Open Vision on Leadership
Leadership is created and supported at a deeper level by all members of a group, including the leader him/herself. ‘Leadership’ is not only a typical human concept but also a very remarkable one. Humans are, beyond any doubt, profoundly social beings. For as long as we can remember – literally – we have been living Read the full article…
Leadership and Ego
Leaders who move beyond ego to serve a greater good do more than guide; they inspire, uplift, and drive meaningful change. But how do we cultivate such leaders? How can we encourage leaders to look inward and evolve continuously? Here, we explore how AURELIS principles and Lisa – Aurelian executive A.I. coach – offer a Read the full article…
Global Leadership Needs Compassion
Today’s world stands at a unique intersection: globalization and technology have brought us closer together than ever. Yet, from rising nationalism to reactionary policies and conflict, leadership seems more focused on competition and division than on unification and cooperation. In this critical moment, one quality emerges as essential for true global leadership: Compassion. Global leadership Read the full article…
Opening Leadership with Lisa
This is the introduction to a Lisa File (40 p.). If you want the whole file, please contact lisa@aurelis.org, stating who you are and why you want the file. For more about the Lisa Files, click here. In the ever-evolving landscape of modern leadership, where rapid technological advancements and changing workforce dynamics continuously reshape organizational Read the full article…
Open Leadership: from Material to Mental Growth
The present-day world seeks economic growth, which is, broadly seen, ‘material’ ― either in the sense of being touchable or, at least, transposable, thereby tradeable. Mental growth is different and needs Open Leadership. Growth is a natural urge. Everything in nature continually grows intra- and intergenerationally. AURELIS itself is based on a natural growth philosophy. Read the full article…
Why Open Leadership is the Future
The future: soon enough, and from then, forever. Open Leadership is about getting real, which is increasingly necessary to thrive as an individual, an organization, and a species. Increasingly necessary It’s 2023. The past few years have seen global turmoil as never before in my lifetime. We see crisis on top of crisis: a viral Read the full article…
Why is there so Little Open Leadership?
The advantages are huge, yet too little attention goes to it in practice. Causes go from little theoretical thinking about it to a lack of Openness in the whole of society. Please read: Open Leadership is Bigger than You A leader is ‘only a person.’ One cannot expect him to be an Ubermensch. A leader Read the full article…
Open Leadership: Compassion
Open Leadership is fully Compassionate, not in the sense of ‘pity,’ but in the Eastern (and, profoundly, also Western) meaning of empathy-beyond-the-conceptual. Please read Compassion, Basically; Compassion = Empathy-Beyond Compassion is the top level and the goal of the AURELIS project. All other AURELIS levels are subordinate to this. Compassion is on top at the Read the full article…
From Boss to Burnout
It’s not about the amount of work but the amount of meaningless work. In contrast to a leader – let alone an Open Leader – a boss doesn’t take care of meaningfulness. That’s why they call him ‘the boss.’ Boss to blame? Not exactly. It’s not because one doesn’t take good care of something that Read the full article…
Every Open Leader’s Final Goal is Global
At any level, the Open goal is the global goal ― yes, the world, at least. There is no contradiction in this, but a mindset and a challenge – for the Open leader – to bring goals together in mutually strengthening ways. The final goal may be so far away that it looks like it Read the full article…
Open Leadership: Listening to Putin
April 2022. The present situation in Ukraine results from a total lack of Open Leadership. Money, power, status Of course, it’s about big money, including recent discoveries of even more oil in the Black Sea and the Donbass, taxes on the use of pipelines and the economic future of Russia versus Ukraine. Of course, it’s Read the full article…
Confucian Open Leadership
In my view, Confucian Leadership is about Open Leadership after transcending some inconsistency. Allow me at first to transcend. Then – some patience needed – I will come back to Confucianism itself. Heavenly Any theorizing about ‘heaven’ as if it is conceptually graspable is not Aurelian. It denotes a direction toward the ungraspable, a direction Read the full article…
Ethical Leadership is Open
