s attention, continue practicing over the following few weeks until you are 70% empathetically listening and feel that others start to work with you and enjoy being around you. If you feel stuck in your own reactivity, seek a coach. There is more than empathetic listening to communication, and these are things that you will need in your Neocharismatic leadership. Empathetic listening is a steppingstone in any communication, but not the only skill. Be sure to cover your communication skills with your coach as you encounter more situations. When you are ready and feel confident, get your team together and start the journey of Neocharismatic leadership. Personal Story I have struggled with interpersonal relations all my life. My journey was full of thorns underfoot. I painfully stepped on my ego to amend a relationship here or there, but that did not change the fact that I was reactive and unable to take in other people’s comments or views positively and empathetically. When I went through my

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first divorce, I thought I was just bad at communication. As I was preparing for a fresh start, after starting my career in training – I was only 30 years old – I discovered that I have a long way to go in training myself as a communicator. My kids were my guinea pigs as I practiced all sorts of empathetic listening techniques. Nevertheless, they always managed to challenge the worst in me. Journaling truly helped me, but every time I conquered my self-reactivity in a situation and thought that I was over it, another situation more difficult arose and I had to face it with a different mindset and set of skills. For as long as I can remember, every personal and professional relationship has had its challenges and I continue to grow and meet them. My kids are grown-ups now, but these challenges still exist as I walk through life with them. Today I had a conversation with a mentor and coach who has been working with me for 15 years. She told me that I sounded arrogant. I respect her very much and I knew when she said that, that she meant it. I could not find in myself arrogance and I shared with her my inability to see it in myself. She listened and then said: “If you are blinded by your arrogance, you will never spot it, first admit and then go inside to see it.” After the conversation ended and my tears were still hot. I found it; it was my arrogance to admit that I sounded so. I was fighting hard inside myself and wanted proof that was not possible. The proof was inside me and I could not see it as I was being too defensive. I am sharing this with you, my reader, to let you know that it is not easy to be responsive and empathetic when you are being reactive. I know it is hard and it is a journey, but as you take the time and look inside you, you will be able to see better. My journey now is even harder, I am not only working on my own blind spots but am also held accountable for leading others as I write, coach, and train teams to be transparent and honest. I hope in my sharing that you find some wisdom that will help you see. Ghadah

References 1. Weber, M., 1978. Max Weber Economy and Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 2. Winkler, I., 2009. Neocharismatic Leadership. In: Contemporary Leadership Theories. s.l.: Physica-Verlag Heidelberg, p. 107. 3. Brown, B., 2017. Rising Strong. New York: Penguin random House LLC. 4. Covey, S. R., 2004. The 7 habits of Highly Effective People. NY: Simon & Schuster. 5. Frazer Holmes coaching online source http://www.frazerholmes.com/resources/lifebalance/ handouts/Session-5-funeral-exercise.pdf 6. Romain, S.  K., 2017. Unbreakable: 6 Principles to Reset Your Life and Become Unbreakable. s.l.: Amazon Digital Services LLC. https://www.amazon.com/ Unbreakable-Principles-Reset-Your-Become-ebook/dp/B0754N9RFG

Part III

Start the Journey

Chapter 4

Start Your Neocharismatic Leadership Journey

This chapter assumes that you have gone through the personal leadership preparation process outlined previously. It assumes that you have a complete and clear idea of who you are and what you want to achieve in life. This means you now possess the skills and discipline to manage your personal and professional life. These goals can vary from personal achievements like earning a professional degree to interpersonal achievements like nurturing your growing family or fulfilling others’ expectations and holding the commitments you make to them. Your clarity on your personal vision propels you to lead others. In other words, you are self-aware, proactive, optimistic, and intrinsically motivated. In this chapter, I will support you through the first behavioral role of “Assessing the Environment” in three levels or scenarios of your leadership. In the first two, I will address personal leadership initiatives or individual contributor leadership. In the second I will address team leadership, assuming the individual has started a team or was appointed to lead a team. In both scenarios I will include the second role of “Sensing People’s Needs” due to the limited size of the engagement. When addressing the third scenario of strategic organizational leadership level, I will only present the role of “Assessing the Environment,” leaving the second role of “Sensing People’s Needs” for the fourth chapter. I assume that you have mastered interpersonal leadership skills such as empathy and the ability to support others in navigating their own emotions through coaching or listening. I also assume you are altruistic and working towards a greater noble goal in life as you cater for your family, attend to your team as a leader, and participate in the wider community. Once, I was coaching a leader and the following realization hit him. He said: “I can now accept that I am part of something bigger than myself.” Unless you gain this insight, leading will be a difficult journey. I have coached leaders in organizations who can only operate in their own limited mindset, who are totally blind to everything but that which exists in their own world. They have personal leadership but lack interpersonal skills. In emotional intelligence (EQ), it is © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. T. Angawi, Neocharismatic Leadership, Management, Change, Strategy and Positive Leadership, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55486-6_4

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defined by the ability to “give yourself” which include two competencies: increased empathy and having a noble goal [1]. Being able to support others in navigating their own emotions and using their emotions in making their own decisions and plans is vital to the success of your leadership. These two competencies will help you in overcoming conflict through conversation and in your continued exploration of options that meet everyone’s needs. Co-creation of new solutions can happen, but it requires a lot of conversational intelligence [2] and being comfortable in the uncertainty and vulnerability of new challenging situations [3]. In case you have decided to jump to this chapter and have skipped the previous chapter’s sessions or if there is anything in the last paragraphs that you are unsure of, then I invite you to revisit the previous chapter or get a personal coach to support you in acquiring these competencies so that you can start your true Neocharismatic leadership journey.

The Search for Opportunity Stage This stage is about alignment of a leader’s purpose and direction with the context, the internal and external environment within which they are operating. The approach to fulfilling this stage and these roles depends on the size and extent of their followers and the responsibilities they accept. The outcome of the role is exemplified in a strategic plan that includes the second and third stage’s roles, processes, and outcomes. But, most importantly, it challenges the norms and ideals of the status quo of the context and the followers. The challenge is the transformative part that includes risky but calculated decisions. Leaders at this stage are sensitive to the clues that the readings and assessments of the environment bring. They are also sensitive to people’s needs and aspirations. They have their own personal informed and updated vision but will not attempt to articulate it without including others in stage two processes. Nevertheless, they attempt to announce a way forward that challenges the core believes, values, and norms of the group of followers and invites opposition and objections. This challenge is articulated in many ways and can set the stage for strategic decisions to be made. Sometimes the challenge of a strategic transformation takes place before the vision is formulated. This is particularly relevant when there is a shortage of resources and/or time. In this case, a leader moves the organization forward to save its future. Other times, a leader may have the time and resources to gradually build momentum that facilitates a smooth transition through to stage two. This will be discussed in detail as we progress in the model. I argue that leaders must have the ability to perceive environmental opportunities and limitations of resources and threats [4]. A leader must be capable of assessing their followers’ needs and abilities and ensuring that the organizational objectives and goals are meaningful and rewarding enough to gain their commitment and effort. A leader must then be able to translate opportunities into organizational goals and have followers participate in their attainment. A leaders’ heightened sensitivity

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to environmental opportunities, constraints, resources, and followers’ needs distinguishes them from other leaders, as they challenge the status quo by acting as reformers or agents for radical change [5].

 eocharismatic Leadership Role 1: Assessing N the Environment The purpose of this behavioral role is to assess the external and internal environment in order to come up with a workable strategy to implement organizational objectives and goals without losing sight of long-term vision. A failure to assess the opportunities, resources, and constraints could result in failure to formulate an effective vision in stage two, let alone achieve it in stage three. In order to navigate this task, leaders need to be active learners by thinking broadly about everything outside of their immediate understanding in the external and internal environment. This can be through benchmarking and learning from competitors, engaging at various levels of functionality in their organization, and having a personal connection with customers and other stakeholders. When assessing the external environment, leaders must consider a broad range of environments related to their organization – locally, nationally, and internationally through published information or other networks. Leaders must consider the impact of external events on their organization and its future. This heightened sensitivity to the environment may dictate that a leader waits for a perfect time and place before making use of an opportunity. It also could lead to postponing action rather than initiating it. Thus, this role does not always lead to a drastic challenge; it can just be part of a cycle of assessments that will continue to take place and can in the future feed the challenging decision. Although this assessment is a common feature of leadership behavior, it is very important for Neocharismatic leaders specifically because of the high-risk factor present with the radical changes these leaders are about to propose. It is also relevant to mention here that a specific context can trigger this behavioral role and become an opportunity for a leader to impose radical change in an organization that is either in crisis or at a crossroads. A leader usually fosters the need for transformation by highlighting the deficiencies that exist in the status quo. The context is viewed as a precipitating factor for the emergence of Neocharismatic leadership. While ordinary leaders maintain the status quo by making an existing approach more efficient, a Neocharismatic leader seeks total transformation of the existing approach. At the center of this stage is “assessing the direct and extended, internal and external environment” where leaders and their followers operate. While many organizations take the assessment process seriously, rarely is it truly captured in relation to a leaders’ own vision or involvement. It is usually administered as one more process that an organization tasks a committee with, in order to situate itself in

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r­ elation to its competitors for marketing and strategic planning purposes. While this is true, and not to be disregarded in any way, the extra involvement of a Neocharismatic leader in the process or the actual steering of the process calls upon a leader’s full presence as a differentiating factor from other leaders who just commission the process and wait for it to be delivered to their disks with minimal involvement. The purpose of assessing the environment stage is to align a leader’s personal vision and what they want to achieve in the wider context for their organization through their leadership with the present moment and what it requires of them. Propelled by their altruism and moral standards, the process becomes a full review of strategies, task processes, goals, and outcomes along with organizational objectives. This is then taken into scrutinization and examination of purpose. The Neocharismatic leader sees all of this in the light of long-term benefit for the greater good. The process results in an analysis of options and potential ways forward for their team/organization. The process reveals new opportunities and unleashes creative input from the whole team or organization. It opens the doors for new challenges and ventures. Stage one cannot happen or be completed if a leader is not fully involved in it. Because this is happening through a Neocharismatic leaders’ altruism and moral values, a leader extends themselves to helping the institution identify current issues in the global or local arena which can influence the direction of decision-making for the organization. This quickly becomes a learning process and experience for followers through sustaining conditions in which they can think and act on a moral and ethical basis [6]. During the process, a leader must be a free participant by taking a step back and moving between different roles and perspectives along with other participants. Participants should be key players in the organization who already have extensive knowledge and experience in their respective fields but should also include those different stakeholders who may be affected by the decisions in order to add different perspectives. Business intelligence units are an integral part of the process as they own and see the data over extended periods of time. It’s helpful if there are qualitative data collection processes in place that can provide context to numbers and statistics. For the external assessment, external participants or stakeholders should be invited to share their views and add value to the discussion. Different stakeholders should be invited to different workshops or meetings, and different methods for data collection should be applied at different levels. It is not the scope of this book to detail said process but rather to focus on a leader’s role and participation in that process. Different organizational levels may demand different levels of participation (see Fig. 4.1) [7]. Edict can be reverted to when a leader is in crises, and an immediate decision must be taken regardless of who agrees and why. If the trust level is high and the Neocharismatic leader have done the work of instilling a culture of collaboration and engagement, people will follow their leader and they should. Moving to persuasion should only be accompanied by a full clear strategy and only used carefully and selectively. The overuse of perspiration can lead to exploitation of power and a culture of hierarchy that disregards people’s needs. A token is not a favorable mode

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Fig. 4.1  Modified from Nutt 1988

and can send a signal of mistrust and lack of interest in people’s needs and aspirations. Delegation is more of a process rather than an end and should be part of the work that is done over time. Nevertheless, it will not provide a decision in a small window of time. Comprehensive should be the case in relaxed context when the organization is functioning normally. It should be an ongoing process. There is another way of looking at this model through the involvement of leaders at different organizational levels. In this method, the board of trustees, executives, and senior leadership teams can have a true impact on the decision by proposing and negotiating. Delegated participation is permitted for certain members of middle management where they can propose and execute decisions after an agreement is reached. Once a decision is made, it is announced and token participation takes place, together with persuasion in the form of consultations run by external and internal consultants with staff. The least form of participation is when an edict is used, despite the objections of certain groups disadvantaged by the decision. Neocharismatic leaders are observed to use both methods. Since most of their show takes place in crises or troubling times, edict is a common tool. Nevertheless, they take every possible opportunity to go comprehensive especially when the time and resources allows for it. It involves all stakeholders’ recommendations and selections across the organization. I have witnessed both in Neocharismatic leaders [4]. In doing so, Neocharismatic leaders make available key resources such as budget and time, enabling key strategic level stakeholders to voice their opinions and debate. A leader holds that space to facilitate those discussions before any decision is taken. When this process is an ongoing process, a Neocharismatic leader makes sure that there is a regular assessment team working in a horizontal cross organizational manner that has their full support as they bring the voices of different organizational levels to the table during discussions. When it comes to change and transformation, there is a great emotional investment already in place in the status quo that the process will never pick up if middle and senior management does not become the heroes of the process. In other words,

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ownership of the transformation must take place before a leader moves forward. It becomes a true challenge for a Neocharismatic leader if they do not give time and energy for their leaders to develop that ownership. Striking a balance between edict in situations where an organizational leader should move forward with a decision that protects and saves the greater good while in the same time when reverting to normal day-to-day activities will have in place a continuous assessment of the environment where they are heavily involved is what I am asking Neocharismatic leaders to do in their role of “Assessing the Environment.”

Session 16: External Global Context Assessment Before we move into the direct external and internal context, let us first look at the bigger picture. The purpose of this segment is to build your connectedness with other leaders and communities who are working towards a common purpose for future generations. The wellness of our planet, the sustainability of its resources, the social well-being of our different communities, and the ethical and moral values that govern our existence together are all an integral part of your leadership. The ability to constantly move between the macro global vision (of being part of something bigger than yourself and your direct environment) and the micro level vision gives you data regarding the implications of any decisions that you make. If you already feel connected in this way, it is important to examine your perceptions and values around that connectedness. Not every visionary leader is Neocharismatic. Charisma has a dark side that has been documented in the history of humanity. Neocharisma, on the other hand, confines a leader to acting in accordance with the ethical and moral social principals of life. A Neocharismatic leader is not detached from the world; they work in their own circle of influence [8] but are aware of how that work affects the broader communities. This part is important to refining your noble vision that situates you and shapes the perceptions of your followers towards your leadership. The more you are aware of your wider influences and connectedness, the better your followers will relate to you and your values. 1. What are the challenges facing leaders globally? I invite you to make a list of them and why you think they are challenges. 2. How do these challenges affect you personally as a human being? What thoughts, emotions and actions do they propel you to take? Use the same list above to provoke your thoughts around the answer of the following question: 3. How do these challenges affect you as a leader to (name/identify your followers)? In other words, how do these external, global issues interfere with who you want to be as a leader either negatively or positively in the current context?

