Evolving Leader Quotes

Don't live the same day over and over again and call that a life. Life is about evolving mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.

Tomorrow's leaders will not lead dictating from the front, nor pushing from the back. They will lead from the centre - from the heart

The old world was destroyed because of its own greed and secretiveness. Those least evolved rose to the top, as happens here. Your leaders, as you call them, are all people with damaged senses of self-worth. The damaged goods run the civilization. That’s why it cannot last." "Abraham Lincoln was damaged goods?" "The need to lead is a symptom.

Teachers and leaders and storytellers and healers will grow from the earth like blessed flowers, blossoming outward with Divine guidance, to lead the rest.

We all have certain desires and undesired outcomes related to whatever possible course and attitude we take in life, whether it be at the larger macro scale (what shall I do with the rest of my life?) or at the micro level (as in, what route shall I take to work this morning). These include all the myriad choices we make each hour and each day. These choices determine our karma and our destiny. It's no accident, nor any great mystery, how this evolves; although one would have to utterly omniscient to understand all the many gross and subtle interconnections and causative links that determine happenings and outcomes.

True leaders admit their mistakes, learn from their mistakes, and evolve so that the same mistakes are not repeated.

As you build trust in yourself, your ability to expand your vision and fully live in your magnificence is amplified.

Leadership must evolve into a “science-based craft”, like surgery.

The characters populating male fantasies have little in common with those inhabiting female fantasies. In porn, the mind of a woman is usually empty of all thought and feeling – except for an overwhelming urge to have sex with plumbers, pizza boys, and her BFF. Women’s hopes and fears are irrelevant. Their skills are inconsequential, except for the admirable ability to satisfy multiple lovers simultaneously and an impressive capacity for moaning. Their bodies, on the other hand, are depicted in lavish, graphic detail. The heroes of romance novels often seem like members of a more evolved species. They are natural leaders, rich, powerful, and well-connected. Their minds are intelligent and savvy, though they are reticent about their abilities and hide their inner demons. Despite the fact that they are a five-star general or lord of southern England, they hide a troubled and tempestuous soul that can only be healed by the magical balm of a woman’s love.

What gave these peoples the right to lead all others? This was what I wondered. What had they to show in that respect? What spiritual image of man had they evolved, to what depths of being and to what external outlines had they worked out the human ideal? Where did their most unearthly, their purest, minds stand? To what coldness of judgment, to what severity of moral decision had their masses attained under their imperial leaders? Recently they talked much of their history. But there was greatness that had no history. Asia had no history. The decline of the Greeks began in the century when Herodotus appeared. They also pointed to their masterhood – master race – all right then, who were these masters?

The truth is that big ideas don’t appear—they evolve.

The Oscar-nominated documentary The Act of Killing tells the story of the gangster leaders who carried out anti-communist purges in Indonesia in 1965 to usher in the regime of Suharto. The film’s hook, which makes it compelling and accessible, is that the filmmakers get Anwar —one of the death-squad leaders, who murdered around a thousand communists using a wire rope—and his acolytes to reenact the killings and events around them on film in a variety of genres of their choosing. In the film’s most memorable sequence, Anwar—who is old now and actually really likable, a bit like Nelson Mandela, all soft and wrinkly with nice, fuzzy gray hair—for the purposes of a scene plays the role of a victim in one of the murders that he in real life carried out. A little way into it, he gets a bit tearful and distressed and, when discussing it with the filmmaker on camera in the next scene, reveals that he found the scene upsetting. The offcamera director asks the poignant question, “What do you think your victims must’ve felt like?” and Anwar initially almost fails to see the connection. Eventually, when the bloody obvious correlation hits him, he thinks it unlikely that his victims were as upset as he was, because he was “really” upset. The director, pressing the film’s point home, says, “Yeah but it must’ve been worse for them, because we were just pretending; for them it was real.” Evidently at this point the reality of the cruelty he has inflicted hits Anwar, because when they return to the concrete garden where the executions had taken place years before, he, on camera, begins to violently gag. This makes incredible viewing, as this literally visceral ejection of his self and sickness at his previous actions is a vivid catharsis. He gagged at what he’d done. After watching the film, I thought—as did probably everyone who saw it—how can people carry out violent murders by the thousand without it ever occurring to them that it is causing suffering? Surely someone with piano wire round their neck, being asphyxiated, must give off some recognizable signs? Like going “ouch” or “stop” or having blood come out of their throats while twitching and spluttering into perpetual slumber? What it must be is that in order to carry out that kind of brutal murder, you have to disengage with the empathetic aspect of your nature and cultivate an idea of the victim as different, inferior, and subhuman. The only way to understand how such inhumane behavior could be unthinkingly conducted is to look for comparable examples from our own lives. Our attitude to homelessness is apposite here. It isn’t difficult to envisage a species like us, only slightly more evolved, being universally appalled by our acceptance of homelessness. “What? You had sufficient housing, it cost less money to house them, and you just ignored the problem?” They’d be as astonished by our indifference as we are by the disconnected cruelty of Anwar.

Saint Paul was proud of his Roman citizenship, and his letter to various Christian communities in the empire presupposed an effective communications system that only Roman government, law, and military might allowed. "The Church's administration evolved as the imperial government's structured was modified over time. An archbishop ruled a large territory that the Romans called a province. A bishop ruled a diocese, a smaller Roman administrative unit dominated by a large city. "The capitals of the eastern and western parts of the empire -- Constantinople and Rome -- came in time to signify unusual and superior power for the bishops resident there. When the Roman state was dissolved in the Latin-speaking world around 458 A.D., the pope replaced the emperor as the political leader of the Eternal City.

Beyond the speculative and often fraudulent froth that characterizes much of neoliberal financial manipulation, there lies a deeper process that entails the springing of ‘the debt trap’ as a primary means of accumulation by dispossession. Crisis creation, management, and manipulation on the world stage has evolved into the fine art of deliberative redistribution of wealth from poor countries to the rich. I documented the impact of Volcker’s interest rate increase on Mexico earlier. While proclaiming its role as a noble leader organizing ‘bail-outs’ to keep global capital accumulation on track, the US paved the way to pillage the Mexican economy. This was what the US Treasury–Wall Street–IMF complex became expert at doing everywhere. Greenspan at the Federal Reserve deployed the same Volcker tactic several times in the 1990s. Debt crises in individual countries, uncommon during the 1960s, became very frequent during the 1980s and 1990s. Hardly any developing country remained untouched, and in some cases, as in Latin America, such crises became endemic. These debt crises were orchestrated, managed, and controlled both to rationalize the system and to redistribute assets. Since 1980, it has been calculated, ‘over fifty Marshall Plans (over $4.6 trillion) have been sent by the peoples at the Periphery to their creditors in the Center’. ‘What a peculiar world’, sighs Stiglitz, ‘in which the poor countries are in effect subsidizing the richest.