Openness to the full human being is the one characteristic that makes leadership transcend management or bossiness. It is ethical to the core. Full human being At any time, an individual is consciously aware of a tiny part of what meaningfully goes on in his mind/brain at the mental-neuronal pattern level. Meanwhile, the other – immensely Read the full article…
Wu Wei in Leadership
Traditionally a characteristic of the idealized Chinese leader, ‘effortless action’ doesn’t always appeal to Western-style leadership. With a twist in-depth, it may appeal to any leadership worldwide. Hopefully, this contributes to [see: “One Future, One World”]. In any case, recognizable leadership everywhere is a good start. Open Leadership [see this category on the blog-wiki] This Read the full article…
Open Leadership (Animated Video)
Without further delay, in this animated video, I bring you an introduction to Read&Do Open Leadership. If you want to cooperate, please contact us. If you have feedback, please let us know. Here is the full written text. Hi, my name is Jean-Luc Mommaerts. I am a physician and master in cognitive science and Artificial Read the full article…
Leaders’ Meditation
Meditation can play a transformative role in leadership, making for a better and more sustainable leader. Meditation in the broadest sense is the head-on search for deep meaningfulness, which is quite special. [see: “The Meaning of Meaning“] The outer form can be sitting on a cushion, a walk in nature, or a week-long retreat. It Read the full article…
How to ‘Make’ a CEO Sustainability-Minded
Of course, you cannot do that. People are not ‘made’ into anything. The real challenge is much more significant. Are you prepared to take it? If you try to ‘make’ anyone anything, you meet resistance. The endeavor itself makes it more difficult. It’s like trying to climb a wall, and your climbing itself heightens the Read the full article…
Open Leadership: from Chaotic to Open
Opening chaos may reveal a meaningful core. Leadership grows when this is done to the benefit of many. The world is getting more and more complex. This may appear chaotic, or at least in danger to descend into chaos. A reaction may be an endeavor to avoid chaos by imposing order. Black or white. Or Read the full article…
Sustainable Leadership
Doing well by doing good. Being self-sustainable by supporting the sustainability of the whole organization and, eventually, the entire world. This is a clear choice It is the choice to not focus above all else on one’s position, status, money. Therefore, it is not an egoistic choice. It is also the choice to not forget Read the full article…
Open Leadership – Read&Do
Part of the foreword to my book about Open Leadership (see Amazon Books in the menu). This is not one more kind of leadership. Any kind can be more or less ‘Open.’ I write this with a capital because it denotes the ‘universe inside’ from where one can more openly relate to the environment from Read the full article…
Should Business Be Rational?
“We don’t care about science, as long as ‘it works.’” Of course, I don’t agree. ►►► WHY read this? Rationality is of utmost importance for business sustainability in every respect. ◄◄◄ Mechanic, organic Regarding technology, there is not much of a problem. To everyone his smartphone. Well. This device couldn’t have been made without rational Read the full article…
Leadership or Punishment?
When I hear a clamor from bossy figures about a lack of motivation in ‘the guilty ones,’ I frequently see a lack of leadership at the start. Motivation is a leadership responsibility. Of course, throwing guilt upon this lack is a no-no-er. To me, there is a crucial difference between guilt and responsibility. [see: “Always Read the full article…
Tired of Screen Meetings? – 10 Leader’s Tips
Many are getting bored of screen meetings even before they’re getting used to them. Specific attention is needed to this problem, especially in COVID times. Just a “get used to it” doesn’t solve it, of course. Putting an issue as a problem or a wish Always important. The wish shouldn’t be just the negation of Read the full article…
17. Leadership in Corona Times
July 22, 2020 Daily Total Cases worldwide 239.113 15.084.963 Deaths worldwide 5.678 618.493 Becoming Open This chapter is targeted to right within the second COVID-wave. It’s a letter to the near future. With leadership, I don’t mean bossy figures who tell others what to do. You might take a look at my book Read the full article…
People ‘Believe’ in You: as a Weatherman or Santaclaus?
A weatherman plays with statistics. Santaclaus works with toys and children’s souls. When people notice that you act differently than you say, they don’t ‘believe’ you anymore. I use quotes because ‘believe’ is a term with two meanings that are very different from each other, which may often lead to misunderstandings. The first meaning of Read the full article…
Lonely at the Top?