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Leaders’ values are often noticed by followers. Followers read their leaders’ values and either respond by adopting or rejecting. When adopting, they look to a leader as a role model for embodying the perceived values and behaviors. When rejecting, they challenge the values because they don’t see the logic in them. Most followers will look for the global value system of their leader to identify with them. Leaders with a value system that is ethical and aligned as such will have clearer reasons for what they do. Value-oriented followers find those reasons compelling and motivating. 4. How do these challenges affect your followers? If you don’t know the answer to this question, would knowing help you direct and guide your followers? In what way? Followers not only identify with their leaders’ perceptions but also seek acknowledgment from them on their own values and perceptions. Listening to your followers and learning about the way they see the world creates the required bonding and fellowship. In team coaching, this part is important when creating a common purpose that will intrinsically motivate the team towards achieving tasks and goals [9]. 5. Look at the global challenges - what approaches to leading are appropriate in the acknowledgement and handling of these challenges? If they affect you, or if they don’t, how would you find a way to incorporate them into your circle of concern [8] and communicate them to your followers. What approach will you take? It is not enough for followers to know who you are and what you believe in; they also want to see how you act on your beliefs and if you are acting genuinely. This only shows when you are in the process of decision-making. 6. What do these ideas/approaches mean to you and the way you work? How do your followers perceive you in the process? You are here reflecting on your life, leadership style, and where your decision-­ making happens every moment of your leadership. If there is little to think about here from your own context, visualize yourself as you walk the talk. Visualize the implications of that on your followers. What effect or influence do you have on them? 7. What deep significant change can you make in your field as a leader? This is where you get to examine your personal vision and its validity in the wider context. This is where your noble goal as a leader starts to get refined and shaped. When answering this question, take your personal vision to a higher ground where you can see further from this moment to another place and time, not limited by the current contextual boundaries, what do you see yourself contributing to? 8. How does the story you tell about yourself change? This question pulls threads from the past to this moment and projects you into the future. We are all but a collection of stories. Some of us leave others to write theirs, while the leaders among us write their own and take charge. If you were to re-write who you are as a leader, how would that story read?

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At this point, I ask you to spend five uninterrupted minutes writing a response to the last question. You can set a timer and, when you are finished, look at what you wrote. 9. What common themes do you see? How clear and defined are your goals and purpose? What can you do more of to make it stand out and be compelling? 10. What are the principles that govern the way you lead your life? The more clarity you have about your life principles, the easier you can make leadership decisions. Principles are part of a wider social law. You can’t break principles; you can only break yourself against them [8]. Try to expand on what you define as key principles and which of them you value the most. Your leadership principles reflect your ethical and moral social values. Some of the values we have are not operational in the real world or have no grounded principles to support them. In fact, you could have a set of values that are dear to your heart, but that may not bring you the results you seek. Identifying the functional social principles is just like identifying the physical principles of life. The goal here is to build integrity with them. These questions will always be a work in progress, and noticing the effects these principals have on your life and the life of others will be a crucial part of your awareness exercise from now on. Eventually, you will form a strong belief system that includes principles and values that will always work for you. Here is another leading question towards your noble goal. Take time to reflect. 11. What is the essence of your work as a leader? What three to four things do you stand for as a leader? This is another way to reflect on your social principals, in a few sentences. The next question is around defining your ideals. 12. What is your standard of excellence? The question above will bring you to role model the ideal in situations where you most need it. It is even better to have several ideals ready to adopt when specific situations call for it. Neocharismatic leaders spend a lot of time in mental preparation, whether they know it or not. Mental preparation includes visualizing and script writing. This is sometimes called strategizing or planning, and it is also called consequential thinking in emotional intelligence [1]. The more you work mentally on your self-awareness, the better your chances of becoming an expert in foreseeing the unknown. The next question works on your values again: 13. What matters to you most? In your leadership work, what do you protect and value the most about yourself? 14. How does your awareness of your global context benefit others? Continue reflecting with others around these issues. Continue to examine your role and noble goal. You will be amazed by how motivated you become and how this goal will pick you up in dark moments or during a crisis. It will differentiate you and make you stand out as a Neocharismatic leader. The connectedness to the global wider context may sound esoteric, but the true test to its validity is you and how you feel about it. If this session is not sitting well with you in the current moment, skip

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to the next and come back here at another time in your leadership journey. This session can be repeated at different milestones throughout the journey.

Examining External and Internal Direct Context This is where you physically exist and operate. This is what you witness every day on your local news channels. This is your world, defined by your organization geographical location or affiliation. The questions in this session will lead you to relate your world to who your wider being is. It asks you to bring yourself into the moment to participate in your direct community and network. For those who did not chose to do the first global context, this will be easier, and you can switch between the previous session and this one. Do not rely on this alone, as it does not contain the link to global communities. I trust your intuition will guide you through as you navigate the stages of your Neocharismatic leadership journey. Coaching is all about choices and how we make sense of what we perceive. You can have totally different answers and reactions to this session, depending on when and where you apply it. There are few scenarios when discussing a specific direct context. I have identified three scenarios and will ask you to choose the one that applies to your situation or most closely resembles it. All of them may have overlapping questions. Nevertheless, you may be playing several leadership levels’ roles at once, and you may want to go over all of them at different times, each time thinking about one of your leadership specifics.

Scenario (a): Self-Leadership Initiative It is a new start up, involving you only, where you are self-employed, a social entrepreneur starting some program or organizing a specific event or series of events, or an individual contributor in a big organization. Let’s call your leadership approach an initiative.

Session 17: Scenario (a) External Direct Context Assessment It is important for any work you do to bring threads to the bigger picture of your wider influence, no matter how small it is. This thread will be your highest rescue factor when you are in times of uncertainty. It will pick you up, focus you, and put you back on track. If you don’t emphasize this factor, your train will halt or collide causing damage to the main engine. A recovery is always possible, but you would have lost momentum. Spend enough time to craft this thread well so everything you

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do is tied to it, no matter how tenuously. Neocharismatic leaders always have a vision that is bigger than the current moment or project they are about to undertake. The economic implications of your initiative • Would it help a specific group find jobs, learn and grow, achieve specific goals financially, or be part of the economy? • How does that influence other locations and what is the wider effect? • If you are an individual contributor, how does your initiative help your organization fulfill its organizational goals? The implications on the social fabric • • • • •

How does this initiative bring people together or connect them? Would it create harmony and unity in the community? Would it bring about the removal of social stratifications? Would it provide support for a specific group? If you are an individual contributor, how does your initiative support the organizational culture and team collaboration in pursuit of common goals? Does it help others perform their own tasks? Does it improve organizational processes?

Affiliation to a political or religious movement • • • • •

Who benefits from this initiative? Does it support the connectedness of this group with other groups? What is the political effect of the movement? Who is affected? If religious or if it is involving religion, ask the same questions. If you are an individual contributor, ask if this initiative is inclusive of other diverse groups and cultures.

Legislative • What legislation does it serve? How? • What are the boundaries and regulations involved? Environmental • • • •

Does it serve the sustainability of resources? Does it harm the environment? Does it utilize renewable resources? If it is nothing to do with the environment, can you bring that factor in play? How is this helpful? • If you are an individual contributor, how does this strengthen or contribute to organizational goals for environmental sustainability? Global • Are there other global implications? • Would other groups in the world find your initiative supportive of their cause? To what extent?

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• If you are an individual contributor, how does your initiative here benefit other parts of your organization? Other questions to ask: • Are there any other external contextual factors that need to be addressed to assess this initiative? • What obstacles and challenges will your initiative face? How do you intend to remove these barriers or overcome them? What resources? Who is involved that will support you? • What preparation and planning needs to be in place to include the above discussion? What do you need to document? What do you need to communicate? What tools will you use? • Once you have established enough reasoning and situated your initiative in the external local context of your physical being, move to examine the internal context.

Session 18: Scenario (a) Internal Context Assessment You as an internal contextual factor 1. What brings you to do this? How does it relate to your noble goal and purpose in life? What justifies its presence currently in your life? Does it align with your personal leadership strategy? 2. What are the set of values that this initiative fulfills? 3. What do the results of this initiative mean for you? 4. What are the strengths you have that will enable you to achieve the goals of this initiative? 5. What are the roles that this initiative requires you to play? How will each role play out? How do you know you have fulfilled each role? 6. What gives you the most satisfaction in this initiative? Elements to be assessed in your internal context 1. Time: How will you allocate time for this initiative? What other roles do you play in your professional life? How do you allocate time in relation to each specific role? What other initiatives/ projects do you have running in parallel that may interfere with this initiative and undermine it? What is your plan to coordinate between this and all the others? 2. Roles: what does this initiative demand of you at different stages and times? How much of you are you willing to devote to those roles? How are you going to learn how to be the best in each? Who will support you? 3. Financial and material: Where do the bulk of your resources lie, and do you have direct access to them? Are there any limitations? Conditions? Risks? Threats? Challenges? How are you going to tackle them?

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4. Mental and intellectual: what necessary skills and knowledge do you have? How will you cope with the emotional pressure or negative emotions that could arise with uncertainty or risk? If others are involved, what are their emotional demands and how are you going to navigate these with them? Assessing People’s Need Usually, the role of “assessing people’s needs” is the second role in this stage of the Neocharismatic leadership model. Due to the small size of the initiative, it is wise to bring it forward to this session, instead of waiting to address it later. This role looks at the people who are affected by the initiative and/or working to accomplish it with you. These people could be peers, friends, family members, or individual contributors who are serving you or hired by you. While this role is geared towards exploring how the initiative affects them and fulfills their needs, it also examines your communication style and how you win other’s support in the process. In other words, you are looking at your “interpersonal leadership.” We will call them the beneficiaries of your initiative, stakeholders, and those who support you or stand by you, your team. Affected Followers 1. Who are the targeted stakeholders that will benefit from your initiative? 2. What is their culture and where do they exist? 3. What values do they hold dear? How does your initiative fulfill their values and needs? 4. How will this initiative be perceived by the targeted group of followers? How do you prove this theory or assumption? 5. How would they benefit? What would they be able to do as a result of your initiative? 6. How will you assess their needs fulfillment or satisfaction with the product or initiative? What tools? How will you analyze and use this in another cycle of this initiative? Supportive Team 1. Who is your team of supporters that is working with you to make this possible? What are their values? Purposes? Aspirations? Why are they here with you? How do you align them with the purpose of your initiative? 2. What, if any, are their physical needs to accomplish the work with you? Do they need any resources? Do you have access to them? How do you support them in securing these resources? What about financial rewards? Even if they are volunteering for a cause, what are you doing to make sure they maintain a balance between giving and receiving? In terms of their own physical comfort, do you provide meals, transportation, a comfortable physical space, or equipment to accomplish the work? 3. How about emotional needs: how do you keep everyone feeling content and happy? How do you support them when there is stress or discomfort due to failures or obstacles? How do you make sure they speak with each other and connect in a healthy way? How do you resolve disagreement or conflict?

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4. Who else is affected? For example, family and friends. How will you handle them in the process? What challenges can arise? Some of the above may not apply to you, but it is worth thinking about how this initiative might lead you to another level of engagement in the future that will make you a team leader. That is when you move to the next level. It can happen very quickly when one stage of your initiative succeeds, suddenly you have followers and you are a team leader. Personal Reflection These questions can be answered in one go or broken into smaller reflective sessions using a diary or a personal coach as a sounding board or even a trusted friend. Writing these questions was not done in one session nor will reviewing them. As a coach, I know that my own thoughts and state of being affects how I coach and whom I am coaching. No two sessions are alike and every time there is something that amazes me. Writing is no different, and reviewing is even more astonishing to me. The deeper you revisit each question and the more you get someone you trust involved in the answers or the reflective answers, the more enlightened you feel and the smoother you will find creative approaches for your leadership.

Scenario (b): Team Leadership You work in an established business entity that has its own strategy and direction and you are entrusted to execute and implement. You have some freedom to innovate and create as you are an expert in your field. You are a team leader. Or you are expanding a small startup to include more followers who are a part of your team. Or your social initiative grows to include more members and you want to take it to a higher level such as expanding it to a new location or including new ideas and platforms. When you are growing organically, you walk into the role of team leadership smoothly as others already know you and trust you. Your task is to keep that trust level high as more work is generated and more initiatives take place. This applies for expanding a small business when you start hiring one by one and they get to know you slowly. You are building relationships with them smoothly, as you all grow together. The real challenge is when you add, at once, several people to a team who have never worked together. There might also be a case where a sudden demand or expansion necessitates a naturally occurring hiring process. Or when you are added to a team of people who have been there for some time and worked together but they know nothing about you except that you are their new leader. Another scenario is you are appointed to a team and some of the team members were transferred or are

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new arrivals like you. This frequently occurs in large organizations and, if not handled with a team communication strategy, is bound to fail. In all cases team culture precedes team performance. To demonstrate the point, take a player in the field in any sport, no matter how much physical training they have completed and how well they meet the criteria for excellent performance, if they are not emotionally connected with the sport and their team mates for support and encouragement, they are bound to fail. Your team with their distinct personalities, temperaments, and differences came to this initiative to succeed. They all might be at different levels of emotional maturity, but they all have the intention to succeed. Your main task as a leader is to create a platform that will enable them physically and emotionally to succeed and continue to grow, learn, and perform well together. Over and over, research has shown that teams are like individuals in their need for fulfillment. The team is a unit that requires care in all aspects of their health – physical, mental, emotional, social, intellectual, and even spiritual being. Just like you, the team needs to be a “team with a compelling purpose” [10]. While the focus of this book is on your leadership, this part of the book will address how you form and lead a team briefly and practically. When you arrive to your new role or are about to plan the new role, you must take a full assessment of the environment where you will be operating with your team. You and your team need to go beyond accomplishing tasks or achieving goals to accomplishing a purpose. The purpose gets decided by the type of organization you work for or the outcome you and your team want to achieve if we are still addressing a growth of your leadership initiative from the previous scenario. Identifying the compelling purpose means everyone should be able to focus on the same vision. For the team to deliver the outcome it was intended to deliver, they must see the greater picture and how this tie into it for motivation to remain constant. To get the team to realize that, they first need to understand their environment and assess it internally and externally as a team. It is not enough to point to them this or that; they need to spend time with you, the leader, identifying elements of success and how to overcome challenges. During these sessions, you and your team will bond, creating a culture of transparency and trust. Nevertheless, the sessions outlined here are for you as a leader to reflect on before you start the process with your team. Team dynamics are complicated and the more people you have on the team the more relationships you generate, the more cultural layers are brought into the communication. I recommend hiring a team coach to support you in establishing the cultural norms and key communication processes.