Nobody has failed upward as consistently and spectacularly as the ostensible leader of the shrinking free world. Donald today is much as he was at three years old: incapable of growing, learning or evolving, unable to regulate his emotions, moderate his responses, or take in and synthesize information.

Yes, we need scholars and academics, leaders and ministers. And we need people like me—low-church, untrained laity who are a bit sloppy at times—to grapple with the deep theological issues, bringing our stories, our wisdom, our experiences, our knowledge to the larger conversation. Everyone gets to play.

That figure stood for a long time wholly in the light; this arose from a certain legendary dimness evolved by the majority of heroes, and which always veils the truth for a longer or shorter time; but to-day history and daylight have arrived. That light called history is pitiless; it possesses this peculiar and divine quality, that, pure light as it is, and precisely because it is wholly light, it often casts a shadow in places where people had hitherto beheld rays; from the same man it constructs two different phantoms, and the one attacks the other and executes justice on it, and the shadows of the despot contend with the brilliancy of the leader. Hence arises a truer measure in the definitive judgments of nations. Babylon violated lessens Alexander, Rome enchained lessens Caesar, Jerusalem murdered lessens Titus, tyranny follows the tyrant. It is a misfortune for a man to leave behind him the night which bears his form.

If you don’t allow one to become a lion, one will become a sheep. And the world is already filled with sheeps, which is the major cause of the society’s intellectual and moral downfall. For a better future to evolve, where humanism will be an all-pervading virtue and separatism will be a matter of ancient history, the world needs lions.

There’s no way to do business in the Third World without enriching government leaders,’ said Calil. He explained how the practice of greasing the palms of African potentates evolved: ‘You used to give a dictator a suitcase of dollars; now you give a tip on your stock shares, or buy a housing estate from his uncle or mother for ten times its worth.

The answer is that people, especially religious leaders, deem pornography bad because it depicts women having sex with multiple men with whom they don’t have an emotional connection or having a willingness to want to have sex, which goes against the evolved mating strategies of women. Furthermore, they do this on a recurring basis for monetary gain.

Bevan saw the whole process of historical development as a moving stage. He spoke about technological advances, the development of instant communications, how leaders would cope with the social and political change that would bring. He scoffed at attempts to decide what the ‘end point’ of society might be; for him that was absurd and self-defeating. Society would evolve and continue to evolve.

Like most of the left’s leaders, I was a Marxist and a socialist. I believed in the “dialectic” of history and therefore, even though I knew that the societies calling themselves Marxist were ruled by ruthless dictatorships, I believed they would soon evolve into socialist democracies. I attributed their negative features to under-development and to the capitalist pasts from which they had emerged.

I want to highlight the spirit of Pope Francis. Elected to the papacy following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis (Jose Maria Bergoglio), in his late seventies, brings a new spirit to the Church that reflects a consciousness of catholicity that we explore here. His is an inner spirit of freedom grounded in the love of God, guided by the gospel message of the new kingdom at hand, and open to a world of change. He desires a Church on the margins, where the poor and the forgotten can be brought into a new unity; a Church that advocates life at all costs and promotes peaceful life in a war-torn and violent world; a Church that models justice in an age of greed, consumerism, and power; a Church centered on the risen Christ, empowering a consciousness of the whole. This is a church leader who desperately wants to breathe a new spirit of catholicity into a world dying for wholeness and unity.

To avoid the Scylla of paleotechnic peace and the Charybdis of War, the leaders of the coming polity will steer a bold course for Eutopia [sic]. They will aim at the development of every region, its folk, work and place, in terms of the genius loci, of every nation, according to the best of its tradition and spirit; but in such wise that each region, each nation, makes its unique contribution to the rich pattern of our ever-evolving Western civilisation.

Without a word, we turn and walk away from the garden, new friends and the birthplace of the human race. As the darkness surrounds us once more, and Kat takes out her blue, green and yellow crystal, my thoughts turn to the story of Adam and Eve. Whether they were the first man and woman created by God himself, or the leaders of the first human tribe that evolved in the garden, I don’t know, or care, but if they really did get the human race kicked out of Edinnu so long ago, I think they’re a couple of jerks.

The great weakness of Christianity lies in the fact that it ignores rhythm. It balances God with Devil instead of Vishnu with Siva. Its dualisms are antagonistic instead of equilibrating, and therefore can never issue in the functional third in which power is in equilibrium. Its God is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and does not evolve with an evolving creation, but indulges in one special creative act and rests on His laurels. The whole of human experience, the whole of human knowledge, is against the likelihood of such a concept being true. The Christian concept being static, not dynamic, it does not see that because a thing is good, its opposite is not necessarily evil. It has no sense of proportion because it has no realisation of the principle of equilibrium in space and rhythm in time. Consequently, for the Christian ideal the part is all too often greater than the whole. Meekness, mercy, purity and love are made the ideal of Christian character, and as Nietzsche truly points out, these are slave virtues. There should be room in our ideal for the virtues of the ruler and leader-courage, energy, justice and integrity. Christianity has nothing to tell us about the dynamic virtues; consequently those who get the world's work done cannot follow the Christian ideal because of its limitations and inapplicability to their problems. They can measure right and wrong against no standard save their own self-respect. The result is the ridiculous spectacle of a civilisation, committed to a one-sided ideal, being forced to keep its ideals and its honour in separate compartments.