One is not lonely by being alone, but by losing oneself. You may have already heard the expression in the title, or even experienced it yourself. Of course, one does not have to be at the top to be lonely. Loneliness occurs in all walks of life. One can therefore also reverse the expression. The Read the full article…
Vision Makes Future and Past Live in the Present
A good vision is not a dead compromise but a living synthesis of past, present, and future. A leader keeps a vision alive in the mind of his ‘disciples’ (such as a company credo). He motivates them to follow him in this vision. This is discipline. You notice the similarity in word use. Of course, Read the full article…
From Fear of Failure to Failure as Part of Success
In our hypercomplex society, failure is a certainty… that we may use for the better. Everyone fails. Even someone successful, sometimes fails, except it will be even more noticeable. The fact remains that the bigger you are, the higher you fall. And you may hit the ground with an almighty wallop. One is more surprised Read the full article…
Motivating ‘Us’
Again and again, people stick together in the formation of ‘us’ that gets its identity from not being ‘them.’ Can we not all together become ‘us’? At any level People find an ‘us’ at many levels. The ‘us’ generally comes with a ‘them.’ For instance, it may be highly valued to be patriotic and, in Read the full article…
Open Leadership is Bigger than You
This is an invitation for any leader to grow. One needs to continuously grow to be an Open Leader. ‘Open’ means open to all sides, especially the insides. “A big error for a leader is to put his self-interest above the group.” One hears this frequently. The solution looks simple: put the interest of the Read the full article…
Female-Friendly in Open Leadership
A woman should feel free to show she is a woman, not only in her appearance but also in her way of doing. She shouldn’t feel urged to take up a male way of doing things. Why is it more difficult for a woman to get to the top? In principle, this can have many Read the full article…
A Leader Should Do What He Likes
A leader should be happy at his job. This is important to the organization, also as a matter of efficiency. An unhappy leader will not optimize the organization. It’s also a matter of self-efficacy. As a leader, you should be convinced that you do your job very well. This way you can authentically lead and Read the full article…
Everyone Wants You to Be ‘the Best’!
Fortunately, people are easily satisfied. Human perfection lives in imperfection. In the first place in a leader. A leader can hold on to the idea that everything he does is ‘perfect’ anyway, just because he simply is the leader. Such a character accepts no contradiction because that would undermine his leadership position. Clearly: if the Read the full article…
Difficulties are Solved. Challenges are Taken Up.
One stumbles over a difficulty. One jumps over a challenge. The difference between difficulty and challenge is larger than simply a new name for more or less the same. E.g. a white sheet of paper for the writer of this text or for a business plan: difficulty or challenge…? Difficulties cross your path, initializing the Read the full article…
The Leader and the Boss
A boss shouts, even when he listens. A leader listens, even when he talks. In ‘Open Leadership’ philosophy we look in an open way at the total person of the leader as well as of his co-workers. We are interested in the conscious thinking AND the non-conscious thinking in as far as we can get Read the full article…
A ‘Sorry’ from the Leader
A heartfelt ‘sorry’ is above all a sign of respect for others and for oneself. We will not discuss a direct personal fault of the leader him/herself. We will rather talk about a fault committed within any given organisation(al context) that justifies a ‘sorry’. It might have been a structural fault in the past. Popping-up Read the full article…
Leaders are People Who Inspire Other People
Be careful with ‘quick and dirty motivation’ instead of thorough inspiration. Being thrown does not equal flying. According to ‘positive thinking’, the following is simple: the right mental attitude is a positive attitude. How to attain this? Well, by a positive attitude. This principle seems to imply that everyone who does not think positively must Read the full article…
Difference between Motivation and Manipulation
Motivation originates in the heart of the motivated. All the rest is manipulation. The human psyche is not a box of building blocks. On the contrary. It is a hugely complex ‘organ’ that is, in addition, constantly moving. We are only partly aware of this. That explains why it sometimes resembles a box of building Read the full article…
Transformant Leadership
Tolerate chaos. Try to use it to achieve a new, better order than before. An important function of a leader is to supply openness for change. Moses leading the Jews from Egypt to the promised land. Almost every election is about ‘change!’. Not only because what there is now would not be good, but because Read the full article…
Manage Time so that Time Doesn’t Manage You
Return to your co-workers ‘my time’ as what it has always been and will always be: my time. Take care that at the same time it also becomes your time. A thin booklet on time management costs 5 Euros. If I read this through, I have as much information as on one day of ‘workshop’. Read the full article…