Session 19: Scenario (b) – Assessing the External Context Culture Can be defined as “deeply rooted patterns of values, customs, attitudes and beliefs that distinguish one group from another” [11]. Every group has a set of behavioral

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norms that they follow and exhibit in a specific context. Whether they agree or not, the moment the group is inside that context, they start behaving according to the norms of that culture. The culture varies, depending on many factors such as geographical location or if coming from a specific ethnic group or groups. It can also be related to gender, sex, and social class. Generational culture also plays a role. Professional culture can be very dominant in organizations. Finally, there is a team culture, whereby all the above comes together and affects how people behave and communicate in that space. Cultural intelligence is the ability to work effectively across all these norms and variations [12]. You, the leader, are accountable for facilitating your team ability to communicate and work effectively together. Intercultural competence is an integral component of any effective leadership especially in this time as we transform all our lives to digital knowledge and economy across the globe. There has never been a time when we need to work across cultural boundaries [13]. Nevertheless, it is not the focus of this book to explore intercultural competence in depth, but here is a start in the direction to help you understand further your team culture. 1. Where do you exist physically as a team/organization? How does this geographical location’s culture exhibit itself? What influence will it have on your team’s purpose? 2. Are there any other physical locations you need to work at? How do they differ in terms of communication norms and culture? Will it have influence on your work as a team? 3. Do you have other cultures in your team that act differently? How? 4. What can you as a leader do to bring these cultural differences into discussion so they can be acknowledged and integrated? Purpose The purpose of the organization and what it serves will also affect your team’s purpose and function. This can be anywhere from commercial, social, public, political, or technical. If you don’t have an organization that you belong to and work at an individual level or on your own startup, you need to consider your overarching vision in relation to everyone’s vision in your team. 1. What is the purpose of your organization? How does that affect the culture or other cultures that are in play? Is this purpose embraced by everyone? How about you as a leader, how do you integrate this to communicate the compelling purpose? 2. Is the purpose ethical? Does it cause harm to anyone? Is it aligned with the general moral social values? What about your own values? What about other team members’ values? Have you had this discussion with others? Where they open enough? How can you enable the team to see what you see? What challenges are there related to ethical and moral values and behaviors? What is your approach as a team leader to overcome these challenges?

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Economy and Environment 1. Does the organization play a big part in the local economy? Does it support the sustainability of the environment? If not, how does that affect your team? Legal and Legislative 1. What are the threats and weaknesses the organization is facing or may be facing in the future locally? How does that affect your team? Other External Factors 1. Consider other external factors, like the political context or the change of other forces externally. Make sure that you bring that conversation to your team to be aware of and find ways to continue monitoring any contributing factors that may impact the team’s mission.

Session 20: Scenario (b) – Assessing the Internal Context Assessing Your Needs 1. What is your “mission critical” to accomplish here? 2. What motivates you to do this? How does it relate to your noble goal and purpose? What justifies its presence currently in your life? Does it align with your personal leadership strategy? 3. What are the sets of values that this role fulfills for you? 4. If any discrepancies exist, can you define them? How can you align them? What needs to happen? 5. What is the outcome of this role for you? 6. What are the other roles that this mission requires you to play? How will each role be fulfilled; how will you know when you have fulfilled them? 7. What gives you the most satisfaction in this mission? Assessing Others’ Needs 1. As in the previous scenario (a), I am incorporating the role of “assessing people’s needs” here due to the team size. 2. How will you connect your values to others? How will you know what their values are? 3. What are other people’s aspirations? How will you learn more about them? 4. How are you perceived by others so far? How can you adjust and clarify perceptions? What needs to be said or done? 5. How clear is your perception of others? What do you need to do more of, to get a better view of the territory?

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Assessing Your Team Needs The following questions are used in team coaching and attributed in their content and structure to the published research on team performance by my colleague and her associates [14]. 1. Who is on your team? Who is not? Does the purpose require them to be connected and working together? In what ways? In other words, are they a real team or just a group of people working in one space to accomplish different missions? Do you want them to work together on one mission and become a team? What values will that bring to the purpose? 2. Do they have clarity on what the purpose is? How do you know? Do each of them know that the other is clear on the purpose? Have they had that discussion? 3. Do they see the purpose as critical and consequential? Are they challenged enough by the purpose? Does it inspire, motivate, and energize them? How do you know? How do they know? 4. Learning and knowledge: what is available to the team in the form of experiences, expertise, training, and knowledge for the work to be done and the purpose to be accomplished? 5. Resources: does the context where the team exists provide material resources such as spaces, furniture, equipment, and technology? Do they have full access to necessary resources and control over them? 6. Rewards: how about the reward system, does the organization or context reward for individual work or teamwork? In what ways and how often? What kind of rewards exist and how can you customize them to suit your team’s needs? Do you as a leader have control over the rewards system? To what extent? 7. Communication norms: Have you and your team or the organization established communication norms? Is every member on the team clear on them, do they get articulated and emphasized? If not, how are you going to do so? 8. Are your team members able to be transparent about their thoughts, emotions, and concerns in the presence of all, including yourself? What needs to happen to foster trust? What conversations needs to take place? How can you prove yourself wrong or right about your assumptions around transparency and trust? 9. Do you or your team have access to coaching? Is it helpful and available? If you are coaching, can it hold the necessary space for you and your team to have an honest and transparent conversation? 10. Products: what do you offer? How good is your team’s services? How do you measure up against your competitors? What are your goals, indicators, and measures for success? 11. Processes and key tasks: how effective are the processes? Do they lead to the desired outcome and the accomplishment of the purpose? What innovation can happen? What needs to change? 12. Customers: who are you serving? How satisfied they are? How do you measure their satisfaction? How do you measure up against your competitors in terms of customer satisfaction?

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13. Structure and power: who oversees you and your team’s deliverables? What power do they have? How do you work with them? How do you protect your team and their decision-making autonomy? What limitations do they have and how do you overcome them? Personal Reflection Some of you may think that there are boundaries between this and that. The truth is, we create boundaries to be able to deal with issues in life in a compartmentalized way. This is helpful… to an extent. In the process, we forget to consolidate it all back together. We leave these segments of thoughts and ideas scattered in the hope that this will solve our bigger problems more easily. I am big on compartmentalized thinking and being organized and linear in handling my life and my projects. I have learned the hard way; people can’t be compartmentalized. If you start sorting and labeling others, you lose sight of their whole being. At first, I thought I could be a better parent by doing this with my children. But I realized after a while that I was creating boundaries between them and between their own self-recognition or being. It exhibited itself when I expressed appreciation for something they did and then refused totally to accept something else. Only when I accepted them with their faults and flaws regardless of the values that I hold dear to me or want them to hold dear to them, regardless of the level of commitment they have to this project or that idea, that I began to embrace their being in its entirety. Looking back at my journey with my family team, I learned my lessons, but I also made it difficult for them to learn theirs. I believe in order to create a great team, a leader must learn with their team what really works for them instead of trying to manage that team or direct it. In my team coaching experience in corporate environments, leaders were very unsure how to navigate emotions between team members who were not accepting of each other work styles. As I continued to coach in the team space and outside with individual team members, the tension eased, and people started having more open and productive conversations. Before it was in their minds and no one dared to express in case they are misunderstood. Gradually, the team consolidated and started accepting each other differences while working on common goals and ends.

Scenario (c): Strategic Organizational Leadership It is an established organization where you were appointed to lead a new strategy or intervention branching from an existing one. You have the freedom to create and innovate and you have control over resources. This could be a whole organization or a department. The idea is that you are leading a team of teams. You are at a strategic level and have grown in your role over the years in this organization or another one before you moved here. You may also be your own organization’s founder looking for growing succession leadership, expanding to new markets, and starting new

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initiatives. Whatever your role and position here, you have gone through the previous sessions 19–20 as a leader of your own team. In this role, as an assessor of external and internal context for a whole organization, you drive this assessment and continue to oversee its progress. It is an addition to hiring external consultants or consultancy firm to facilitate the discussion for strategic alignment and options analysis based on collected qualitative and quantitative data. As a leader in this position, you have the responsibility to drive the organizational success and sustain its continued presence in the market or in the community it serves. From research findings and experience, this role is of the utmost importance for a leader to invest in, especially when there is a strategic decision to be made that affects the life of the organization and the people who work in it. Some leaders decide to hire individual external consultants to run the show with less resources than hiring a big consultancy firm. There is no wrong or right answer if a leader trusts their consultants. Caution is integral though, as I have witnessed a one man show turn to a sibling’s rivalry and biases. Neutralizing the process with the presence of a team of consultants is always better, no matter what the size of the team. Other leaders decide to form an internal committee to manage the process. They do this thinking that no one knows their organization better. Although this could save an organization a fortune, it may bring more damage than benefit. It is like hiring your own son or daughter who is a medical doctor to operate on you. They know you; they love you, but they are too close to you emotionally. If it must be done this way let it be a committee composed of internal and external consultants, this way you do not miss out on the insider’s view while bringing in all the fresh point of view and expertise. Another caution is hiring an external who is total alien to the culture. Just because they have built a name in one culture does not mean they will succeed in another. My experience in the Middle East is that most big consulting firms end up with huge reports written in a foreign language or translated to the local language but lack the contextual cultural aspect with imported models as solutions. Local small firms compete, but they lack the system and processes that the larger firms have. A mid solution is to collaborate between the global and the local. Collaboration requires team coaching and intercultural communication with high flexibility in place for the foreign entities. Some leaders may argue that consultation on the strategic direction of the organization is already in place annually or quarterly. I am sure it is, or how else would the organization be managed? In this part of the book, I am not going to devise a check list for you to use with your consultants. In other words, this is not about the process of consulting but rather the role you play in the process as a leader. The reason this role is important is not only for your organizational prosperity and vitality but because you as a leader will have a better chance of connecting to your vision and purpose and aligning yourself with the organizational vision and purpose. The effect of this cannot be overemphasized as you go through your day inspiring and motivating people in your other roles as you will see in the following sessions. To conclude, if you have not done so yet, it is time to run a thorough consultation process with your team to achieve a full review with the goal of searching for

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o­ pportunity. If you are not sure about your team’s performance and how they are functioning in relation to the big picture, it could be helpful to go to Scenario B, team leadership, and run your thoughts through the sessions being focused on your direct senior leadership team. The following session will depend on the result of this assessment. If the assessment is an off-the-shelf ritual that is stripped of the social, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual context, the results will lack the ability to motivate followers and connect them to the bigger purpose of their being as individuals in a wider context. Organizations who do not cater to this process in its deepest form will suffer from a lack of retention of people as they will find it difficult to continue to give and exceed the expectations due to a lack of connection with the organizational purpose. This work is different; it is you who are giving it life through your own life and energy as a visionary Neocharismatic leader. When doing the assessment with your people or teams, it is important to involve all stakeholders in the process including those who are affected by the process internally. A representation of all the different groups and teams will have to be onboard. This representation will bring insight into the different cultures and subcultures that exist among your followers. Some leaders see this as hideous and tiring because the organization is large, and by the time the cycle ends, it is about to start again. This is very true as the process of assessing the environment is cyclic. Having said that, I hope that you as a Neocharismatic leader will initiate the process and continue to reflect on it as a major contributing factor in your ongoing effective transformational leadership. Your ethical leadership calls you to this as well as your full ability to be there for the people.

Session 21: Assessing the External Context Your Side 1. When this assessment was done (or if it is still in progress), what was your level of involvement? Where do you sit at the table? 2. How much are you learning? What implications does it have for your role in general and other sub-roles you fill? 3. How does the external context affect your purpose and personal vision in life? 4. How does the external context affect your professional vision of who you are as a leader in this organization? 5. What values do you notice are evoked in you? How do these values align with the organizational values? 6. What path do you want to lead the organization to? 7. Does knowing what you know from the process make a difference to your role or presence? What sacrifices do you have to make? 8. Looking at your ethical value proposition, how do these sacrifices clash, align, or challenge each other?

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9. Where do you see yourself going next? 1 0. Why are you doing what you are doing? 11. Who are you being when you are doing what you are doing? 12. Who do you want to be in the process?

Session 22: Assessing the Internal Environment Other’s Side 1. How do these external changes affect the internal day-to-day processes? 2. How do they affect the people involved? 3. When you look at processes and systems, what do you see changing? 4. Resources: does the organization have the resources to go through the challenges proposed? For how long? Do you see a long-term achievement? Is it realistic? In what way? 5. Learning organization: what knowledge is available to the whole organization and its people that will facilitate the achievement of goals and fulfill the purpose of its being? How can you make it available, simple, and easy to access? 6. Structure and power distribution: what are the organization strategy’s driving forces? Who oversees what? What are the stakeholders’ needs and aspirations? 7. Culture: • What is the culture like in the organization as a whole? • What are the subcultures? • What do people say and do that they do not talk about? • What are the norms of communication? 8. Traditions and work habits: • How do they deal with emotions? • How do they celebrate? • Who is included and who is excluded? • What is the common language and what are the common phrases? • Does all of the above differ from one location to another across the organization’s various offices and branches? • If you are not involved in some of these cultural issues, what can you do to get there? How can you know what you don’t know? 9. Resources: • How is the organization’s financial health and well-being? • Does it affect how your organization’s functionality, in what ways? • Are there any threats or weaknesses?

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• What opportunities and strengths exist that will allow your organization to be more accomplished? • How can you make the best out of them? 10. Customers: • Who are your organization’s customers? • How do they get what they need? • How do you know they are happy and satisfied with the services? 11. Work processes: • What are the processes and systems in place? • What weaknesses or threats exist that you are aware of? • What opportunities for innovation and growth exist? 12. Products: • What products will secure the organization in the market? • How can it sustain this prosperity? • What role can you play in innovation? 13. Organizational learning: • How does the organization allow for learning and growth to happen individually and collectively? • What are the weaknesses and threats, if any exist? • What are the strengths and opportunities? 14. Outcome: What outcome does this organization need to achieve so that it continues and prospers? 15. Ethical: In all the above, what do you see as ethical and unethical? How do you align yourself and your values with the above? A Neocharismatic Leader Story I was privileged during 2018 to coach in a corporate environment in the United States. While a lot of organizations and their leaders are committed to the process of “Assessing the Environment” on a performance level, through matrix and statistics, they overlook the leader’s part and their role in gauging interest and learning at different levels or steering the organizational culture. Most of the leaders are familiar with the numbers, assess the goals, and drive higher performance. These leaders show as powerful racehorses in the field. They expect everyone to act in the same way and set an example for leadership as a driving force for profit and performance. Thus, they set cultural norms that cascade down to the very basic frontline level. That is what I call the leader-doing. In my coaching sessions with high performers, my favorite coaching question to ask any leader in that role is, “Who are you being in the doing?” [15]. The answer

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I get usually is something equal to the following words: “I am being an efficient, rigorous, driver of high performance, up to speed, on the run, achiever, stress producer, hard on my people, demanding, setting standards, making things happen, winning, hitting numbers, etc.”. I then move on to ask them to tell me how they feel about the push and stress that accompanies it. They look around and make sure my sessions are confidential and then confess that it does not help their people. I then ask them “What being can help if they are free to choose in this competitive performance race?”. The answer is being supportive, empathetic, realistic, pragmatic, practical, non-idealistic, understanding of people’s potential, non-time consumed, relaxed, learning, curious, enjoying, passionate, hands off, team builder, talent nurturer, supportive, team player, and human being. I then ask, my favorite question: “Do you want to be a leader-being or a leader-doing?”. To take that to the next level of leaders, I ask the same questions. The followers who are themselves leaders on different decision-making teams give me the same answers, but unlike their leaders who use top leadership as an excuse for not being what they feel they want to be, the followers use culture as an excuse for not being what they really need to be and not doing what they really need to be doing. I can see where they are coming from, and I know the importance of performance and numbers that measure performance. Nevertheless, if we reverse the pyramid and look at how people perform, we realize that they only perform when they are motivated or passionate about what they do, not when they are stressed out and lacking enthusiasm. Performance is at the top, and at the base is learning and experience. This means one must spend more time learning and enjoying what they do in order to achieve performance that exceeds expectations (see Fig. 4.2) [16]. Thus, when assessing the environment, a leader needs to get into their being state to challenge and balance the doing at the core of their existence and identity. The assessment will produce less being and more doing when it is ripped off the leaders’ being. It becomes hard and materialistic and non-related to the essence of life that the organization exists to serve, as stated in its vision and mission.