We can be inspired by leaders we’ve never met and devoted to organizations with no fixed membership, such as nations, churches, corporations, and schools. Jonathan Haidt has argued that this capacity for devotion to leaders, organizations, and more abstract ideals might have evolved to facilitate cooperation in large groups, just as romantic love evolved to facilitate cooperative parenting. This capacity may depend on our ability to experience awe—to be moved by, and devoted to, things larger than ourselves and our familiar social circles. WATCHFUL

Antera’s guidance said, “This has been a problem with many of the ‘spiritual’ leaders on the planet through the ages. People tend to think that anyone who has some psychic abilities and can see into realms they can’t, or sense the future, or tell them things about themselves that they couldn’t have known, are spiritually advanced. That is why they follow them, thinking that they are the way to God. But it is not so. The process of developing psychic senses is fairly independent of the evolution of the soul. In fact, some of the most highly evolved beings incarnated now are not strongly psychic, and deliberately chose not to be, so they could impart their wisdom to the world without the temptation of having followers or developing their egos.” It

Marine le Pen’s speechwriters would have been shown the door on the spot had they suggested that the leader of the Front National go on television to declare that, ‘We don’t want those inferior Semites to dilute our Aryan blood and spoil our Aryan civilisation.’ Instead, the French Front National, the Dutch Party for Freedom, the Alliance for the Future of Austria and their like tend to argue that Western culture, as it has evolved in Europe, is characterised by democratic values, tolerance and gender equality, whereas Muslim culture, which evolved in the Middle East, is characterised by hierarchical politics, fanaticism and misogyny. Since the two cultures are so different, and since many Muslim immigrants are unwilling (and perhaps unable) to adopt Western values, they should not be allowed to enter, lest they foment internal conflicts and corrode European democracy and liberalism.

If Bezos took one leadership principle most to heart—which would also come to define the next half decade at Amazon—it was principal #8, “think big”: Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers. In 2010, Amazon was a successful online retailer, a nascent cloud provider, and a pioneer in digital reading. But Bezos envisioned it as much more. His shareholder letter that year was a paean to the esoteric computer science disciplines of artificial intelligence and machine learning that Amazon was just beginning to explore. It opened by citing a list of impossibly obscure terms such as “naïve Bayesian estimators,” “gossip protocols,” and “data sharding.” Bezos wrote: “Invention is in our DNA and technology is the fundamental tool we wield to evolve and improve every aspect of the experience we provide our customers.

Thus European right-wing parties which oppose Muslim immigration usually take care to avoid racial terminology. Marine le Pen’s speechwriters would have been shown the door on the spot had they suggested that the leader of France’s Front National party go on television to declare that, ‘We don’t want those inferior Semites to dilute our Aryan blood and spoil our Aryan civilisation.’ Instead, the French Front National, the Dutch Party for Freedom, the Alliance for the Future of Austria and their like tend to argue that Western culture, as it has evolved in Europe, is characterised by democratic values, tolerance and gender equality, whereas Muslim culture, which evolved in the Middle East, is characterised by hierarchical politics, fanaticism and misogyny. Since the two cultures are so different, and since many Muslim immigrants are unwilling (and perhaps unable) to adopt Western values, they should not be allowed to enter, lest they foment internal conflicts and corrode European democracy and liberalism.

However this future evolves, we will have to answer a pressing question: How will writers (or anyone else who creates content that can be digitized, from movies to music to apps to journalism) make a living in an era in which digital content can be freely replicated? That is now my greatest worry as I contemplate the so-called writing life that I hope to continue—and that I hope my daughter and all future generations will continue. For three hundred years, ever since the Statute of Anne was established in Britain, there has been a system under which people who created things, such as books or articles or music or pictures, had a right to benefit from copies that were made of them. Because of this “copyright” system, we have encouraged and rewarded three centuries of creativity in various fields of endeavor, and this has produced a flourishing economy based on the creation by talented individuals of intellectual property. Among other things, this allowed all sorts of people, ranging from Walker Percy on down to me, to make a living at the so-called writing life. May the next generation enjoy that delightful opportunity as well.

As I thought of the leaders of the land and the populace in general, I wondered where our Washington was today. Where is the leader who will stand unashamed of his love and trust in God? Who will rise up and invoke the covenants of old? Who will lead the nation in shunning sin, promoting righteousness, and preserving that liberty God has granted? Where is our Captain Moroni? 'Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men' (Alma 48:17). We the people of this covenant nation need to find men and women like this. We need to engage them, promote them, elect them. We need to become them. And we need to do it quickly. In so many ways, it seems, we are falling further and further away from this ideal. ...Speaking of America and her covenant, President Gordon B. Hinckley declared: 'For a good while there has been going on in this nation a process that I have termed the secularization of America. . . . We as nation are forsaking the Almighty, and I fear that He will begin to forsake us. We are shutting the door against the God whose sons and daughters we are. . . . Future blessings will come only as we deserve them. Can we expect peace and prosperity, harmony and goodwill, when we turn our backs on the Source of strength? If we are to continue to have the freedoms that evolved within the structure that was the inspiration of the Almighty to our Founding Fathers, we must return to the God who is their true Author. . . . God bless America, for it is His creation.

The shift in focus served to align the goals of the Civil Rights Movement with key political goals of poor and working-class whites, who were also demanding economic reforms. As the Civil Rights Movement began to evolve into a “Poor People’s Movement,” it promised to address not only black poverty, but white poverty as well—thus raising the specter of a poor and working-class movement that cut across racial lines. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders made it clear that they viewed the eradication of economic inequality as the next front in the “human rights movement” and made great efforts to build multiracial coalitions that sought economic justice for all. Genuine equality for black people, King reasoned, demanded a radical restructuring of society, one that would address the needs of the black and white poor throughout the country. Shortly before his assassination, he envisioned bringing to Washington, D.C., thousands of the nation’s disadvantaged in an interracial alliance that embraced rural and ghetto blacks, Appalachian whites, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans to demand jobs and income—the right to live. In a speech delivered in 1968, King acknowledged there had been some progress for blacks since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but insisted that the current challenges required even greater resolve and that the entire nation must be transformed for economic justice to be more than a dream for poor people of all colors. As historian Gerald McKnight observes, “King was proposing nothing less than a radical transformation of the Civil Rights Movement into a populist crusade calling for redistribution of economic and political power. America’s only civil rights leader was now focusing on class issues and was planning to descend on Washington with an army of poor to shake the foundations of the power structure and force the government to respond to the needs of the ignored underclass.”36