Without Feedback No Rocket Gets to the Moon
Even on a regular office day, EVERYTHING can be seen as feedback, which you in your turn can react to as feedback. This way everything becomes one big school of life. There are 2 ways to look at feedback: 1) Feedback is the glue that keeps everything together. Without feedback, things are not tuned in Read the full article…
Compromis-cuity
A compromise in which both parties ‘give in’ is often a lose/lose situation in the long term, then more and more so in the short term, before getting stuck. Both parties water the wine. Result: watery wine. When you do this time and time again, eventually there will be people who think that wine tastes Read the full article…
Work-Life (in the) Balance
Work-life balance may not be the best start if it brings more emphasis on a divide between both. For ages and until relatively recently people had only a ‘life’. ‘Work’ was what you had to do to stay alive within that life. At times, one had to work really hard… still it wasn’t ‘work’ as Read the full article…
A Bully is Not an Open Leader
A bully is not open to ‘total human being’. He is not respectful. He is not free towards himself nor towards others. [see also: ‘From Bullishness to Leadership’] Enumerating the above and other ‘elements’ of bullying, is enumerating – in the negative – the ethics of Open Leadership. Contrary to the latter, a ‘bully leadership Read the full article…
The Improvisational Leader
Being ‘improvisational’ is more than improvising now and then. It’s a continuous action as the scene develops like a jam session. Latin ‘im-pro-visus’ = un-fore-seen, not having made preparations for… New situations arise and people look at you, the leader, for a solution. It’s a leader’s job to be improvisational. You improvise ‘in the moment’. Read the full article…
Open Leadership Diminishes Alienation
Karl Marx found in capitalism a huge source of workers’ alienation. It’s still a huge issue at present, if not more than ever. Open Leadership de-alienates. Alienation, briefly: not being in deep contact. Since any true contact with anything / anyone starts from deep and goes to deep, one may say that this is primarily Read the full article…
Spiritual Leadership
Enthusiasm: theos = ‘god’. | Inspiration: spirit = ‘deeper mind’. ‘Spiritual leadership’ is what leadership has always been about. Consciousness unexplained Since ages, people have sought explanations for that what comes from their deeper self into consciousness – what one is consciously aware of – . No mental conscious content (thought, feeling, emotion…) originates in Read the full article…
Less Control is More Control
The urge to control can seem like an addiction. Though it is obvious that an addict, on the contrary, has lost all control! ‘Knowledge is power.’ It has always been like that and it will forever remain so. What is changeable is the meaning of these words. Does ‘knowledge’ solely contain information or does it Read the full article…
Authority?
‘Authority’: a word that divides many, may bring many back together. Not as a matter of fact though. The situation and an appeal to some caution Authority can be seen as always personal. For example, the ‘authority of scripture’ is the authority of those who command scripture to be authoritative. To some, ‘authority’ is nothing Read the full article…
An Open Leader Is a Listener
The importance of authentic communication is boundless. You know the difference between verbal and nonverbal communication. The former consists of words. The latter is everything else. A more subtle difference exists between the conceptual and the non-conceptual. The first category deals with everything that is easily converted into concepts The second category deals with the Read the full article…
Two Pats on the Back, Better than One?
Study in US: encouragement helps 98% of the people surveyed to get to better results at work. ‘To encourage’ = ‘to put heart into.’ Literally. You recognize herein the French word ‘coeur’. It has to do with ‘the heart’. It is not just a sentence stumbled out quickly, not your shoulder pat itself that is Read the full article…
Vision!
A coach and a leader have in common what is perhaps their main asset: the ability to ‘see what no other has seen before’, a future that is at the same time personal and universal. [Note: this is not an easy text.] This is not about eye-vision of course. In the coach’s case it may Read the full article…
Motivational Team-Leading?
Motivational speakers, team-building events… Cheering up the crowd… It can all seem superficial. An open leader looks further. Such ‘energizing’ is not necessarily effective in motivating the workforce. It may even be a de-motivating surrogate out of want for real motivation, construed precisely to ignore the real problems at the workplace. In any case, synthetic Read the full article…
A Leader’s Anxiety
As a leader, you are always closer to a feeling of anxiety. As a leader, you look more than others into uncharted territories. There you encounter the unknown, which always brings nearer the unknown within oneself, the principally not knowable within oneself, the own part of psyche that one is not conscious of. Psychologist C.G. Read the full article…
Is Competition Out?