Fig. 4.2  Gallwey organizational performance triangle

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At one of the team coaching sessions I ran, I asked a leader to prepare themselves by being instead of doing. Between me and the leader, we started the coaching session around relating to each other with no agenda for pushing any results. We focused on the team members’ being as humans and slowed them down to examine the purpose and noble goal they meant to serve in the world through their organization. I needed the leader to relax and be present so that their team can be and feel at ease. By the time we moved into the assessment session later in the day, trust and connectedness were invaluable as the discussion progressed. Regardless of the assessment exercise, the team experienced cohesion and unity that carried over, as was reported later, to their day-to-day discussions and became integral to their work. The burden was shared; powerful epiphanies resulted as they connected the dots between different variables. They saw the vision of their organization through how their leader was in that moment. Throughout the team coaching engagement over the following months, the leader remained interested and curious as they observed the team interact without boundaries and with high trust and transparency. This brought amazing performance results and cascaded down to the frontline as they experienced how their leaders shifted their focus. This ability to be for the people is our second role that can turn the organization’s performance around.

References 1. Freeman, J., 2012. At the Heart of Leadership: How to get results with Emotional Intelligence. s.l.: Six Seconds. 2. Glaser, J.  E., 2016. Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get extraordinary results. UK: bibliomotion inc. 3. Brown, B. 2017. Rising strong, New York, Penguin Random House LLC. 4. Angawi, G., 2012. The roles of leadership in startegic decision making in higher education. London: British Library. 5. Conger, J. A. and Knungo, R. N., 1998. Charismatic Leadership in Organisations. London: Sage. 6. Bowen, W.  G. a. S.  H. T., 1998. Universities and Their Leadership. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 7. Nutt, P. C., 1988. The impact of culture on decision making. Omega, 16(6), pp. 533–67. 8. Covey, S. R., 2004. The 7 habits of Highly Effective People. NY: Simon & Schuster. 9. Wageman, R. H. &. R., 2005. A Theory of Team Coaching. Academy of Management Review, 30(2), pp. 269–287. 10. Wageman, R. & Hackman, J. R., 2005. A Theory of team Coaching. Academy of Management Review, 30(2), pp. 269–287. 11. SHRM Foundation’s Effective Practice Guidelines Series, Cultural Intelligence: The Essential Intelligence for the 21st Century (2015). Sponsored by Ingersoll Rand. Online at shrmfoundation.org 12. Leung, K., Ang, S., and Mei Ling Tan, 2014. Intercultural competence. Annul Review Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 1:489–519. 13. This book is written and published during Covid-19 worldwide quarantine.

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14. Wageman, R., Hackman, J. R, and Lehman, E. V, 2005, Team Diagnostic Survey: Development of an Instrument. Journal of Applied behavioral Sciences, Vol 41, Issue 5 https://doi. org/10.1177/0021886305281984 15. Cave, P., 2017. Coaching Organizational Systems for Agility and Humanness. [Sound Recording] (Team Coaching Zone- Episode #087). 16. Gallwey, W. T., 1986. The Inner Game of Tennis. 2nd ed. London: Pan Books.

Chapter 5

Start your Neocharismatic Leadership Journey: The Search for Opportunity Stage

In the previous chapter, we discussed the first role of “Assessing the Environment” in stage one of the Neocharismatic leadership models, the “Search for Opportunity Stage.” We looked at the role from three angles resembling three different leadership levels or scenarios. In the first two scenarios (a) and (b), I incorporated the role of “Sensing People’s Needs” in the coaching sessions 18–20, due to the small number of followers in the scenarios. I kept scenario (c) which addressed the strategic organizational leadership level to one role. The context of strategic leadership requires me to allocate a special session for every role unlike the previous two scenarios – where the leader is their own organization – as in scenario (a), or where they are accountable for a team or a smaller organization’s team, as in scenario (b). This is because of the size of the organization, in scenario (c) and the impact that this role has on it. “Assessing people’s needs” and “Challenging the Status Quo” – these two roles require more detail when it comes to leading large organizations that have hundreds or thousands of employees. Using a scuba diving analogy: to what depth can a leader dive safely without being lost or losing sight of the big picture and getting disoriented? Most leaders know the answers to these questions and know that it is not realistic to engage at a very deep level with everyone. Yet they know they can if they choose to, creatively. In the story section later, I will bring some of the examples I have encountered where leaders dived deep without getting disoriented. By the end of this chapter, moving forward, all previous (a), (b), and (c) scenarios will be dealt with through all the roles equally. This stage “The Search for Opportunity” is the only one that addresses separate leadership levels.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. T. Angawi, Neocharismatic Leadership, Management, Change, Strategy and Positive Leadership, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55486-6_5

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Neocharismatic Leadership Role 2: Assessing People’s Needs A Neocharismatic leader must possess the ability to assess followers’ abilities, emotional needs, and levels of satisfaction. A Neocharismatic leader must be highly skilled in reading others and observing them. Assessing people’s needs is not only necessary for the determination of the vision and objectives, but it is also considered the most important resource for achieving organizational objectives and creating the desired organizational culture. A leader who can do this has a very clear view of where critical gaps exist in the communication and cultural patterns of behavior. By doing this, a leader will gain credibility and trust through the ability to interact regularly with followers. The drive behind this role is altruism. It’s the power of giving and benefiting others with a lack of interest in self-gain. This reflects the moral dimension behind Neocharismatic leadership clearly. The leader who is driven by altruism strives to implement higher moral values related to equity and fairness. Egoistic leaders do not attempt to draw a shared vision because it requires sensitivity to people’s needs and visualization of the intersection between organizational objectives and people’s values. A leader who is not motivated by a passionate and sincere care, concern, and respect for others finds it difficult to formulate a shared vision and articulate it. This process requires empathetic listening skills along with the courage to share and be vulnerable. In other words, Neocharismatic leaders have no problem sharing their vulnerability by admitting to a mistake or a wrong opinion. They are welling to receive feedback on their own behavior, be humble, and learn from others. Although the vision is formulated by market demand and stakeholder’s needs, more than the followers’ demands in many cases, it is the insights that the followers bring to the vision and the information that they exchange with the leader around marketplace opportunities and other issues that supports the vision and its implementation. Neocharismatic leaders find it critical to their organizational survival to be sensitive to people’s needs and stakeholders needs and can draw the right vision and make effective decisions based on these. On the other hand, Neocharismatic leaders cannot achieve the vision if followers are not inspired and motivated toward it. Either way you look at it, it drives effective leadership and organizational transformation.

Assess Your Being with People The first element a Neocharismatic leader must address in this role is their own presence with others. You could have been a leader for a very long time and gotten into the habit of doing for others rather than being with others. We discussed this earlier in Chap. 3 some of the state of “Being” ideas. This time we will relate this with how a leader want to “Be” in relationship or presence of others. At your level of

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a­ ccountability and responsibility, you already have a senior leadership team who have access to the resources that allows them to function independently of your own actions. In other words, are you doing what they are supposed to be doing? Worrying about this and that, which falls under their own jurisdiction? If you are still there, you need to move higher than that and away from it. If you are just starting this transition that is what you need to be conscious of. The power of delegation and trust must be in place. In the process of building trust with your immediate senior leadership team, you develop a deeper understanding of their needs. They, on the other hand, will model you and start “being” what you are “being” in their own teams and circle of relations with others. This cascade down to the last person in the organizational pyramid, slowly but steadily with enough consistency and conscious intentional implementation. You probably have been acting out a persona that suits your position and career, influenced by the status quo or by the old school of management. You could argue that it has worked for you all this time and that is why you are here in your leadership position. Remember though, that what got you here will not necessarily get you there. If you are here now, you better be here whole heartedly and willingly or the iceberg will sink, and you will cease to exist as an effective Neocharismatic leader. The iceberg as you may know exhibits its smallest part to the eyes of the observers, but deep under the water exists a mountain that steadies it from tipping over or drowning. If your underwater base is weak and you have not been the real you for a long time, your skill of acting a persona will no longer hold you in place under pressure and stress. I, therefore, invite you to dive deep inside yourself to examine the structure that lies beneath, how strong it is, and what it consists of – your character.

Session 23: Assessing Your Being with Others • State your vision and noble goal in life clearly, precisely, and confidently. This is your personal life vision and noble goal, not the organization or career. If you are unable to do that instantly and with full clarity, you need to go back to work on your personal vision or review it as you could be out of touch with it and may have been for some time. You may also have arrived here because you decided to skip the previous chapters and come to the critical point of your strategic leadership. In all cases, the sessions from 7 to 10 will support you in developing your personal vision and brand in an authentic way. • Your vision is there and holds important values around life, work, and your own contribution as a Neocharismatic leader. I am wondering if what you have been assigned to do at this level of leadership is aligned with these values. Please elaborate. • I see that you are excited about the future and optimistic about the new opportunities that it can bring to you individually and to the people you serve as a leader.

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Tell me how you intend to understand the people around you in your immediate circle of influence and those who are impacted by your work and decisions in this position indirectly? • You mentioned several ways to build understanding of your people’s needs who are close to you and interact with you. Here are few more questions that will require more details. 1. Do you see yourself as able to listen to other people’s concerns? 2. Do you have time for that? 3. Are you able to establish eye contact and use your whole body to listen attentively while they share with you an experience, whether negative or positive? 4. Tell me more about your listening skills. What are the challenges you have? I am hearing you are a great empathetic listener. You can listen to someone without interrupting their thought process. You can move away from your world and into theirs and then remain there for as long as it takes to support them. If you have this capability, move on to the next point. If you are struggling, please revisit sessions 11–14 before you continue. If after these sessions you are still being challenged, get a personal coach to iron that out. • It is your turn to reflect and empathize. Because you were listening and embodying the other person in the process, you can come back and identify with what they are going through, what they aspire to, or what that means to them, with your own experiences and emotional bank. This identification, when you take a moment to reflect in silence, as you always do, it gets you to speak to that idea they are trying to circulate, the emotion they are navigating, and the aspiration or goal they are trying to actualize. You vocalize that back to them in your own words, and how significant that is to them, and what their ultimate need is. If you can do this, move on. Very few leaders can. If you are still challenged, then revisit session 15. If that is still an issue, get your personal coach on board and find ways to master session 15. • Practicing session 15 (a). If you are practicing session 15 with your followers and direct contacts, they will lighten up and feel embraced. They will express gratitude and bring to you some ideas about how they intend to move forward. You see that they are already in the discovery process. You continue to be interested by embodying that again. You say nothing or as few words as possible. You don’t criticize or evaluate or ask them to reconsider. You let them take responsibility and exercise their own control and judgment. You in fact encourage them to continue the creative process of reflecting and evaluating. You welcome sharing anytime. Very few leaders stay here at this point because it is already 30–40 min in the conversation. If you are still there, move on to the last point. (b). As they layout the action plan on the table for you, they feel very supported and thankful. They summarize why this meeting is great and how it can unlock the workflow. You wonder if you have really been useful as they shake hands with

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you and are ready to leave. Already 45 min into the hour and your morning is getting filled with people coming in and out. You wonder if you ever will get through reading the piles of folders waiting at the table. If you are at this stage, congratulations, you are a great leader and you really need to do very little in terms of developing your ability to assess people’s needs. (c). You are a great leader who has great empathy and skills for “Assessing People’s Needs,” sometimes your mind chases other thoughts while you are listening, but in general, you come back to the moment and are present with whoever is speaking to you. After you have finished the conversation, you reflect on what you have learned. You jot down few ideas in your personal journal about how you feel or what thoughts came to mind as you were listening and coaching (self-awareness sessions 1–6). You find in yourself a connection and ask few questions about the context and if there is enough of this or that to support your people’s needs. (d). You still have piles of folders to look at, get your senior leadership team to summarize and bring them in to show case. Use your executive coach to walk you through decisions you need to make regarding projects and challenges. In summary, you have resources, and you don’t need to get through the piles on your own; this is your challenge, “Being” rather than “Doing,” this is Neocharismatic leadership. Time management is also of essence, allocate time for people and time for decisions and other deliverables. Balance is important. Be wary of unnecessary meetings that waist everyone time. The sharing information meetings which is a very dominant culture in the corporate world. They like listening to all YouTube videos in the same topic repeatedly. • The last set of questions can be applicable to your direct team or to others in the organization. 1. Do you reflect on how others feel or think and how can this affect their teams and people? How does this affect who you are on a constant basis? Does it change how you “be” in anyway? Tell me more. 2. When looking at your connection with the internal context, how do you relate? Where is your leverage? What are your strengths? 3. What practices do you have that seem effective in this internal context evaluation? Which are less effective? What do you need to do more of? 4. What needs to change in your roles to become more involved and an agent for change yourself? Are you ready for that?