Such racist theories, prominent and respectable for many decades, have become anathema among scientists and politicians alike. People continue to conduct a heroic struggle against racism without noticing that the battlefront has shifted, and that the place of racism in imperial ideology has now been replaced by ‘culturism’. There is no such word, but it’s about time we coined it. Among today’s elites, assertions about the contrasting merits of diverse human groups are almost always couched in terms of historical differences between cultures rather than biological differences between races. We no longer say, ‘It’s in their blood.’ We say, ‘It’s in their culture.’ Thus European right-wing parties which oppose Muslim immigration usually take care to avoid racial terminology. Marine le Pen’s speechwriters would have been shown the door on the spot had they suggested that the leader of France’s Front National party go on television to declare that, ‘We don’t want those inferior Semites to dilute our Aryan blood and spoil our Aryan civilisation.’ Instead, the French Front National, the Dutch Party for Freedom, the Alliance for the Future of Austria and their like tend to argue that Western culture, as it has evolved in Europe, is characterised by democratic values, tolerance and gender equality, whereas Muslim culture, which evolved in the Middle East, is characterised by hierarchical politics, fanaticism and misogyny. Since the two cultures are so different, and since many Muslim immigrants are unwilling (and perhaps unable) to adopt Western values, they should not be allowed to enter, lest they foment internal conflicts and corrode European democracy and liberalism. Such culturist arguments are fed by scientific studies in the humanities and social sciences that highlight the so-called clash of civilisations and the fundamental differences between different cultures. Not all historians and anthropologists accept these theories or support their political usages. But whereas biologists today have an easy time disavowing racism, simply explaining that the biological differences between present-day human populations are trivial, it is harder for historians and anthropologists to disavow culturism. After all, if the differences between human cultures are trivial, why should we pay historians and anthropologists to study them?

Demonstrating for peace to promote war was nothing new. Totalitarianism always requires a tangible enemy. To the ancient Greeks, a holocaust was simply a burnt sacrifice. Khrushchev wanted to go down in history as the Soviet leader who exported communism to the American continent. In 1959 he was able to install the Castro brothers in Havana and soon my foreign intelligence service became involved in helping Cuba's new communist rulers to export revolution throughout South America. At that point it did not work. In the 1950s and 1960s most Latin Americans were poor, religious peasants who had accepted the status quo. A black version of liberation theology began growing in a few radical-leftist black churches in the US where Marxist thought is predicated on a system pf oppressor class ( white ) versus victim class ( black ) and it sees just one solution: the destruction of the enemy. In the 1950s UNESCO was perceived by many as a platform for communists to attack the West and the KGB used it to place agents around the world. Che Guevara's diaries, with an introduction by Fidel Castro, were produced by the Kremlin's dezinformatsiya machine. Changing minds is what Soviet communism was all about. Khrushchev's political necrophagy ( = blaming and condemning one's predecessor in office. It is a dangerous game. It hurts the country's national pride and it usually turns against its own user ) evolved from the Soviet tradition of sanctifying the supreme ruler. Although the communists publicly proclaimed the decisive role of the people in history, the Kremlin and its KGB believed that only the leader counted. Change the public image of the leader and you change history, I heard over and over from Khrushchev's lips. Khrushchev was certainly the most controversial Soviet to reign in the Kremlin. He unmasked Stalin's crimes, but he made political assassination a main instrument of his own foreign policy; he authored a policy of peaceful coexistence with the West but he pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war; he repaired Moscow's relationships with Yugoslavia's Tito, but he destroyed the unity of the communist world. His close association with Stalin's killings made him aware of what political crime could accomplish and gave him a taste for the simple criminal solution. His total ignorance about the civilized world, together with his irrational hatred of the "bourgeoisie" and his propensity to offend people, made him believe that disinformation and threats were the most efficient and dignified way for a Soviet leader to deal with "bourgeois" governments. As that very clever master of deception Yuri Andropov once told me, if a good piece of disinformation is repeated over and over, after a while it will take on a life of its own and will, all by itself, generate a horde or unwitting but passionate advocates. When I was working for Ceausescu, I always tried to find a way to help him reach a decision on his own, rather than telling him directly what I thought he should do about something. That way both of us were happy. From our KGB advisors, I had learned that the best way to ut over a deception was to let the target see something for himself, with his own eyes. By 1999, President Yeltsin's ill-conceived privatization had enabled a small clique of predatory insiders to plunder Russia's most valuable assets. The corruption generated by this widespread looting penetrated every corner of the country and it eventually created a Mafia-style economic system that threatened the stability of Russia itself. During the old Cold War, the KGB was a state within a state. In Putin's time, the KGB now rechristened FSB, is the state. The Soviet Union had one KGB officer for every 428 citizens. In 2004, Putin's Russia had one FSB officer for every 297 citizens.

1. Strategic leaders must change a counterproductive array of long-established beliefs including many laws, regulations and policies, which are based on out-of-date assumptions. 2. Military leaders must drive and sustain a military cultural evolution through effective education and training of the next generation(s) of leaders in a system that is flexible enough to evolve alongside emerging changes in, and lessons from, war, society and technology. 3. Finally, senior leaders must continue to nurture and protect these younger leaders as they go out and put to practice what they have learned, and allow them to evolve.

Leadership” is an intangible concept that is hard to measure; leaders are often criticized but good leadership can be difficult to implement. However, if the necessary changes discussed in this study are tested, it will provide an invaluable advantage for the Army and the nation in dealing with evolving and dangerous enemies.

Why is that so? Why is it easy to say the Army is going to create “adaptive leaders” during a Power Point presentation, but so difficult to put those words into action? Understanding leadership and how to develop leaders to be adaptive, and subsequently how to nurture those traits with the right command environment and organizational culture, is very hard. It requires current leaders at all levels to have a shared vision of change, and a thorough understanding of U.S. military and civilian history as both have evolved with the nation’s experiences in war.

Both strategy and culture will evolve in response to changes in the environment, and leaders are responsible for directing this evolution and for ensuring that culture and strategy support each other to achieve the purpose.

No one can be made to evolve in consciousness, even with the best of intentions—a hard truth for coaches and consultants, who wish they could help organizational leaders adopt a more complex worldview by the power of conviction.

Without projects, organizations don’t evolve, and everything stays pretty much the same, which is not a good thing in an ever-changing world.

What is interesting is that the term Aryan was adopted by the Nazis and Adolf Hitler in the early 20th century to describe a people group they deemed as purely Germanic (must be of one people group) and more “evolved” than the rest of European peoples and the rest of the world. And yet, the true Aryans were one of the most famous groups of people who were of mixed descent. Hitler and the Nazis were playing off of Charles Darwin’s model of higher and lower races. This idea, claimed by this humanistic religion, has been a cause of terrible atrocities in WWI, WWII, and mass exterminations of people by leaders like Stalin (Soviet Union) and Mao (China), among others.

