Being a Global Leader taps into your natural state. Thus, Global Leadership is a form of leadership that we all can develop as human beings. However, when you operate in an unnatural or unbalanced manner, significant barriers arise that prevent you from becoming a Global Leader.
It's important to become aware of these barriers so that you can identify and overcome them. As the graphic below shows, the most common barriers that prevent people from becoming a Global Leader occur within these five areas of personal development: resources, control, responsibility, conflict, and power.
Five Barriers to Becoming a Global Leader
BARRIER 1: RESOURCES - YOU WORK WITH ONLY A PORTION OF YOUR TOTAL RESOURCES
Often, people are unaware of the wealth of resources that exist within themselves that they can use to meet even the most difficult challenges. Many people still approach problems primarily from an intellectual perspective. When you do so, you work with only a small portion of the total resources available to you. You miss opportunities to marshal all of your inner capabilities and tap into your innate creativity.
As humans, we are multidimensional in our intelligences: a combination of mind, body, emotions, values and beliefs. As a Global Leader, it's important to incorporate the wisdom of all these intelligences.
For example, you might neglect to listen to your body. Is it energized by a particular challenge? Fatigued? Do you feel an ache in your back? You also might fail to pay attention to your emotions. Do you feel afraid? Happy? Overwhelmed? In addition, you can disregard your deepest, intuitive knowing. Do you ever have a desire to pursue a particular path in life, but your mind tells you all the reasons why that path won't work?
Understanding the interplay of your body, thoughts, feelings, and deep intuition expands your internal resources. You become holistic and develop a full array of capabilities. As a result, you can create optimal outcomes.
BARRIER 2: CONTROL - YOU THINK YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF EVERYTHING
Life can be chaotic, and this often drives people to believe they are in control of situations. Being out of control is uncomfortable. To avoid feeling uncomfortable, people then act out of fear rather than love. Or people try to force something to happen, giving them the illusion of control.
There are many things in our daily environment that we can't control. One way to relax your need to control is to practice spontaneous development. Spontaneous development is the natural experience of operating within a self-organizing, self-adapting system. Spontaneous development occurs when you engage with intention, individual genius, balanced exchange, and shared leadership.
With spontaneous development, you learn to trust what is generated from the whole. Feelings of joy, ease, and purpose arise. You engage more powerfully with natural processes and growth dynamics. From this engagement, you become a Global Leader and manifest ideal outcomes.
BARRIER 3: RESPONSIBILITY - YOU BLAME OTHERS FOR YOUR PROBLEMS
For many people, it is difficult to acknowledge total responsibility for their lives. People seek to blame others for their problems. Some people want to be validated as victims of their circumstances. These approaches leave you in an unempowered state of existence.
When you take full responsibility, you become self-accountable for governing your life. Full responsibility gives you extraordinary power to grow and progress toward your goals and desires.
To take more responsibility for yourself and your life, try to find ways to grow in self-awareness. Look for those areas of yourself and your life in which you can assume control. Full responsibility allows you to grow as a Global Leader and to direct your life in a way that expresses who you really are and what you most desire.
BARRIER 4: CONFLICT - YOU BELIEVE THAT CONFLICT IS NEGATIVE
Unless people develop good skills in negotiation, they often struggle with conflict in their lives. Many people believe that conflict is a negative experience. Some people avoid conflict because they fear it. Other people shy away from conflict because they want to avoid hurting another person's feelings. At the other extreme, people use conflict as a way of dominating another person and to gain control of a situation. Other people escalate conflict to try to intimate another person.
Conflict doesn't have to be a source of struggle in your life. Far from it. In fact, conflict is necessary to the process of growth and development. How you deal with conflict is key to successfully engaging with it.
A better way to view conflict is to see it as a dynamic that occurs when two or more forces come together to create a larger expression. Conflict wants to be transformed and resolved.
Conflict gives you an opportunity to become more objective, more creative, and to strive for resolution. Global Leaders are skilled at using conflict to release entrenched problems and, by doing so, allowing a greater truth to emerge.
BARRIER 5: POWER - YOU DOMINATE OR LET YOURSELF BE DOMINATED
The misuse of power is common in today's world. At the extremes, people either try to dominate others, or they let themselves be dominated. Unbalanced use of power is a significant barrier to becoming a Global Leader.
As a global culture, we need to re-define power. We need to think of power as the ability to create and unfold your life. True power doesn't push or pull. True power awakens you to the beauty, balance, and radiance of life. Power supports you in overcoming all obstacles and adversities.
OVERCOMING BARRIERS OPENS NEW PATH TO FULFILLMENT
As you come to use power, conflict, responsibility, control, and resources in a balanced way, you will overcome barriers to success and as a Global Leader.
In today's economy, Global Leadership is critical to individual and organizational success. True service requires a holistic form of leadership that synchronizes the capacities of both your right brain and left brain. As a result, your work flows more spontaneously. Your decision-making becomes quicker and clearer. You act with more determination and resolve. Your service to others becomes more purposeful, meaningful, and fulfilling.
As organizations embrace work trends rooted in purpose and passion, Global Leaders will be fully prepared to meet the challenges of 21st Century work. Global Leaders are holistic and transformational. Global Leaders naturally create Goodwill in Every Interaction. From this new mindset, people are free to re-imagine the workplace and create breakthrough solutions to today's highly complex problems.