The Essence of the Process There are a few ways to “Sense your people’s needs.” One is quantitative assessments and the other is qualitative. With the quantitative approach, your team (or other people in the organization) take a survey or an instrument that gives a rounded 360 view of how they are functioning and performing, as well as the culture. One of

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the most researched instruments in team performance is the Team Diagnostic Survey or TDS [1]. Nevertheless, it is specific to your own team. There are few assessments that produce similar results. If your organization has developed its own performance effectiveness assessment through a fully integrated system, then there may be new ways to analyze the data to gauge how your team is doing in specific areas. Any data generated by assessment reports does not change or transform people’s needs; it just brings them to the surface so that a leader can dig in further and ask the right questions. It is also confined to the context of time and circumstances, meaning that this data will change over time and is only valid for a short period. The data generated by reports is meant to be a guiding compass only. The real work begins through team coaching, interacting and facilitating cultural change through conversations. The purpose is to discuss with the team and bring clarity through fostering trust. This provides the right environment for creative solutions for all the challenges that people experience. The qualitative data collection requires an observer who knows how to listen for the untold. The method is quite easy when it comes to your direct team and their direct teams. A metaphor that works here is your adult kids and their kids or your grandchildren. That is where your direct contact may extend to. If you are very lucky to have great grandchildren, that may be a virtue. Beyond that you need to use other means to understand and learn needs. While direct observation and interaction with team members facilitate change inevitably, it can’t extend further than the grandparent role in the above metaphor. A leader who wishes to influence the whole organization and the people who live in it must leave a legacy that touches them and the future generations who succeeds them, by becoming a role model. This will be how you extend your influence, and it will be how you get to learn from people’s feedback on how your leadership is supporting them and helping them achieve their aspirations or not. Certainly, a more effective and authentic way of assessment, yet uneasy as you become vulnerable to criticism and feedback that can be harsh sometimes. This session will focus on the last method, the qualitative one where you are taking every chance and encounter to learn about your followers. Your followers are across the organization in one location or perhaps even across the world. Your followers are leaders of leaders and team of teams. Some of those extended followers fix your computer and clean your office everyday, but you never get to see them personally to thank them, and others walk by you occasionally and say hello, but you never get to have that personal conversation with them. What if you did? It is the ability to identify with the people you are leading at every level. It is not the trivial bit of saying good morning to your cleaner. That is important but not that alone. It is really having an engagement and making sure that all have a sense of what they are looking for. In addition, that you understand their worries and hopes. Dianne Willcocks, 2010 [2]

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Session 24: Assessing people’s Needs Visibility • What are the ways you are touching people’s lives daily in the organization? • How visible are you? • What do you do intentionally to create opportunities to interact? • What can you capitalize on to be more visible? • And how can you be more intentional about touching people’s lives and learning about their needs? Being visible is not only vital to this role of assessing people’s needs but also to the following stage when articulating a shared vision role. It is important to start thinking about how you can consistently show up in the organization so that you can be seen, heard, and maybe even touched through individual communication. • Think about 25 ways you can do that. Make a list of them. • Ask yourself at every item, how can that be a point of data collection for you? • What kind of information do you need to know, to understand your people’s needs? • Make another list of all the pieces that will inform your strategy, culture, and other aspects of the business you are leading. What can your team or direct leaders in your team do to support this as part of your role? Environmental assessment is more important for vision formulation; followers’ needs assessment is more important for vision acceptance and implementation. Conger and Kanungo (1980)

A Neocharismatic Leader Story In my coaching profession, I ask leaders some of the above questions. I am sometimes struck by the level of sensitivity they have, but that does not get translated to real action. They usually attribute that to organizational culture and policy that confines their ability to translate the needs of their people and stakeholders into actionable items or values in the workplace. Some of them over the years lobbied for their people with higher leadership in their corporate organization by making small changes and continuing to have transparent conversations where they genuinely showed empathy and deep understanding. I observed some of their behaviors as I accompanied them to their floor walks or meetings. They would walk around and talk to people every day sometimes twice a day, time permitting. They would also have lunch with people from different levels, and finally they showed up in common physical locations in the organization and participated in many of its social activities. On the other hand, people I spoke with who were experiencing their leadership trusted and respected them. They would speak to them if they had an issue or a need directly. They always came through and supported anyone who approached them. I

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observed their leaders as well, and some of them I coached, who had a caring approach. They referred to this as having a role model who treated them in a way that showed respect and involvement. I observed part of organization becoming very caring and supportive. Not just a place to work, but also one where ownership and pride resides, and where the people defend these values. The leader is more conscious of people’s needs, and they work through obstacles to meet them, and so the culture shifts. The people become more loyal and sacrifice their needs for the organization’s well-being. This cycle brings higher performance indirectly and aligns the working forces together. This example I have witness with my own eyes as I coached. It is not idealistic, and everything that exists in this culture is not perfect, but people have a genuine interest in achieving together and shifting the culture. One leader reported to me that after one of our team coaching sessions, he decided to communicate with anyone coming to his office differently. Instead of staying at his desk while the other person sits across from him, he decided to create a space where there are only two chairs and nothing in between. He would move to that space when someone needed to have a conversation with him. The leader reported increased empathy, higher trust, and better outcome from subsequent conversations. It was more human, more in the “being” and conveyed a message of care and respect. When this was shared in a team coaching session, other leaders felt moved and agreed that they too want to do that. I saw a shift in culture and a saw an influential leader supporting other leaders to make the shift through sharing their own experience. The following story is from my personal life with a Neocharismatic leader. I grew up watching my father lead over many contexts and levels. He retired in 2009 from being the most highly ranked General in the Border Guard with 30.000 under his command in different military ranks. In London, between 2007 and 2014, I became part of a scholarship support program offered by the government to encourage postgrad students to connect, excel and mentor each other. Every year the group voted for its president and board members. In 2008, the group started an initiative to support over 20.000 postgrad students in the United Kingdom and Ireland. This turned to be our annual conference where an exchange of knowledge, innovation, as well as interaction with national universities and the local job market took place. I was among the volunteers in the organizing committee. I worked side by side with my father and his staff, and they did not know who I was, except for my first name. After the conference, I got together with the organizers to celebrate its success. They shared stories about their year of work and the support they gave to other students. They paid gratitude to their leader in the Border Guards – my father – not knowing that his daughter was with them. The stories were about his personal ability to touch and listen to people’s needs. When I was introduced properly after a long evening, they were surprised even more. What follows are the untold stories of how my father’s leadership has changed their lives and the lives of others in the institution of the Border guards in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

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My father initiated the scholarship program for the Border Guards to support innovation and science in the field. He wanted to grow a different caliber of leaders who could bring new technologies and advancement to their operations. My father had assessed the context and listened to what people’s needs were in his organization. How he did that was something I knew and learned from him years earlier but never paid attention to until I was researching leadership during my PhD. Here is one example from before his retirement which I told to many leaders I coached. My father made it a ritual to arrive early to the office every day. He made it a point to take a walk around the guards’ base with a different low-ranking soldier every day. His ritual gave his followers an opportunity to look forward to having an intimate talk about their lives, needs, and aspirations every day. Over the years he not only gained an insider view of the struggles that his officers had but also strived to resolve many of their issues on a daily basis, as a result of what he learned from them. In the military, you are not supposed to bypass your immediate leader to your highest-ranking officer, but he made it possible for people who had needs to connect with him with no official appointment or bureaucratic process. Others could reach him through indirectly and handed over requests of transfer, relief of duty, and even to request extra resources or just to accomplish resolution to a conflict with their immediate superior. People who were stuck forever in their posts had a chance to ask and receive. I also learned that he personally followed their cases. Upon seeing this, many were encouraged to come to his office directly and were granted access on the day or as soon as possible. As I write this book, I want to salute him for his outstanding service and pay gratitude to his ethical and altruistic leadership which has greatly influenced me and my work over the years. By taking his role of “Assessing People’s Needs” as a life example, he not only listened but acted on what he heard, whether it was a request or a creative suggestion that will fulfill the vision of the organization and what people aspired to.

 eocharismatic Leadership Role 3: Challenging N the Status Quo When speaking to leaders about challenge, the word provokes a sense of fear, doubt, and discomfort. Those leaders who have lived that role told me the emotional charge is accompanied by a degree of anger and frustration with organizational values and culture, but they manage to channel these strong emotions toward positive transformation through having a moral and ethical goal to implement justice, fairness, and equity. They are well-meaning leaders who are asking for better processes and systems that support the organizational goals. Nevertheless, putting up with the emotional weight of not doing anything about it kills creativity and exhausts energies in the workplace. While it is always possible to shut down and ignore, ethical leaders continue to make a point about change and transformation through their strong

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social value system that prohibits them from being complacent, but they are wise enough to use the first two roles to draw a full strategy from assessing the environment role and assessing the role of people’s needs. When comprehending and realizing the reality of a situation or a context, leaders adjust their personal vision in conjunction with the assigned team of consultant’s plan which is comprised of an options analysis and allows a way forward for the organization to be formulated. They are informed by evidence and strategies. This is the time when a leader must weigh their decision carefully with enough risk appetite and enough evidence to fall on to make a case to stakeholders. Most of the leaders I have worked with have a clear sense of the decision and speak about it with clarity and confidence; nevertheless, they chose the right time to announce it with courage and consideration. Using a decent dose of empathetic listening they build bridges at different levels of the organization. If they are not the highest authority, they gradually gain credibility and trust with a long-term strategy until the ground is leveled for their transformation to take place. If your decision involves drastic transformation that falls into the categories of closure, mergers and acquisitions, a relocation, an expansion, or a restructuring, then you are bound to have lots of discussions and debates coming at you from everyone across the organization. But deep inside you know enough to doubt yourself again, because you have already thoroughly gone through every option in detail in your mind, with your coach, with your senior leadership team, and with the team of consultants. All you need now is the courage to announce it. If the decision is a minor transformation that affects a single group of people or one function or demand extra resources to happen, the size of transformation is manageable but still stressful. You have to care and be passionate about what you are doing. Being passionate about something helps you endure all the difficulties. You must have resilience and patience, and you are more likely to have that if you have a long-term goal that you believe in. Thomas, 2010 [2]

With the right reason for the change and your sincere belief in it, and with enough support from stakeholders and partnerships, and the right risk management skills, any leader in your position should be able to make challenging decisions.

Session 25: Challenging the Status Quo The purpose of the following questions is to align you with your intentions, values, beliefs, and vision in life. If any of the questions above made you pause, find a personal trustworthy coach. Get clarity. Neocharismatic leaders are ethical and work for the greater good; nothing in life could force you to be otherwise if you chose not to. This is the right moment to make some personal sacrifice if you must. I have witnessed some leaders walk away from positions and status at their peak of success because it is not about them; it is about others and being of service to the greater good. This may sound spiritual, but it is important that you have a clear conscience

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and you feel good about yourself every day of your remaining life having made that decision. 1. What is it you want to achieve here? 2. Why this is so important to you? 3. When using your common sense, what answers do you get around the risks and chances that this organization can take to survive or remain alive? 4. What assumptions are you making, and can you prove them right? 5. What are you not confronting about your decision? Why is it uncomfortable? What needs to happen? 6. What are the ethical implications of your decision? Where do you draw the line and when? 7. What can go wrong? What are you prepared to do in your leadership role? What is the plan B or C for the organization? 8. What losses are you facing? How are you going to recover from them? 9. What resources do you have, to recover? 10. What gains are you making? For whom? Is there anything personal here? Is it ethical? Are you working for the greater good for others? How? 11. What does not sit well inside you? Where is it coming from? Is it guilt? Fear? Doubt? Look back and find in you what is annoying you the most? 12. When you look at the learning and knowledge you have as a leader, what do you know about this organization and its culture that can drive change or hinder it? 13. How can you be a change agent or a change stopper? 14. What have you prepared in order to be able to handle the effects on others? What are the compensations in the short and long term for their losses and grieving? Losing a job or a source of income is one of the most devastating experiences people can go through in their career. I have witnessed leaders prepare heavily for this by putting training, re-qualification, career coaching, and job search support in place. Some of these arrangements included relocation support and financial help with transition. 15. What are the coping strategies you have put in place for a grieving and emotionally drained organization and its people to recover and adapt? It is not only the people affected but the others who are witnessing change and transition who get influenced by how you handle it. Every action and decision you make are seen as “the model.” Your followers are influenced for life by you. This is a training course on how to manage change and transformation presented by you. Make it worthwhile. Many times, whole cities or towns have built their economies on the presence of a specific organization. Some are not ready to have that organization to disturb their daily life and economy. Sometimes the transition has its effect on social life, and a leader needs to be very conscious of how they change the dynamics of any place or ecosystem. You, the leader, exist as part of a larger system which means you can sense how intertwined you are with all its elements.

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16. Places: what is your contribution to the location, its economy, its community and how are you planning to help it recover or adapt? Most importantly, in any strategically challenging transformative decision, you are your own coping strategies. Again, your followers are looking up to you, and you are exemplifying how they should behave in stressful times. 17. What is your action plan to keep yourself balanced physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually? Remember, if you don’t have to make that decision immediately and you have the luxury of time or preparations, formulating a sharing vision in a full participation format, is your best tool at getting everyone on board. But usually a decision must be made imminently due to financial and resources issues. In which case, you should have already started the process of formulating a shared vision so that it starts immediately in parallel or soon after the decision is announced. This is what we will deal with in the next chapter. In most of the above questions, there are plenty of things to make you pause, think, and reflect. I urge you to take time and spread the sessions out over few days or a weekend. Do it when you are relaxed and away from the office or the demands of your role. If it helps, get your personal coach involved. In all the above questions, I have plenty of stories to tell, yet you are unique and no story I tell you will give you the solution. But I will share this one to give you an example of a leader in action. A Neocharismatic Leader Story Ahmed was the CEO of one of the private hospitals in the Middle East. He had a transformational approach to his leadership which drove effectiveness to the strategic decision he was making. The decision itself was a result of his role in “Assessing the Environment” in the stage of “The Search for Opportunity,” immediately after his appointment. Ahmed brought on board two large consulting firms that ran the assessment and informed his decision. This step puts the decision on a professional level and made it more convincing to stakeholders. The results of that consultation confirmed his personal vision and assessment for having to make a major decision soon after of which a 100-bed buildings will be evacuated and relocated to another building that was bought through his intelligent management of the asset. The decision involved the possibility of staff losing their jobs due to relocation and maybe losing patients who are regular customers at the first location. There was a lot at risk, but the facts were clear, and he had evidence to pack it up. Time and resources were short, and a decision to save the investment was unavoidable. The reason he persisted is that he knew his assessment was right. Minimal consultation was going on due to the time factor limitation; he still managed a parallel vision and the mission strategic committee that involved representatives from all organizational levels. Upon announcing his decision, there was a lot of rage and opposition among the people in the organization who had not seen the results of the

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strategic analysis and were not involved in the consultation process. What Ahmed did immediately is get the consultation process immediately in place after announcing the decision and workshops and focused groups started collecting people’s aspirations and needs; these were fed daily to him, and he managed to show up in all workspaces assuring people that their needs are being planned for and met. After few months, the organization was eased into the new location effectively with minimal loses. Upon interviewing Ahmed, I learned so much about his “Sensing people’s Needs” role which was integral to his success as previously described.

References 1. Team Diagnostic Survey or TDS is researched and validated by Harvard researchers; J. Richard Hackman, Ruth Wageman and Erin Lehman. TDS is now a team coaching approach built on the results of the TDS. Dr. Angawi is an Advanced Practitioner of TDS. 2. Angawi, G., 2012. The roles of leadership in startegic decision making in higher education. London: British Library.