All top salespeople have a highly evolved will all top leaders have a highly evolved will you see it's the will that gives us the ability to focus

I have offered solutions to leaders who feel they are not getting any buy-in from their team. Many times, it is because the leaders have the strategy in their heads but have failed to effectively communicate it to their team. In other words, they were sitting in the front of the canoe paddling, while their family or team sat behind them—with no paddles, clear vision, or even an idea of their destination. It’s essential to have a confidential inner circle of mentors and friends that you can confide in. And, it is equally as important that you are open and prepared to listen to them when they offer you feedback. They will offer you sound advice without expecting anything but your success in return. Your willingness to listen and embrace their ideas during these opportunities is crucial to your progress.

It is almost a cliché to point out that many constitutions have evolved because of struggles for inclusion and because ordinary “citizen interpreters” of the constitution have sought to redeem previously unrealized moral claims contained in a founding document.36 The not-so-trivial point is that those fighting for inclusion have rarely claimed “We and only we are the people.” On the contrary, they have usually claimed “We are also the people” (with attendant claims of “we also represent the people” by various leaders). Constitutions with democratic principles allow for an open-ended contestation of what those principles might mean in any given period; they allow new publics to come into being on the basis of a novel claim to representation. Citizens who never thought of themselves as having much in common can respond to an unsuspected appeal to being represented and all of a sudden see themselves as a collective actor—as individuals capable of acting in concert

I often refer to the great mythologist and American author Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) in this book. He used the designation of „hero“ to describe individuals who embark on the monumental psychological task of expanding and evolving consciousness and famously charted this journey. This hero‘s journey begins in our inherent state of blindness, separation, and suffering and progresses on a circular (as opposed to linear) route made up of stages shared by myths and legends spanning all cultures and epochs. From Buddha to Christ, Arjuna to Alice in Wonderland, the hero‘s journey is one of passing through a set of trials and phases: seeking adventure, encountering mentors, slaying demons, finding treasure, and returning home to heal others. Tibetan Buddhism‘s and Campbell‘s descriptions of the hero both offer a travel-tested road map of a meaningful life, a path of becoming fully human – we don‘t have to wander blindly, like college kids misguidedly hazed by a fraternity, or spiritual seekers abused in the thrall of a cult leader. The hero archetype is relevant to each of us, irrespective of our background, gender, temperament, or challenges, because we each have a hero gene within us capable of following the path, facing trials, and awakening for the benefit of others. Becoming a hero is what the Lam Rim describes as taking full advantage of our precious human embodiment. It‘s what Campbell saw as answering the call to adventure and following our bliss – not the hedonic bliss of chasing a high or acquiring more stuff, but the bliss of the individual soul, which, like a mountain stream, reaches and merges with the ocean of universal reality. (p. 15)

We saw earlier that Homo puppy evolved to experience shame. There’s a reason that, of all the species in the animal kingdom, we’re one of the few that blush. For millennia, shaming was the surest way to tame our leaders, and it can still work today. Shame is more effective than rules and regulations or censure and coercion, because people who feel shame regulate themselves. In the way their speech falters when they disappoint expectations or in a telltale flush when they realise they’re the subject of gossip.36

When I said no to potential men of my dreams 2 years back, I said yes to me. I said yes to becoming the Woman of my Dreams and that changed everything. Here I am on a journey to become the woman of my dreams, who is empowering others and contributing to creating empowered generations to come. As I evolve and get better, the world will evolve and get better.

Strategic management enables leaders to make sense of change and develop strategies to position organizations for success in the continuously evolving health care environment.

Dominance, which is a type of status that is coerced through aggression or intimidation, plays a significant role in hubris. Researchers write, “Hubristic pride may have evolved to motivate behaviors, thoughts, and feelings oriented toward attaining dominance, whereas authentic pride may have evolved to motivate behaviors, thoughts, and feelings oriented toward attaining prestige.” I’m not crazy about the word “prestige”—it sounds arrogant. But it’s helpful to know that in the research, prestige status is earned—prestige-based leaders are admired for their skills or knowledge, as distinct from dominance status, which is obtained by force.

Evolution in the cognitive niche has endowed our species with remarkable abilities such as language, abstract reasoning, and sophisticated mentalizing. These species-typical innovations have been accompanied by rapid changes in brain structure and functionality. While adaptations such as language are hugely beneficial, they are also likley to carry some costs. A number of authors have argued that vulnerability to psychosis is one of those costs -the price our species pays for its unique set of cognitive skills. From this perspective, there are no individual fitness benefits to psychosis proneness; vulnerability to schizophrenia and other psychoses is a general byproduct of our evolved design, and unfortunate combinations of genetic and environmental factors determine the onset of a full-fledged disorder in some individuals.

One trap that leaders often fall into is failing to adjust to the natural life cycle of a company as it grows and evolves. If you try to run a mature, 500‐person company like a 10‐person start‐up, you will almost certainly fail. But, paradoxically, if you lose all the scrappiness of a 10‐person start‐up, your mature company may never reach its full potential.

When leaders evolve systems and systems evolve people, we land up in a system of deadlocks.

Systems are static, but people are dynamic. When leaders design systems to evolve people, bureaucracy is born.

Socrates suggests that the more evolved a man is, the more he is able to put aside his fears and hankering after comfort and take a stand for his worth and the worth of those he loves. And if necessary, he will for an "alliance for battle with what seems just," even if he "suffers in hunger, cold, and everything of the sort." This quality of courage to take a stand, to fight for one's value, and to be unwilling to make moral compromises is what we call a "spirited commitment to dignity" in the Leadership Dojo. Exelemplary leaders embody this commitment. p109

Socrates suggests that the more evolved a man is, the more he is able to put aside his fears and hankering after comfort and take a stand for his worth and the worth of those he loves. And if necessary, he will for an "alliance for battle with what seems just," even if he "suffers in hunger, cold, and everything of the sort." This quality of courage to take a stand, to fight for one's value, and to be unwilling to make moral compromises is what we call a "spirited commitment to dignity" in the Leadership Dojo. Exemplary leaders embody this commitment. p109