‘Caring competition’ is a competition between people’s actions and competences, not between their dignities. Competition is natural. That doesn’t mean that an aggressive struggle is intrinsically good. I dare say it’s not. Even if it were all-pervasive in nature – which it is not – within human society we better transcend it. We humans have Read the full article…
Why Motivation Doesn’t Work… and What Does.
Deep motivation is invitation, no push nor pull. Ancient Greeks talked about ‘willing obedience’. Knowledge about this was deemed to be the quintessential leadership quality. As indeed it is. It’s also the issue that ‘leaders’ have the most difficulty with and questions about. How do I motivate these people who do not want to listen? Read the full article…
Building Consensus at the Level of Deep Motivation
Superficial consensus may create resentment. Deep consensus brings people closer to each other… … as well as to their own true motivation. Building consensus is about finding true motivations. What motivates people may be quite different from what they think to be deeply important to them. Much research points to this fact. For instance, at Read the full article…
There is Still a Dire Need for More Empathy in Leadership
Good leadership is mostly defined as empathic, yet we frequently end up with a non-empathic, ‘coercive’ one. May this be related to ignoring the unconscious? Although a lot of science proves the importance of the unconscious, to many it is ‘the alien inside’, which provokes anxiety when there is even a possibility to have to Read the full article…
How to Become a Strongly Empathic Leader
Empathy gets wrongly confused with weakness. What we need is strong empathy. Empathy can be defined as understanding and sharing another person’s feelings and emotions, accompanied by a desire for action and while not canceling your own personality. It comes frequently together with integrity, authenticity and humility. Empathy is not a weakness. To constantly take into Read the full article…
Leadership IS Meditation
Giving attention to the broader picture without losing the value of the concrete: meditation and leadership have much in common. Management is about getting one’s own thoughts as well as those of others clearly and efficiently together. Leadership is about letting these thoughts not get in the way of discerning the ‘broad picture.’ The main Read the full article…
Transforming a Group into a Team through Open Leadership
There is much more positive energy in a team than in a mere group of people. Building a team may be your biggest key to success. It’s hard to pinpoint when a group becomes a team. Yet it’s important for any organization, even at a big scale. Is Europe a group of countries or a Read the full article…
Deciding Together, a Leader Gains Responsibility
When the decision has informally been made, the leader says what will be done. At least, this is the preferred scenario of Open Leadership. Taking a decision together with others. Being able to really listen to another person. Empathy is an art. What do others want and what do they really want? The latter may Read the full article…
How to give positive feedback as a leader
Good feedback is informative as well as motivational. This is as important as it is not straightforward . You want your feedback to be accurate and motivating. You may also want to learn from the feedback that you give. How is it received? How may it lead to constructive feedback towards you? Do you see Read the full article…
Open Leadership: not I, not I and also not we as you and me.
People call for less egoism in world politics, world economics etc. The alternative is supposed to be ‘more we’ but this ‘we’ being ‘you and me’ eventually becomes ‘me and me’. You see? What is called a paradigm shift can be more of the same in another disguise. This is apparent in politics as it Read the full article…
‘Identicity’: when collaborator and organization have the same identity.
It’s all about feeling. What if the organization were a person, what would that person look like? What would be his/her personality? And would it accord with yours? This question can with good reason be put to every collaborator. And if you are a leader, to you too of course. Even more, because of the Read the full article…
An open leader gives people an environment in which to meaningful.
People want to ‘perform.’ What this really means is: they want to make a difference. They want to mean something. They want their life to have deep meaning, some deeper sense. Also in little things, people are looking for meaning. They want to be valuable. They want to exist. People are in a continuous search Read the full article…
From Bullishness to Leadership
A broad view upon bullying points to true leadership as what is needed to diminish bullishness. There is more to bullying than a bully and a bullied. There is a whole group, even a culture showing a ‘degree of bullishness.’ The actual bully is a symptom of this as much as of his own personal Read the full article…
Why there is no leader in tango
Tango is a dance of leaders and followers. Yet if leadership has anything to do with bossiness, there is no place for it in tango. It is foremost a dance of subtlety and invitation. This way – as in many ways – tango also has a lot to say about life in general, about leadership Read the full article…