Part IV

Share the Journey

Chapter 6

Share Your Neocharismatic Leadership Journey: Formulating a Shared Vision Stage

The actual formulation and articulation of organizational goals comes as a natural consequence of the previous stage of the “Search for Opportunity.” There are two paths that result from the first stage: a Neocharismatic leader announces a transformational decision to save the life of an organization or stops it from disappearing, by making a final detrimental decision based on stage one. Or they have the time and resources to conduct stage two before announcing the decision so that they get people on board. In both cases, a “Challenge to the Status Quo” role has taken place. It is important to mention here that from this point on, the stages become exclusive for two types of leadership: the (b) who is a team leader and the (c) who is a strategic organizational level leader. The questions are designed to cover both and can be adjusted to suit most This chapter looks at how stage two “Formulating a Shared Vision” is actualized through two important roles a leader plays: the role of formulation and the role of articulation. The formulation of a shared vision process is a “Challenge to the Status Quo” as it disrupts the norms of day-to day-operations and demand open and transparent communication among followers and leaders.

 eocharismatic Leadership Role 4: Formulating a Shared N Vision This stage is a continuation of and an overlap on the first. While a Neocharismatic leader has their own vision of what the outcome is supposed to look like and the path that leads to it, they must hold back and wait for others to comprehend, assimilate, reflect, articulate, and express their deepest concerns and aspirations around the challenge. Sometimes, due to specific circumstances, a leader takes a decision that challnges the norms of the organization before being able to ‘Formulate a Shared Visions’ with the followers. They then come back and face the unhappy © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. T. Angawi, Neocharismatic Leadership, Management, Change, Strategy and Positive Leadership, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55486-6_6

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organization and use this role to enlist the followers. “Formulating a Shared Vision” process can happen for several reasons: one is to make sure that people’s vision is aligned with the visions that resulted from the “Assessing the Environment” stage, the second reason is, some new information may come through the process that will affect a leaders’ perspective or own vision, finally, dealing with anger and resentment is surely possible when people get to influence the vision and the resulting decisions. In the process, a Neocharismatic leader with their extra sensitivity and connectivity to others continues to listen, reflect, communicate and be present in dialogue until a consensus is reached and people are content with the vision. That does not impede the transformation process; it is a part of it and runs parallel to it. It gives a chance to all involved, including the leader, to gain clarity, understanding, and awareness. In other words  – to influence and be influenced. The leader here is coaching the whole organization through this stage’s behavioral roles. The process does not dismiss previous visions or directions that can only cause resentment and alienation, but it works with the existing notions of a future state and attempt to develop rather than demolish and adjust their speed according to their own judgment of the situation. “Formulating a Shared Vision” role requires a Neocharismatic leaders to demonstrate involvement with every level in the organization. This may require continuing the role of “Sensitivity to People’s Needs.” This sends a message of vision ownership and accountability for its actualization through the followers’ actions. Many times, leaders start the process and get distracted by other more pressing matters. Other times, it gets completed, and everyone is energized. Nevertheless, as time passes and new data or “assessments of the environment” comes in, it demands a review of the vision. Sometimes, leaders get distracted from the review, and the vision comes last or gets to sit on the wall meaninglessly disconnected from organizational reality. It is, therefore, important to think of the process as a cyclic and ongoing one. The cycle continues year after year or every 2 years. If the nature of the work is agile, the cycle can be quarterly. The larger and older the organization, the more likely a leader will be able to enlist other individuals in the formulation of the vision. The more rapid the change, the less likely it is that a leader possesses enough up-to-date knowledge to formulate an effective vision. They will require greater assistance from multiple organizational levels. The vision should be evolutionary rather than static, reflecting an ongoing interaction between the organization and the environment. What distinguishes Neocharismatic leaders here is the idealized future vision of their own but also their willingness to share and encompass other’s vision. The vision serves two roles for leaders; it motivates followers, and it aligns culture. In terms of motivation, it should provide a force for change by being discrepant to the status quo within the latitude of acceptance because it represents peoples’ shared aspirations and needs to its maximum, which puts pressure on followers to change their attitudes. It also aligns the organization strategically by presenting overarching goals that allow more specific goals to be formed, according to the rising environmental opportunities and obstacles.

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Followers come to believe in the viability of the vision and the potential rewards that it offers through the leader as a role model. It is impractical to describe a leader as visionary. Yes, Neocharismatic leaders should have their own vision and aspiration as indicated before, but mostly the vision is a product of others. Vision is ‘around future oriented goals and communications that are meaningful and challenging to followers [1]

If well-crafted and formed by all, the vision becomes a benchmark for the followers’ daily accomplishments. It is easily remembered as a broad action guideline. This means they can measure their daily values, attitudes, decisions, and actions against it. The vision also reinforces followers’ collective identity by making them realize the necessary collective effort needed to implement the vision [1]. A committee is formed, and each member in that committee is responsible for managing a part of formulating a shared vision through workshops across a department or a location. The workshops can take the form of 2 h or longer consultations or discussions and can be disseminated as a survey. The problems with surveys are they demand manual work as they get collected and sorted, even with electronic software. Moreover, the essence of the data gets lost as several people handle and report it. They also lack the human involvement and depth. Surveys are another number on the sheet. But if the organization is very large, they can be crafted in a way that overcomes their deficiencies. Focused groups and workshops demand human attention and real input from committed leaders with their teams or facilitators who are passionate about the process. The danger that they could become just another item on the list and lose their meaning if handled carelessly by a stressed leader. Even one leader in one department can ruin the process in this way. Therefore, it becomes important to get all the leaders’ commitment throughout the organization before facilitating these discussions and collecting the resulting data. Data collection from stakeholders requires full and comprehensive involvement and can take weeks or months. All the hard work starts at the top with a Neocharismatic leader who is steering the transformation and getting their senior leadership team to participate wholeheartedly. Whatever level you are working at, your impact is happening at the scale you can influence. The effects are replicated and cascaded down through your team of leaders. You become a role model for other leaders who witness the transformation you have created. Here is what you need to ask yourself before running that process.

Session 26: Formulating the Shared Vision 1. Which level of participation in the process are you aiming at? What justifies the absence of others? What could stand in your way? 2. What drives your passion around the process? What value does it add to your leadership? What do you believe is the most crucial step in the process?

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3. What has changed so far about your personal organizational vision that has influenced your decision to choose this method of participation? 4. What kind of urgencies and pressing demands are you dealing with? 5. Have you discussed these options with your senior leadership team? What input have you gained? What seems to be the right way forward? 6. What are the implementation methods for formulating a shared vision activity? What are the pros and cons for each method? 7. How can you personally be involved at different levels of the organization? 8. How will you role model the process? 9. What happens to individuals who participate genuinely? How does the organization reward their involvement? How can the organization protect participants’ transparent approach and sincere openness to say what they think? How do you foster trust in the process? 10. What transformation is happening to your own senior leadership team as they take full responsibility for the role with their own teams and departments? 11. What can go wrong? Why? How can you avoid it? How do you handle obstacles? 12. What are the potential opportunities or gains? How can you actualize them?

A Neocharismatic Leader Story Valarie had been in her executive role for years when she became one of my clients in a large organization. I observed her before coaching her as an inspirational, humble, and down to earth individual. After a few sessions of coaching on her leadership role for 250 people at different levels, she wanted to run a strategic review for her organization with her senior leadership team. She arranged for a retreat away from the office. I explained to her that I would be doing a full assessment of the external and internal environment. I also told her that we can start drafting a vision and mission statement as a result of the workshop. During the last hour of the retreat and after executing the program for her, I realized that the vision and mission that was about to emerge was a result of a discussion between team members representing over 250 people. I asked the team to verify how realistic and truthful this representation was. Most of the answers that came were built on assumptions and derived from the knowledge of what the organization wants from its people and not what the people want from their organization. Valerie then decided it was time to change and challenge these assumptions and ran a thorough bottom-up assessment covering every member of the organization. The rest of the retreat was a discussion between the team members on how to do this and what the deadlines were. After a few weeks of back and forth communication, which I continued to observe as I coached her and her team, Valerie developed a greater sensitivity to peoples’ needs and learned so much that influenced her thoughts and brought her sometimes to tears when she felt such a profound sense of responsibility and ownership. The

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work on vision and mission statements became a constant, and the team realized it is an ongoing cycle that will have to become part of the other mid-level leaders work. They started having conversations with managers, some of whom I met later, told me they were role modeling their leaders and having deeper conversations with their supervisors. The whole organization was having conversations around identity, branding, and peoples’ needs and aspirations. When my coaching engagement ended, Valerie was in a strong position and knew exactly where her leadership was going. Her senior team were also supporting her efforts and working to shift from cascading goals and objectives to fulfilling needs and personal engagements. They reported attending to vision and mission along with peoples’ needs by inviting them to make challenging decisions on many levels. I left the team after our engagement ended with the knowledge that that strong unit would continue to follow through on what we had established during both individual and team coaching.

Neocharismatic Leadership Role 5: Articulating the Vision When the formulation of a shared vision’s role is completed, a Neocharismatic leader swiftly and smoothly moves to articulate it to the followers with their own words and values. This articulation takes place through different forms of communication: physical such as buildings, art, artifacts, or verbal or written communication. This goes hand in hand with some of the behavioral roles outlined in stage one, specifically, challenging the status quo. It can also overlap with stage three – as a Neocharismatic leader devises method to achieve the vision. Articulating a shared vision is a collective effort to understand and articulate the aspirations of individuals with common objectives that the organization serves. It involves examining values, attitudes, and the current culture and then aligning the culture to the vision. One form of articulation is a mission statement. The mission is an articulation of what the vision means in peoples’ own words. The verbal articulation of this involves the ability to deploy language to help followers construct mental models of tasks, which makes these tasks meaningful and justifiable. The words in a mission statement can then be spoken confidently in speeches or to public media. There are different methods of articulation other than public speaking, which can be employed by a leader to articulate their vision. I encourage leaders to turn their attention to symbols in the environment. This can include written communications, artwork, artifacts, and the architecture of buildings. Even positioning furniture in a specific way or the choice of colors articulates messages and unspoken words. Aligning behavior, actions, and values is another method where a leader can invest a considerable amount of time in communicating appropriate attitudes, behaviors, and values. Credibility building by using rhetoric to project a leaders’ assertiveness, convictions, expertise, and concerns for followers’ needs is another approach. Other factors are the leader’s prior success, demonstrated expertise, and history of relationships with followers. Whatever you do and no matter how small

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your decision is, you are articulating a message all the time and every moment you are interacting. Our being is in the core of our presence. If you come partially to a meeting or to a conversation, you miss out on opportunities to fully communicate your vision and values. Unintentionally, you are delaying the process of inspiriting and motivating others by role modeling your lack of interest in the moment and in what we are here to do or be. If time is an issue for you, you could consider a personal coach to help you cope with stress and time management or delegation. If you are not ready to commit fully to being present, you cannot influence your followers, let alone begin articulating the vision, and you will end up delaying the process of effective change and transformation that can only happen through your full being in the role of leadership.

Session 27: Articulating the Vision 1. What are your different implicit ways of letting your followers know about your values and beliefs? 2. How can you be more deliberate in articulation? 3. What areas of nonverbal communication are you overlooking? What opportunities can be taken advantage of so you can articulate the vision to the followers across the organization? 4. What words do you usually repeat? What impact do they have? What do you need to stop repeating? Why? 5. Which social media or mediums of visibility you are using? Or which are you not using? What can you begin to use? 6. What spaces in your organization are you neglecting or moving away from? Can you find ways to utilize space, art, artifacts, and so forth to promote the values and vision of the organization? 7. What is present in the processes and systems that is not articulating the vision? What needs to stop happening? 8. How does your presence influence others? Or your lack of presence? How can you be more present, mentally and physically? A Personal Reflection I struggled many times in my life trying to influence others, including my own kids. Together we compiled a mission statement of the values that are important to us as a family when they were young. I used magazine clippings to help them articulate what was important to us. I spoke about the vision over and over with them emphasizing these values and asking them to live by them together and with other people around them. I articulated roles and behaviors that defined clear boundaries of what is and what is not acceptable and encouraged commitment to these rules with

References

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rewards and punishments just like I knew when I was growing up. I communicated these rules through posters on walls and artwork. But that was not enough. The only thing I did not do is address my own behavioral patterns as I went through life experiences. I was conscious of the right thing to do, but I was not conscious of my own doing and reactive behavior. It took me years of reflecting on my own behavior and my life journey to become aware. When I developed my self-­ awareness in the moment and could hear my thoughts around my choices as I communicated with others, that was when my followers started turning around and mimicking me. It paid off. Now it’s not only my kids I can influence indirectly and gently but strangers who read my work, listen to my podcasts, or get coached by me. Every person, no matter how trivial or small the situation may be, is a leader in some way. It is not enough to decide that you are going to lead by this ethos or that mission. What matters most is how you demonstrate to others your commitment to the cause in your behaviors and actions. This is the only and most powerful way to articulate a vision: to do it!

References 1. Conger, J. A. and Knungo, R. N., 1998. Charismatic Leadership in Organisations. London: Sage.

Part V

Walk the Journey

Chapter 7

Walk your Journey to Neocharismatic Leadership: Devising Means to Achieve the Vision Stage

By the time a leader arrives at this stage, they have already been through the previous stages and cultivated an environment of positive communication and a strong belief in their vision and mission. Gradually, the followers witness their leader as they actualize their vision and provide a role model of the behaviors that will support the implementation stage. Followers have already been observing and accumulating experiences of their credible trustworthy leader in action. In this stage, a Neocharismatic leader continues to articulate the vision, through more behavioral roles such as taking personal risks and unconventional behaviors. This is accompanied by encouraging collaboration and participation at all levels and developing other leaders. Most importantly, a leader is role modeling the moral code of the group or organization in an explicit way, which is noticeable to others, while expecting others to do the same. In the folds, a lot of motion and inspiration takes place, while collaboration is continuously strengthening between different players in the organization as they go about their daily work. This stage contains five important roles that a leader uses to arrive to their vision: (1) taking personal risks, (2) unconventional behavior, (3) motivating others, (4) encouraging collaboration, and (5) developing people. This stage of devising means to achieve the vision serves several goals. (1) To demonstrate a leader’s commitment, which sends a powerful message of trustworthiness. This allows the internalization of the vision by the followers as the leader becomes one of them, sharing with them on an equal footing, and sending a message of self-sacrifice where every member must place the interests of the organization, the team, and the purpose they are serving ahead of their own. (2) The stage behavioral roles instill beliefs, values, and other desired behaviors in the workplace. (3) The roles empower organizations’ members through context change and the removal of barriers that promote powerlessness such as centralized, formalized and bureaucratic structures, reward systems based on compliant blind behavior and routine repetitive jobs, etc. Finally, (4) using a leader’s behavior as a role model, specifically in terms of personal risks and sacrifice, is one of the main tools for © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. T. Angawi, Neocharismatic Leadership, Management, Change, Strategy and Positive Leadership, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55486-6_7

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developing collective identities. The vision cannot be achieved without teamwork and collaboration. Individuals learn how to put the interests of the group over their own personal interests by observing their leaders demonstrate that consistently. The result of this stage’s behavioral roles is that followers perceive their leader as exceptional and extraordinary as they challenge the conventionality of the organization and its past limitations [1].