What is often lost in the critiques of the Federal Acknowledgement Process is the fact the leaders of the Five Tribes and other Indian nations do not see it as an entirely foreign, nonaboriginal regimen. They were actively engaged in its creation during the 1970s, and they continue to support the process because they view it as the best method available to determine which groups are viable indigenous nations today. By supporting the government process, Five Tribes leaders are engaging in an ongoing Native project that seeks new ways to define their peoples using both precontact, “traditional” measures and criteria borrowed from the dominant, Euro-American society. Ventures that seek to delineate and measure “Indianness” and “tribes” are no less troublesome from the tribal persepective. However, how native leaders perceive unrecognized individuals and groups is important to understanding modern Indian identity. The Five Tribes and related groups have exerted their sovereignty by extending government relations to formerly unrecognized tribes in the Southeast. They have also chosen to withhold recognition to groups they feel are inauthentic. While they support the process of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, tribal leaders us their own definitions and “ways of seeing” when making these decisions. Their criteria generally represent a complex mixture of indigenous and non-Indian notions of ethnicity and authenticity. The Five Tribes and other long-recognized Native nations have always been actively engaged in tribal acknowledgement debates. Today they have important reasons for remaining involved. Recognition politics involving established tribes, unrecognized communities, and non-Indians exposes the fundamental truth about ethnic and racial identities: they are constantly evolving and negotiated.

In existing writings about federally recognized tribes and their engagement with tribal acknowledgment politics, a palpable theme is clear: presently recognized nations are not acting the ‘Indian way’ when they refuse to acknowledge their less fortunate Indian relatives and share with them. To many writers, federally recognized tribal leaders are so ensconced in the hegemonic colonial order that they are no even aware that they are replicated and reinforcing it inequities. According to this line, because the Five Tribes and related groups like the Mississippi Band of Choctaws and the Eastern Band of Cherokees have embraced nonindigenous notions of ‘being Indian’ and tribal citizenship using federal censuses such as the Dawes Rolls and blood quantum they are not being authentic. Some critics charge that modern tribes like the Choctaw Nation have rejected aboriginal notions and conceptions of Indian social organization and nationhood. This thinking, however, seems to me to once again reinforce stereotypes about Indians as largely unchanging, primordial societies. The fact that the Creek and Cherokee Nations have evolved and adopted European notions of citizenship and nationhood is somehow held against them in tribal acknowledgment debates. We hear echoes of the ‘Noble Savage’ idea once again. In other context when tribes have demanded a assay in controlling their cultural property and identities – by protesting Indian sports mascots or the marketing of cars and clothing with their tribal names, or by arguing that studios should hire real Indians as actors – these actions are applauded. However, when these occur in tribal recognition contexts, the tribes are viewed as greedy or racists. The unspoken theme is that tribes are not actin gin the ‘traditional’ Indian way…With their cultures seen as frozen in time, the more tribes deviate from popular representation, the more they are seen as inauthentic. To the degree that they are seen as assimilated (or colonized and enveloped in the hegemonic order), they are also seen as inauthentic, corrupted, and polluted. The supreme irony is that when recognized tribes demand empirical data to prove tribal authenticity, critics charge that they are not being authentically ingenious by doing so.

Starting today, declare your devotion to remembering the sublime soul, brave warrior and undefeatable creator that your natural wisdom is calling on you to be. The trials of your past have skillfully served to reinvent you into one who is tougher, more aware of the powers that make you special and more grateful for the basic blessings of a life beautifully lived—splendid health, a happy family, a job that fulfils and a hopeful heart. These apparent difficulties have actually been the stepping stones for your current and future victories. The former limits that have shackled you and the “failures” that have hurt you have been necessary for the realization of your mastery. All is unfolding for your benefit. You truly are favored. Oh yes, whether you accept this or not, you are a lion, not a sheep. A leader, never a victim. A person worthy of exceptional accomplishment, uplifting adventure, flawless contentment and the self-respect that, over time, rises steeply into a reservoir of self-love that no one and no thing can ever conquer. You are a mighty force of nature and a dynamic producer, not a slumbering casualty caught flat-footed in a world of degrading mediocrity, dehumanizing complaint, compliance and entitlement. And with steadfast commitment and regular effort, you will evolve into an idealist, an unusual artist and a potent exceptionalist. A genuine world-changer, in your own most honest and excellent way. So be not a cynic, critic and naysayer. For doubters are degenerated dreamers. And average is absolutely unworthy of you. Today, and for each day that follows of your uniquely glorious, brilliantly luminous and most-helpful-to-many life, stand fiercely in the limitless freedom to shape your future, materialize your ambitions and magnify your contributions in high esteem of your dreams, enthusiasms and dedications. Insulate your cheerfulness, polish your prowess and inspire all witnesses fortunate enough to watch your good example of how a great human being can behave. We will watch your growth, applaud your gifts, appreciate your valor and admire your eventual immortality. As you remain within the hearts of many.

If the busiest person in the office is the CEO, it only means that either the leadership has failed to create evolving systems or the leadership itself has failed.

Could you evolve into a star? Are you Number Two in a high-growth market - BCG’s ‘question mark’ position? The issue here is simple. Can you overtake the leader? Your chances are greater if: ★ your market share is not far below the leader’s; ★ you are gaining on the leader; ★ the leader makes an unexpected blunder; ★ the niche is young; ★ market positions are volatile and one or two large customers can swing it; ★ the market is growing very fast; ★ you understand the customers in the niche better; ★ even though you are in the same market, your approach is different and customers like it better; ★ your people have better empathy with the customers; ★ your approach has fatter margins than the leader, or would do so if you had the same volume of business; ★ you are better financed than the leader; ★ objective observers say your product is better; ★ the leader’s advantage rests on distribution advantages that you can gradually overcome; ★ key employees from the leader are defecting to you; ★ the leader is only dimly aware of the threat you pose.

Leaders evolve when people evolve.

Team Leader’s Checklist Learn: Strengthen the team both cognitively and affectively. Design well: Set distinct goals with defined and varied tasks for team members. Build identity: Share experience and strengthen camaraderie to create a set of norms and values. Dynamic: As the market changes, evolve the team’s expectations and tasks. Diverse and inclusive: Optimize variety in the members’ backgrounds and experiences, and engage all in the team’s work and achievements. Size right: Not too large, not too small. Set compelling direction, strong structure, supportive context, and shared mindset. Create a team agenda, inner scaffolding, outer backing, and aligned thinking for members to row together in the right direction.

