Dear Leader,

This KEY is about your uncelebrated Spiderman and Spiderwoman-the person that came to your rescue just when you needed. Following the KEY we include a Leadership Trends Survey and steps to Reclaiming Your Power. We wish you all good things for 2009!

As always, your comments are welcome. Please forward this KEY to friends, family and associates.

Sincerely,

Aviv Shahar

Also, find out about:

From Breakdown To Breakthrough

Anatomy Of Compassion – What Chris Can Teach Us

Your Spiderman – January 2009

You and I would not be where we are without our Spiderman or Spiderwoman. We all need help. We all needed someone to stretch out an arm. To give us opportunity. To show us it can be done. To say, “You can do it”. To believe in us. To raise us up.

There is a “Spiderman” impulse in all of us. We love to help. To make a difference. “The receiving is in the giving.” When you help someone, you are being helped. In our leadership events we encourage participants to share their Spiderman story. Stories about someone who helped them. Rescued them. And stories about when they helped and rescued someone else. One after another managers share their Spiderman stories. Simple stories. Amazing stories.

There are perennial messages coming through these story circles:

  1. None of us got to where we are on our own.
  2. We were all inspired by someone. We were all given a chance.
  3. You become a great achiever through the help and support of others.
  4. Everything special, every unique accomplishment has been the work of more than one person.
  5. One moment, one word or sentence has the power to change the course of a person’s life.

Here is a Spiderman story told by Stu in one of our leadership events:

“In my elementary school there was this geeky kid who wasn’t very capable physically. The problem was that he had a gimp right arm and hand that were considerably weaker, smaller and less dexterous than his left. In gym class, the instructor would often make him sit out of activities because he just couldn’t do them, or would sometimes even hurt himself. One time, we were doing flips over the pommel horse and this kid left the springboard and when his hands hit the pommel his right arm gave way and he crashed headlong into the pommel. The parallel, uneven and high-bars were totally out of his league. Needless to say he was the brunt of a lot of jokes and an easy mark for the bullies, which in any small town are always in abundance.

The kid joined an intramural floor-hockey team that played in the lunch league. The teams were picked randomly, and he ended up on a team with one of the school’s top jocks…a natural athlete who excelled at any sport he put his feet and hands to. The jock could basically score goals on command and was revered by students and teachers alike.

During one of these intramural games, the geek kid was running down the right-wing boards and found himself behind the defenders with the jock stick-handling the puck down the left-wing boards. The jock was lining up for a shot, and there was absolutely no doubt he could beat the goalie and score. But instead of firing the puck into the net, the jock passed it to the geeky kid. With no defenders around the goalie, and the goalie focused on the jock, in almost complete disbelief, the geeky kid one-timed the puck hard into the back of the net! SCORE!

That geeky kid was me. To this day I can still see that orange plastic puck coming across the gym floor in slow motion. I can still hear the team and spectators cheering the goal. I can still feel the rush and exhilaration of seeing the puck fire into the net while the goalie was still moving over to my side of the net. I can still feel my heart pumping with joy as the team all came over for the congratulatory slaps on my back.

That season I went on to be the highest goal scorer on our team, while the jock had the highest number of assists. Later in my schooling, I went on to be the quarterback and captain of the football team. I still had my gimp arm and hand, but I was a changed person because of the confidence I gained in that one split-second when my Spiderman chose to pass instead of shoot.

He was a true Spiderman, because to this day, I can’t remember his name. My Spiderman, the man without an identity, impacted my life in ways that I know he is unaware of. I will, however, be eternally grateful to him.”

Today Stu flies light planes and is one of the brightest and most articulate executives I know. He traces his confidence to this moment when his teammate provided an opportunity for him to succeed.

Now it’s your turn. Turn the KEY. You are here to help others. To help others help themselves. To help others discover that they are here to help the people around them.

Share with me your Spiderman and Spiderwoman stories and their messages. I hope in a future KEY to share with you more stories sent my way.

© Aviv Shahar

Leadership Trends Survey

As part of our watch of changing trends in the world, we are running a survey about current trends in leadership.

Please identify which of the trends listed below you would consider as…

A. Most prominent in the leadership landscape

B. Most important to you

If you can, please include insights and reasons as to why you chose these trends.

Trends in Leadership:

  1. Transformative Leadership – Helps us reframe our experience; transform our beliefs about the world we live in.
  2. Adaptive Leadership – Able to flexibly change and adapt a course of action; responds to situational needs.
  3. Women in Leadership – Women leaders free of the need to take on a man act; bringing relational and connective feminine dimension to the leadership process.
  4. Collective Leadership – Distributed leadership function; engages collective intelligence to bring forward diverse resources and competences.
  5. Meaning-making Leadership – Able to provide context, vision, direction; helps us create meaning for our experience.
  6. Another leadership trend you observed…

Please share your views and comments with us. We look forward to sharing the results of our survey.

© Aviv Shahar

Your Can-Do Power – Are you ready to reclaim it?

Intention is an energy deposit. Agreement is an energy investment.

To reclaim and build your can-do power and energy levels apply the *KUA* criteria to intentions and agreements. KUA stands for Keep / Update / Absolve:

  • Keep it – act on the intention; deliver on the agreement.
  • Update it – realign/ adjust the intention; renegotiate the agreement.
  • Absolve it – let go / cancel the intention; forgive the agreement.

You are an energy system. Everything you do involves energy. You generate, absorb and use energy. The energy reservoir you are is made up of multiple energy levels. What diminishes your energy diminishes your capacity to do and enjoy. What enhances your energy builds your capacity to do, be and enjoy.

Intention realized creates energetic return. Agreements kept and implemented create energetic dividends.

Intention not realized wastes the deposit. Agreement not kept and not fulfilled drains the energetic investment. Wasting energy deposits and draining energy investments diminish your charisma, weakens your immune system and depletes your can-do power. Stress is a symptom of energy depletion caused by intentions and agreements not acted on. You free up and renew your energy by applying the KUA process.

© Aviv Shahar