Neocharismatic Leadership Role 6: Taking Personal Risks In this stage, a leader’s ability to act as a role model by taking personal risks demonstrates readiness for change and motivates followers’ movement toward transformation. A leader starts showing up as a brave risk-taker from the beginning when they chose to assess the environment and challenge the status quo. Taking personal risks can be anything from public criticism or rejection of ideas to money, time, and personal sacrifices. Sometimes it is losing status and social affiliation or power that comes with position for the sake of the vision and people’s values. There is a contextual factor in play regarding what is considered a risk in one situation or organization. What is of concern here, is how ethical every decision and step a leader takes and what makes them standout and be an affiliate of bravery. Apart from my research of “taking risks and unconventional behavior” the literature is scarce. What I, as a leader and team coach, witnessed over and over in my coaching profession is that it works by demolishing all the walls that heroic leadership has built around itself and bringing a leader to their being as humans who err and are affected or influenced in the process of Neocharismatic leadership.

Session 28: Taking Personal Risks The questions below can be a topic for a session on their own, do seek your executive coach to navigate with you these risks and fears. Thirteen questions bring forward the ethics and moral values to challenge your assumptions. 1. In the light of all the previous decisions and challenges you have encountered, where do you stand now? 2. If you decide to stop everything and listen for a moment to your heart, what is your deep inner intuition telling you about who you are being? 3. When the day is over and you are with your own thoughts (maybe driving back home or on the train or airplane), what is irritating you deep inside about you and what you are doing or being? 4. If you were to start the day over, what would you do differently? 5. If you had a window to the future that tells you something about you, what would that be?

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6. If you moved away from you, and became a third entity watching over you, and if this entity is wise and all knowing, what advice would it give you? What would you learn about yourself? 7. If there is a decision to be taken every day to make a point about the advancement of the vision against the stream, what risk would you be taking? 8. What if everyone in the organization is against you, would you listen to them? What do you need to stand up for? Why? 9. What are the consequences of the steps you are about to make? What do you envision the future to be like in every one of them? 10. What personal risks are you taking here? What if you lose what you think you might lose? What is the worst-case scenario? What is the best scenario resulting from the risks you are about to take? 11. What other personal risks, related to your personal being, are you taking when you are with your team, or when you are around others in the organization? 12. If there is fear of taking that personal risk, what are you afraid of? How would you like to proceed forward to deal with your fears? 13. Who supports you? What have you offered to gain their support? Is it ethical? In the eyes of whom is it ethical? In what context? Can you justify that to your people inside the organization? Is it justifiable to all the stake holders? 14. What would be one risk to take today that will make you stand up for the purpose and shift the direction of the wind to fill your sails? A Neocharismatic Leader Story I will bring to you here several stories and experiences I had with leaders who have demonstrated this role in different contexts. Chuck, one of the leaders I coached along with their team, decided to share with their team what sounded to me to be a great ask. They asked the team to tell them if they are crossing the line by taking over the floor or over explaining a thought or deciding on behalf of the team without the team’s full support and agreement. It was a moment of truth, and the team was unsure how to talk about it as the leader was truly seeking feedback on a specific behavior, they were uncomfortable about with the team, in a team coaching space. One of the team members broke the silence and pointed out to their leader that they do show up as dismissive of them in front of their teams, which causes embarrassment. They gave their feedback in a courageous way with respect and acknowledgement of their leader’s good intention. The other members started nodding heads, and I witnessed the leader’s face become red. He lowered his head and looked down as he gathered his courage and thanked the team for truly being genuine and honest. He apologized and promised to work on his dominant controlling behavior. Later, when reflecting with him, he confided to me that he was exercising his humble being as he was listening and that required a great restraint of his ego and pride. I witnessed from that point on a dramatic change in him and an increased respect from his team. He took the risk, and it paid off.

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Brenda was a client of mine in an architecture company. In one of her sessions, she shared with me that she wanted to take a risk and discuss the communication pattern with her highly professional team of Architects whom she had inherited as she took the post a year ago. She was comfortable in her leadership but never felt completely accepted as a female leading in the field. She felt that they were underestimating her expertise by over explaining and simplifying the processes or the solutions to some of the technical problems. It felt that they were walking on eggshells around her. She mentioned one person specifically whom she could not break that pattern with. Brenda wanted direct communication that involved rigorous processes and solution-based discussions. I encouraged her to share this with the team in her next meeting and just be herself. She invited me to the meeting, and I witnessed her taking a risk of being candid. She told her team that I am coaching her on her leadership skills and that she feels there is room for her to grow through coaching, which was another humble admission involving a risk of judged as she stated her need for growth. Her second risk was the hardest; she shared a personal communication pattern that was part of her family life. She then relate that story to the communication pattern she was experiencing with the team that does not help her lead effectively. She asked if her team members would consider speaking to her in a specific way to promote understanding and efficiency. Although she did not point fingers, one member, in response, courageously shared how he was not doing that and confirmed to her, that sharing her communication style, he would from then on communicate with her at that level. Her vulnerability encouraged her follower to admit to his. It turned out that he was the person whom she had a difficult time communicating with. I observed this and was in awe. Nathan was a leader of an organization that was merging with another large one. Both organizations were equal in power and resources. The other organization’s leader was also someone with great talents and transformational leadership qualities. They had both hired their own external consultants and planned strategically the process among themselves and their boards from both organizations. Since one of them was approaching retirement soon, they agreed that they will have a dual leadership for an interim period to facilitate the transition for the other remaining leader. Nevertheless, the other leader’s board of trustees had other plans that they did not share with their leader ahead. After 2 years of hard work merging the two companies, Nathan was faced with a decision from the other institution forcing him to leave his post and breaking the interim agreement between the two leaders. The other leader showed no objection or empathy to the situation and seemed to be content with the surprising decision that was announced to Nathan a day before signing the merger agreement. Nathan was determined to take the risk and leave his post as he took the risk earlier and went for the merger decision. He thought that resigning would be in the best interests of the decision process, although it might not be in the company’s best interests as now it seemed a process of acquisition rather than a straightforward merger. He confided to me that mergers are never fair or just, and one organization would have to suffer the damages. He also told me that if he had pressed on and

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refused to step down, the merger could have been affected, and further damage could have been done to the reputation and long-term prosperity of his organization. Nathan risked his own career by ending it sooner than he had planned, containing a bigger disaster that could have resulted if he had not. His people were shocked, and many had left after him. The process was difficult and left scars on the organizational culture from his side, but after few years, the organization seemed to have recovered. Nathan did the most ethical thing he could have done in sacrificing for the greater good. His personal reputation suffered a bit, but he continued to do his own business consultation, letting retirement slowly creep in without totally giving up on publicity and engagement with business opportunities. For me to learn all of this and witness the pain and grieving that resulted, it confirmed that leaders must offer great sacrifices so that the vision and mission of their organization and people come first.

Neocharismatic Leadership Role 7: Unconventional Behaviors The best way to describe unconventionality is that it is “A leader’s behavior that is perceived as novel and surprising by followers. The perception of the behavior as novel alludes to the perception that the behavior is original, or new. The surprising component captures the unexpected element of unconventional behavior.” [2] The authors relate the elements of novelty and surprise to the situational standards and organizational history. What might be novel and surprising in one organization might not be so in another. Therefore, unconventional behavior must be contextually defined and constructed. The other issue they stress is that, on the leaders’ part, the behavior should be positive and constructive, not just to attract attention. Finally, Jaussi and Dionne relate this behavior to outcomes that were well documented in the literature, such as employee satisfaction and leader effectiveness, which are critical to sustain organizational success. Leaders with purpose also show their unconventional behavior through the process of formulating a shared vision and articulating it by doing what other transactional leaders don’t do. They speak to their people and share time with the individuals that may not be significant to the organization in their position; nevertheless, leaders with purpose want to understand from different angles and show respect to others at all levels.

Session 29: Being Unconventional 1. What are the norms of conduct in your organization that are expected of a leader in your position? Why do they exist? Who benefits? 2. If you were to break all or some of those norms, what would that bring you? What does it demonstrate to others? Who benefits?

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3. What kind of new norm(s) can you start introducing to demonstrate the point you are trying to make? What are the consequences? 4. When you look ahead, what is it you are trying to achieve by being surprising? How can being surprising be novel and authentic? 5. Who are you “being” in what you are normally “doing”? Who are you “being” when you are “doing” things unconventionally? 6. What can conventionality achieve? What can it not achieve? 7. Where are your boundaries? Who defines them? 8. What personal risks are you taking by being unconventional? 9. What are you risking by “being” conventional? 10. Who are you influencing by your unconventionality? Who are you surprising and why? What are they losing if there is any loss? 11. List all the ways you can be unconventional, starting today and now. Be creative and innovative. 12. Can you ask your leadership team to be unconventional? How can you encourage other leaders to be so? What will happen to your organization in terms of innovation and creativity? What possibilities are there? 13. What stands in the way of being unconventional? What are you going to “do” about it? A Neocharismatic Leader Story I have met many unconventional leaders in my career as a coach. Unconventionality is contextual to the culture where they operated. Dianne was the vice chancellor of one of the British universities. When I met her in 2010 as I was doing my research on Neocharismatic Leaders. Dianne’s open-door style actualized in my first meeting with her. Her office was simply practical, and the way it was situated between student common rooms and the reception area implied that style. Dianne took me for a walking tour across the campus, explaining the history, the artwork on the walls, and the peace garden that had a tree from Hiroshima. As we walked, she would talk to students and staff, smiling and chatting with everyone as if she knew them all and she did. She had 6000 students and over 1000 staff, and she knew almost all of them, if not by name, then by their face. I discovered, as I interviewed her senior management team and other staff and students, that she is very unconventional in how she spends time with everyone. The head of security reported to me that she would have tea with him in her breaks, and he had attended staff training courses with her shoulder to shoulder. Students reported she had lunch in the student union regularly to meet, chat, and laugh with different students. Finally, in her farewell speech, a few months before she retired, I was struck by her popularity and how people from the city and the neighboring homes came to meet her and listen to her talk. I met a senior woman who was a neighbor and asked her a few questions about how well she knew Dianne. The woman told me that she comes regularly to the city talks which were organized by the university for the community as an intellectual and social event and that she

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often meets Dianne. As we were speaking, Dianne approached me and her, shook hands with me personally and thanked me for making it, and then turned around and hugged the elderly woman and exchanged warm words. I saw her making her personal memory with touch with every attendee that evening during the 45  min before the talk. There were over 100 attendees or more. During the talk, she moved everyone to tears including myself. Here I am reporting this from pure memory [3].

 eocharismatic Leadership Role 8: Motivating and Inspiring N Others Motivation is not something we create in an individual. Every individual has their own motives that propel them to act in a specific way. Motivation is aligned with what is important for an individual and the value they put on things, people, and ideas or meanings. It’s related to what they value the most in life. A leader’s task is to discover what motivates their followers, individually and collectively and align that with the organizational vision and mission. They discover that through the role of assessing people’s needs as they interact and gather information from their followers. This is what I call a commitment to a cause as the number one motivation booster. People feel motivated for different reasons. According to an HBR article, there are four drivers that underlie motivation: the drive to acquire, the drive to bond, the drive to comprehend, and the drive to defend. The strongest is found to be the bonding and being part of a collective identity. At work, the drive to bond accounts for the enormous boost in motivation when employees feel proud of belonging to the organization. [4]

To fulfill these drivers, a leader must account for each by looking at how they are aligned with the vision and mission of the organization, the reward system, and the culture. They also need to look at the job design and how it relates to the intrinsic values of individuals. Finally, a leader needs to live by the ethos of transparency, trust, recognition, and equal or fair opportunities, which is the drive to defend. Motivation does not end here; it starts with the commitment to a cause. People are motivated by observing their leaders. They look up to the leader as a role model for leadership style and leadership attitude. In my coaching sessions, I often ask leaders where they came up with their leadership ideas and style. The answer almost always is that they were influenced by their previous experience with their own leaders or through an existing higher leadership. Nobody has ever told me that they learned leadership from reading a book or doing research on leadership. The presence of a leader and visibility is integral to passing on leadership behaviors and roles, but most importantly, when followers see their leader’s get involved and share with them on the floor what they do or take part in the day-to- day activities, that is when they are motivated the most. My experience as an internal coach before was leaders set examples for followers by being the first to engage with me in coaching

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sessions. That encouraged everyone else in their team of leaders, especially when they experienced firsthand the effect of coaching on their leaders’ style and how it supported them in the first place. Role modeling is contagious. Another method I witnessed was when a leader spent time with someone from the frontline or non-direct report to mentor and inspire them. A Neocharismatic leader takes every opportunity to influence someone’s life by just being there for them, and it takes only seconds. It is called creating memorable emotions in the science of emotional intelligence (EQ). According to EQ, the learning that is accompanied by emotions will never be forgotten. This requires a leader to be authentic. This cannot happen if a leader is just another face for the organization mimicking the status quo behaviors. It also requires being in touch with yourself as a leader and with your purpose constantly. It means you are highly motivated by your own intrinsic values. In the Arabic proverb: “You cannot give what you lack.” Old wisdom proverb

This boils down to the core of your being as a human. Words of encouragement empty of spirit will never suffice. Credibility is another way to motivate followers. When a leader consistently shows interest and concern in the well-being of their followers, they grow their credibility and build human trust in the relationship and in the vision. Trust and credibility grow through empowering others. When followers perceive they have control over resources, this gives them motivation to accomplish tasks and therefore feel empowered. The more freedom you give, the less you should worry about motivation and goals accomplishment. This goes hand in hand with contextual change and the removal of barriers that promote powerlessness, such as centralized leadership, bureaucratic structures, a reward system based on compliant blind behavior, and routine jobs that are isolated, repetitive, and boring [1]. Commitment to a cause, role modeling the behaviors, authenticity in being, and credibility in relationships are the four pillars of motivation and inspiration in my experience. In the following session, I will ask specific questions to help leaders achieve these four pillars.

Session 30: Being Motivational and Inspirational Commitment to a Cause 1. What do you feel that ignites your passion? 2. What do you say to others to ignite their passion every day? 3. What do you do every day that drives others to accomplish and work eagerly and passionately? 4. How do you foster good communication and allow bonding to happen in teams and collective common goals in your organization?