So while our ever-evolving opposition movement made some progress in drawing attention to the undemocratic reality of Putin’s Russia, we were in a losing position from the start. The Kremlin’s domination of the mass media and ruthless persecution of all opposition in civil society made it impossible to build any lasting momentum. Our mission was also sabotaged by democratic leaders embracing Putin on the world stage, providing him with the leadership credentials he so badly needed in the absence of valid elections in Russia. It is difficult to promote democratic reform when every television channel and every newspaper shows image after image of the leaders of the world’s most powerful democracies accepting a dictator as part of their family. It sends the message that either he isn’t really a dictator at all or that democracy and individual freedom are nothing more than the bargaining chips Putin and his ilk always say they are. In the end, it took the invasion of Ukraine to finally get the G7 (I always refused to call it the G8) to expel Putin’s Russia from the elite club of industrial democracies.

Protean Self First published in 1993 We are becoming fluid and many-sided. Without quite realizing it, we have been evolving a sense of self appropriate to the restlessness and flux of our time. This mode of being differs radically from that of the past, and enables us to engage in continuous exploration and personal experiment. I have named it the “protean self” after Proteus, the Greek sea god of many forms. The protean self emerges from confusion, from the widespread feeling that we are losing our psychological moorings. We feel ourselves buffeted about by unmanageable historical forces and social uncertainties. Leaders appear suddenly, recede equally rapidly, and are difficult for us to believe in when they are around. We change ideas and partners frequently, and do the same with jobs and places of residence. Enduring moral convictions, clear principles of action and behavior—we believe these must exist, but where? Whether dealing with world problems or child rearing, our behavior tends to be ad hoc, more or less decided upon as we go along. We are beset by a contradiction: we are schooled in the virtues of constancy and stability—whether as individuals, groups, or nations—yet our world and our lives seem inconstant and utterly unpredictable. We readily come to view ourselves as unsteady, neurotic, or worse.

With selfish and corrupt leaders still evolving in Africa, the continent will get darker and darker even by daytime.

You must learn to walk before you run in this matter of being creative, but I believe it can be done. Furthermore, if you are to succeed (to the extent you secretly wish to), you must become creative in the face of the rapidly changing technology which will dominate your career. Society will not stand still for you; it will evolve more and more rapidly as technology plays an increasing role at all levels of the organization. My job is to make you one of the leaders in this changing world, not a follower, and I am trying my best to alter you, especially in getting you to take charge of yourself and not to depend on others, such as me, to help.

failure in and of itself isn’t a bad thing; it’s how you respond to it that counts.

When consciousness has not evolved through life, people tend to develop a juvenile emotional need for a patriarchal figure which represents a source of authority. Whether it’s a president, a boss, a religious leader, or even a God(s), the figures are accordingly looked upon as powerful, protective, comforting, and dependable entities to be trusted and followed.

This power to shame, silence, and muscle concessions from the larger society on the basis of past victimization became the new “black power.” Then, as this power supported the next generation of civil rights leaders, it evolved into what we call today “the race card.” But back on that hot August night I only felt a weight drop from my shoulders as I began to understand that my country was now repentant before me. I now possessed a separate power that it could only appeal to, appease, or placate. Now America had to prove itself to me. I have already discussed the narcotic effect of all this. This was the inflation that, months later, would lead me to spill cigarette ashes on Dr. McCabe’s fine carpet. But far more important, this great infusion of moral authority gave blacks the power to imprint the national consciousness with a profound new edict, an unwritten law more enforceable than many actual laws: that no black problem—whether high crime rates, poor academic performance, or high illegitimacy rates—could be defined as largely a black responsibility, because it was an injustice to make victims responsible for their own problems. To do so would be to “blame the victim,” thereby repeating his victimization.

In the ever-evolving business landscape, continuous learning is the key to resilience and success. As leaders, we must champion this mindset at all levels.

Having a clear vision and a solid plan for your business is essential, but it’s equally important to be flexible and adaptable as circumstances evolve. Surround yourself with people who inspire and support your goals, and stay focused on your long-term vision.

When we started Nalanda in 2007, there was a lot of buzz around a company called Eicher Motors led by a young, dynamic guy called Siddhartha Lal. Lal had inherited a hodgepodge of poor-quality businesses from his father in 2004. They manufactured motorcycles, footwear, garments, tractors, trucks, auto components, and a few other products, and none was an industry leader. In a remarkably bold strategic move, Lal decided to divest thirteen of the fifteen businesses to focus on just two products: trucks and motorcycles.30 Almost every analyst was gung ho about the future of Eicher; they were all taken in by its dynamic leader who was aggressively culling businesses, something that Indian firms rarely did. However, in 2007, this was a turnaround story with no empirical evidence of success. The company’s biggest hit, the Enfield Classic motorcycle, was launched only in 2010. We decided not to invest in the business. By the 2010s, the company’s motorcycles had taken on cult status in the Indian consumer’s mind. Sales exploded from just 52,000 units in 2009 to 822,000 units in 2019: a sixteen-fold growth. If you had listened to what we had to say about the business, you would not have invested. Your opportunity loss? Seventy times your money from 2007 until 2021. Tesla and Eicher Motors are the kinds of type II error we will inevitably commit because we reject highly indebted businesses, rapidly evolving industry landscapes, and turnarounds.

i’ve always known why i incarnated into this existence. even though my soul didn’t wanna come here, a duty needed to be fulfilled (i’m a baby soul). i saw this manifest through my art and soul ova journey. the work evolved with “lady leader” and quarterly healing challenges. unfortunately, i stopped following the coordinates and wandered, about, a bit. the wandering brought on a ton of suffering. i descended into the abyss of depression that tried to swallow me into the -other-dimension that was at war with where i came from. it took a minute to crawl out of the spiral of stygian darkness. the spiral that continues to beckon from down below.

Surprisingly, this divergence continues despite the deep influence of Agile and Lean thinking on general—that is, non-IT—management. The disciplines continue to evolve separately even though corporate strategy is increasingly about both agility and IT strategy. The two worlds do not converge, even though IT leadership books advise CIOs to pull themselves closer to strategy formulation and claim a “seat at the table.” But while the other C-level executives around the table are discussing the need for agility, senior IT leaders, eager to gain or retain a seat at the strategy table, are pursuing the path of demonstrating the value of IT ... by locking in old-school practices that encourage rigidity.