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5. What do followers feel so strongly about that they wholeheartedly defend and believe in? 6. How do you ensure that the vision and values that prevail are aligned with what the organization’s vision and values are? Role Modeling 7. Do you show up regularly in the corridors and public spaces of your organization, unaccompanied by your seniors? Just as a human being? 8. When you are visible, how do others perceive of you? 9. What behaviors do others see and what attitudes do they observe? 10. How do others behave when you are around them? Authenticity 1 1. What do you do to develop others’ leadership? 12. What do others feel that they need to do to grow? If you don’t know, how can you know? 13. Can others speak to you when they want to? What strategies do you have in place to secure direct communication with people? How can you remove barriers, including trust issues? Credibility 14. Do people have the access to resources that they need to accomplish things or must they get your permission every time? 15. What (waste) processes are in the way of accomplishing tasks that need to be removed? 16. What available knowledge, information, and learnings can they acquire to accomplish goals? What do you need to share so they can move forward? 17. Does the system reward initiative and innovation? Do you support creative approaches to managing workflow? How can you make this a norm? 18. When you are delegating others to accomplish tasks, what freedom over resources do you give them? 19. How do you monitor their workflow? Do you suspect they are using their time effectively and efficiently? 20. Are there specific tools and indicators that allow you to see them in action and know every step they are taking? A Neocharismatic Leader Story David was a hero in motivation. What stood out for me in his leadership was his ability to speak to people no matter who they were or what they did. He would walk every morning to say “hi” to everyone on the floor. For him, the little pat on the shoulder, smile or a morning hug to someone who was celebrating, or mourning was what made people feel they belonged, and belonging is the secret to motivation. His leadership team reported they would receive a call from him early in the ­morning

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before even starting the drive to work, midday when they were in the middle of problem solving and bogged down with emotions, and even in the evening after they arrived home to check on them and chat with them. They reported to me that this provided connection to the vision, strengthened their bond with him and between all of them as they called each other the same way he did. They mimicked his behavior over the years, and it highly influenced their performance and how they connected with their own followers. Every one of them reported the same behavior and attitude, separately confiding in me that he was their greatest role model, and his encouragement and belief in them led them to where they were in their leadership in the organization they were serving. He reported he never needed to meet regularly with them, and that when they did, it was for catching up and sharing happy moments, as most of the work was done in these calls and regular communications. Their calls sometimes turned into conference calls to address an immediate decision that needed to be made. Team members regularly worked together, consulted, and collaborated on projects; with his presence or without, he managed to foster a spirit of co-creation of innovative solutions and freedom to act. He told me if he disappeared for a week or two, the organization would still run as effectively as it was running now. Upon interacting with David personally, I found he was warm, authentic, and open to sharing his deepest emotions with others. He was comfortable with his being and easily connected with anyone.

 eocharismatic Leadership Role 9: Encouraging N Collaboration One of the most challenging roles of leading an organization at any level is making sure that the work is achieved cooperatively. The reason is that more is done when people co-create together. Not only are creativity and innovation sparked, but also timeframes are shortened and more gets done. Individuals perform better when they interact and feed each other with positivity. Provided the vision and mission is clear, with resources in hand, people learn and grow as they achieve. It is an upward spiral. But that can only happen when a leader is being that way as well. Co-creation of anything starts with a team process, organizational strategy, and systems and can require a great deal of collaborative intention from everyone. A leader with a purpose is the only one who can provoke this state of collaboration and co-creation. One thing I learned from team coaching is that every time I coach a team, the idea of being present in the communication and bringing yourself in fully to the moment comes as a main piece of learning from almost every member in the team. Being present requires a collaborative intention [5]. This communication presence is hard work and mentally exhausting. You can go by the whole day without presence and still feel energetic. Once you lead with presence where you are required to exit from your own world to that of others, you quickly become mentally

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exhausted and drained. It takes a lot of energy to move between several worlds, to listen, and empathize. Then comes the culture and how it rewards collective performance over individual competitiveness or collaborative approach over silos. This either demotes or promotes agile learning and creativity across the organization. The agile concept has been around for a while, but what is means is the ability for the collective entity to move fast between decisions and solution implementation and learn from experiences to inform future practice. For a leader to foster that kind of culture, they first need to address who they are and how they behave. They need to role model what they want to see in the organization which is what we have been stressing so far in this book. Second, a leader needs to examine structure and the distribution of power and decision-making within it. Third, they must address communication norms and how people interact. If you have inherited a structure that is already in place, the best action is to consider a pilot change in one of the departments or teams that can assess the readiness, agile learning capacity, and process outcomes on a small group of people or a single team. That is testing the water to see if components of success can happen and be replicated in another department or team. By creating agility slowly and steadily, you will have a case to show when it comes to transforming a bigger territory such as a whole department. Eventually you will be able to get to the whole. Alternatively, if you feel the organization needs radical transformation, you can decide to challenge the status quo packed with your assessment and shared vision as per the previous stages’ roles. I have witnessed in a few cases that neither time or resources allowed for gradual transformation, and the leader made a quick swift and then dealt with the consequences through formulating a shared vision. Building a shared vision and having full participation are gradual and can include such transformation where it comes from the people. Both approaches are legitimate and contextual.

Session 31: Encouraging Collaboration The questions here may have been posed to you before in another role, but this time think about them in relation to collectivity and collaboration. Power distribution and structure: 1. What does your organization structure look like? 2. How is that helping the purpose that this organization serves? 3. If you are to transform the structure to facilitate collaboration between members and teams, what approach would you take: gradual or swift? Explain. 4. What would be an ideal for sharing power and what can come in the way? Culture and communication: 5. When you look at people’s readiness what message do you get?

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6. How do people communicate in the organization? Implicit, explicit, direct or non-direct, high context or low context, written or verbal? 7. What is said and what is not said? What does that tell you? 8. How is the trust level between followers and leaders? 9. Do followers feel they can be transparent with leaders and with each other? 10. Do they feel safe to share what they aspire to or what they find irritating and worrying? 11. Do emotions have a place? How do leaders deal with emotions? What is the level of expression in teams and members of specific groups? Leadership role: 1. How are you perceived as a leader? 2. Are you approachable? Can anyone talk to you? 3. Are you visible? 4. Where do you draw boundaries? 5. How do you deal with conflict? 6. Are you ready for direct feedback? Can you accept your own flaws and admit your mistakes to your followers? 7. Are you prepared to change a course of action if you discover that it is not working? 8. How do you rate your ego?

A Neocharismatic Leader Story Tim Wilson was the vice chancellor of the University of Hertfordshire when I interviewed him in 2010 as part of my PhD research. Although I could not pursue the case further due to a limited timeframe restrains, his story remained in my heart and influenced me throughout my coaching and training career. Tim was a rugby coach for 13 years out of three decades long career on a national level as a rugby player. Sports are his analogy to forming a team that is dedicated and coherent. His words better describe team leadership than mine: I understood how different skills can emerge into a good team. how to appreciate what people bring to a team and how to try to mold them into a decent unit. You are looking at people who are incredibly diverse in their intellectual and physical capability. some have massive egos, and others are shy. Molding this group of people into a successful team is about taking the best out of each of them and putting them into a group where they can over-perform.

For Tim, recognizing individual uniqueness is what brings the best out of each player in the team. The secret for leadership is fostering trust between team members and in leadership. In his words: “you cannot be a good leader, until they trust you.” The key to trust is truthfulness and openness: It is about openness, about reception, about listening skills as well as talking skills, about following opinions and not being afraid to say, I got that wrong. The ability to simulate other people’s views (empathy).

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“Who decides the direction? Not me, it is the people. My job is to define broad counters.” He explains that many people come to an executive position thinking they have the answer, and there is no answer, there is only direction. They eventually underperform because they do not listen to people. He also emphasizes the factor of flexibility and being able to include all the intellectual people (especially in academia) in decision-making. Nevertheless, it is contextual, he elaborates, and you should be able to say: “I got it wrong,” this is when you gain trust. He then speaks about being able to survive when getting out of your comfort zone and being able to listen to others’ values that are opposed to your own to understand why they think that way. Unless you understand, you will never be able to influence and change; it is not by telling but by dialogue. Here is one story he told me about collaboration and having different perspectives on the team to outperform in moment of critical decision-making form his days as a Vice Chancellor [6]: I sit at my round table on a Monday morning with all my CEOs in the beginning of my appointment. I am a mathematician, and, on my team, there was a pharmaceutical science person, an engineer, and others from different disciplines. If a problem reaches that table, it was not easy as by the time it got there it would not have been solved, because only difficult problems get to me. So, I am setting on this table and saying, hang on, we are missing someone from social sciences! so the next two appointments I made were all social scientists. That was one level. I have never regretted that. It’s not just a diverse team in terms of gender, nationalities and that sort of thing, it is diverse in terms of mindsets. It’s getting people to see a problem from all 360 degrees and not just my own mindset of cause and effect. This was during the project of moving people from one campus to another during the decision context.

Collaboration is not just working together to solve a problem but also creating interdependencies by tapping the whole team’s ability and creativity. The ability of the team depends on the various skills and experiences the individuals in it bring to the table. A leader must make sure that these skills and experiences are utilized effectively throughout the collaboration process. Tim was big on diversity and social culture adaptability. Team culture was one area he was invested in.

Neocharismatic Leadership Role 10: Developing People For a leader, developing people is what their noble goal is about. They believe they were given this privilege of leading to bring the best out of every follower and grow each to be a leader in their own capacity and potential. Thus, this role of leadership is an integral part of their identity. You can witness the excitement, enthusiasm, and inspiration when leaders with purpose stand up to speak to their followers. Unlike others, who may instill fear, skepticism, and a sense of doubt in their follower’s ­ability to perform or be fit, Neocharismatic leaders who lead with purpose motivate and inspire their followers to transcend to another platform by believing in the power of others.

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The leaders I have coached and who wanted to develop others by growing their strength made sure they are were in a participative mode as they ran workshops, got involved heavily in building the culture, and spoke to the hearts of others in every speech they gave and in every word they wrote.

Session 32: Developing People You know your peoples’ needs by now, you understand what they aspire to. You believe in their ability to achieve and perform. 1. What competencies must be in place so they can meet your expectations? Think about each area or function that exists. Make sure you have plans for people in every area. A lot of large organizations have devised such competencies and use them in training, personal development, and coaching. Some have become absolute measures of success but in the process have lost the spirit that accompanies them and instilled fear in their hearts by failing to meet them or by not being competent enough. When this happens, there must be something wrong that has not been spotted, and the process is in dire need of a review. Some have been devised in a specific context or culture and then blindly applied to other contexts and cultures, ignoring the differences and cultural values. I cannot stress enough the importance of intercultural competence, not only in communication and decision making across cultures but also in training and leadership development. 2. In your plans to develop people, what do you see as the most successful approach? Combined with what? 3. As you think about your own involvement in the process of developing people, what would your contribution be? How are you going to participate? What presence should you have? 4. Is it better to grow or replace people? Why? 5. Are you content when followers decide to leave the organization to another one for a better opportunity, even though you have invested in developing them? Why? 6. How do you, other than developing people, meet their expectations? Fulfill their aspirations? Support their belonging and bonding? 7. What kind of culture do you like to create to make sure they stay? How do you do that?

A Neocharismatic Leader Story Ihsan, was one of the leaders I witnessed in my coaching practice who invited me to conduct a team coaching for his team of leaders. He was already coaching others when I met him, and others had told me how strong he was in growing leaders. I

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worked with his team a few times over a few months individually and collectively. I was taken back by his deep approach to ask powerful questions, but I was taken back even further to see how he shared himself and his deepest personal emotions, even to the point of tears in front of his team. The results were that his team grew more in their dedication and commitment to supporting his leadership mission, opened to him about their own personal leadership journeys, and shared their own deepest thoughts. Ihsan touched me personally and something inside me grew after hearing about his life, perseverance and ability to rise above all circumstances. Personally, developing people is not about how many training courses or retreats you ask them to attend, it is about them witnessing you grow and exercise along with them and move ahead of them with what you ask of them to be.

Conclusion This book has been a journey for you and me. Personally, I grow to embrace Neocharismatic leadership after living with it for a long time. Before this book, I thought about Neocharismatic leadership as just another effective leadership model. Now it has become part of me. In 2018, when I started writing about it, it became clear that the potential and impact it could have on the world is huge giving the environmental and global political tension we are experiencing. As I conclude the book and review it before handing it over to the publisher, we are experiencing a viral attack on our population worldwide or what is called Covid-19. It has been months of working from home and realizing how every question posed here in a session can contribute to a building block in the making of a Neocharismatic leader that the world is waiting for. The book does not only address the three Neocharismatic leadership stages for transforming an organization, but it also prepares a leader to become one. Part one of this book, focused on developing a theoretical framework that outlines that journey a leader can take from beginning to end. It laid the foundation for a Neocharismatic Leader’s vision, values, and moral frame of reference. It took a deep look at what they do and how they behave in relation to their followers. It also drew a line between Neocharismatic leaders and other leaders who may appear to be charismatic but lack the altruism that Neocharismatic leaders have. Simply said, it brought to the service a new shape and form that cannot be mistaken in how it defined Neocharismatic leadership. The review and commentary in this part can be a differentiating era in leadership literature. Next time someone talks about Neocharismatic leadership, it cannot be confused with previous perceptions of other charisma or transformational leadership. In part two, a leader who wants to develop themselves to the highest standards of Neocharismatic leadership finds all the tools they need to prepare and hone their skills and competencies with personal and interpersonal Neocharismatic leadership coaching sessions. Part two can serve as a detailed reference of the advanced leadership skills and competencies of Neocharismaitc leadership. It is a reference for any coach working with a leader or any leader working with their team.

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The last three parts are all then allocated to the real journey a Neocharismatic leader takes. The work starts by supporting entrepreneur leaders or individual contributors aspiring leaders to move toward team leadership in part three. By the time a leader reaches part four, they would have their own organization to lead. The model focuses then on the whole organizations’ transformation in three stages: (1) the search for opportunity, (2) formulating a shared vision, and (3) devising means to achieve the vision. There are ten roles that a leader demonstrated in these stages. In every one of them, they work through their own vision and align the organizational vision with ethical and moral standards making sure that the decisions and actions taken are in the best interest of every individual and group that are affected by them. For coaches working with Neocharismatic leaders, it is their duty to ensure that these topics are brought up through the questions in the conversations they have with leaders. Coaching becomes a tool for empowering Neocharismatic leaders and supporting them in realizing their inner altruism and moral frame of reference. I do like to end this book by quoting the Quran, as it described the purpose of sending our beloved prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him): And indeed, you are of a great moral character [7]

References 1. Conger, J. A. and Knungo, R. N., 1998. Charismatic Leadership in Organisations. London: Sage. 2. Jaussi, K.  S. and Dionne, S.  D. (2004). ‘Unconventional Leader Behavior, Subordinate Satisfaction, Effort and Perception of Leader Effectiveness’. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, (10, No.3), 15–26. 3. Angawi, G., 2012. The roles of leadership in strategic decision making in higher education. London: British Library. 4. Nitin Nohria, Boris Groysberg, and Linda-Eling Lee (2008), Employee Motivation A Powerful New Model, HBR, www.hbr.org 5. Tamm, J. W. and Luyet R. J. 2004, Radical Collaboration: Five Essential Skills to Overcome Defensiveness and Build Successful Relationship, HarperCollinsPublishers, NewYork. 6. Tim Wilson took post in 2003 after being a deputy VC since 1992. He continued his work in turning the university around. His biggest accomplishment is successfully promoting the central role of universities in economic and social development and having Hertfordshire acknowledged nationally as the leading business-facing university in the UK.  See: https:// www.hertfordshirelife.co.uk/people/q-a-professor-tim-wilson-vice-chancellor-of-the-university-of-hertfordshire-1-1637123 7. Quran surah Al Qalam 4 (QS 68: 4).