In the fast-paced, technology-driven world of today, businesses and organizations face the constant challenge of adapting to ever-evolving technological landscapes. SAP, which stands for Systems, Applications, and Products, has risen to the forefront as a leader in enterprise software solutions. SAP offers a diverse range of tools and applications that help businesses streamline their processes, make informed decisions, and manage their resources efficiently. As the demand for SAP expertise grows, SAP training programs have become pivotal for individuals and organizations alike. In a world where data is the new currency, organizations are increasingly turning to SAP to digitize their operations. Whether it's finance, human resources, supply chain management, or customer relationship management, SAP provides comprehensive solutions that allow organizations to integrate and automate their processes.

It was admittedly great to have moved past survival mode, but after it became evident that we would survive—and likely continue to grow—the question “What now?” repeatedly surfaced. Is that all there is? More growth, more financial success? The risk many businesses run at this stage is they can become absorbed in the transactions. More efficient transactions lead to more financial growth and success, generating increasing wealth. In the process, the business can become hollow. Leaders are excited by the growth and financial rewards, but the business can lose meaning as the organization becomes obsessed with continued financial growth. It was in this process of exploring our future at this stage that this deeper purpose took a deeper hold and a clearer view of organization meaning surfaced. A shift of emphasis occurs over time as organizations evolve. Intentionally managing that shift is an essential task for leaders.

This is about evolving yourself into a leader in every aspect of your life. If you choose to commit to this, you are choosing to become the hero in your own story.

Defining the worldview of an organization is challenging. I believe an organization is a living organism with its own purpose, values, character, and personality. But these things are directly shaped by us as founders, owners, CEOs, and leaders in general. The organization’s worldview is an extension of our own worldviews. In a highly engaged organization, all people give shape to the organization’s culture. The worldview is more basic though, it’s more foundational. Associates may challenge or question it, but it generally won’t change much over time. Culture is malleable—it is the norms and behaviors and ways people treat each other and work together. Naturally, this will evolve. A worldview is more set. If values and principles are what we believe, our worldviews shape why we believe them. It is the land on which our organization grows.

I’ve learned true leaders have to humble themselves to evolve. They have to recognize their weaknesses and use them to strengthen themselves

It all comes down to competition. When our industrial revolution first began, Earth was ruled by monarchs. Wars soon took on a scope and scale that formerly would have been unthinkable—besides being beyond the scope of any kingdom to pay for. The monarchies, over time, were replaced by governments which, to varying degrees, allowed for the citizens to participate. It created the wealth that nation-states could call upon in times of war. “I don’t want to give you the impression that our society evolved in lock-step as part of some grand plan. The people living through those changes didn’t even have the concepts to explain what was happening. I have the advantage of having paid attention in my history classes. It was incredibly haphazard—fits and starts, wars, revolutions, counterrevolutions, etc.” “I know you aren’t calling for a revolution here,” Tima pressed. “Continue.” “The new economic systems relied, to varying degrees, on an educated populace, and so did the new political structures. Gradually capitalism, our economic system, became the most efficient way for a nation to harness the energy and spirit of its people. An individual with a great idea could become rich and powerful—good ideas were rewarded by the system itself. Bad ones would die on the vine. The problems started when the rich and powerful became the political leaders—too many laws and rules were created to protect the status quo, and it was no longer good idea versus bad, but which idea had the backing of the powers that be—” “Stop.” Tima held out a hand. “You are getting off into your recent history—the reason for your people leaving Earth and going to Eden. I’m less interested in that, and more in weighing your Earth’s development against that of my world. Why is this development prevented by our culture?”   Ocheltree shrugged and pointed a finger at him. “You yourself have complained to me how hard it is to get others to even consider a new way of thinking. People have to be free to bring new ideas forward. If all you have is dedication to authority, you really are limited to the creativity and genius of your leaders.

What was originally known as a two-pizza team leader (2PTL) evolved into what is now known as a single-threaded leader (STL). The STL extends the basic model of separable teams to deliver their key benefits at any scale the project demands. Today, despite their initial success, few people at Amazon still talk about two-pizza teams.

Today’s elites usually justify superiority in terms of historical differences between cultures rather than biological differences between races. We no longer say, ‘It’s in their blood.’ We say, ‘It’s in their culture.’ Thus European right-wing parties which oppose Muslim immigration usually take care to avoid racial terminology. Marine le Pen’s speechwriters would have been shown the door on the spot had they suggested that the leader of France’s Front National party go on television to declare that, ‘We don’t want those inferior Semites to dilute our Aryan blood and spoil our Aryan civilisation.’ Instead, the French Front National, the Dutch Party for Freedom, the Alliance for the Future of Austria and their like tend to argue that Western culture, as it has evolved in Europe, is characterised by democratic values

The Sixteen Conclusions of Reverend Kirk In the last half of the seventeenth century, a Scottish scholar gathered all the accounts he could find about the Sleagh Maith and, in 1691, wrote an amazing manuscript entitled The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies. It was the first systematic attempt to describe the methods and organization of the strange creatures that plagued the farmers of Scotland. The author, Reverend Kirk, of Aberfoyle, studied theology at St. Andrews and took his degree of professor at Edinburgh. Later he served as minister for the parishes of Balquedder and Aberfoyle and died in 1692. Kirk invented the name "the Secret Commonwealth" to describe the organization of the elves. It is impossible to quote the entire text of his treatise, but we can summarize his findings about elves and other aerial creatures in the following way: 1. They have a nature that is intermediate between man and the angels. 2. Physically, they have very light and fluid bodies, which are comparable to a condensed cloud. They are particularly visible at dusk. They can appear and vanish at will. 3. Intellectually, they are intelligent and curious. 4. They have the power to carry away anything they like. 5. They live inside the earth in caves, which they can reach through any crevice or opening where air passes. 6. When men did not inhabit most of the world, the creatures used to live there and had their own agriculture. Their civilization has left traces on the high mountains; it was flourishing at a time when the whole countryside was nothing but woods and forests. 7. At the beginning of each three-month period, they change quarters because they are unable to stay in one place. Besides, they like to travel. It is then that men have terrible encounters with them, even on the great highways. 8. Their chameleon-like bodies allow them to swim through the air with all their household. 9. They are divided into tribes. Like us, they have children, nurses, marriages, burials, etc., unless they just do this to mock our own customsor to predict terrestrial events. 10. Their houses are said to be wonderfully large and beautiful, but under most circumstances they are invisible to human eyes. Kirk compares them to enchanted islands. The houses are equipped with lamps that burn forever and fires that need no fuel. 11. They speak very little. When they do talk among themselves, their language is a kind of whistling sound. 12. Their habits and their language when they talk to humans are similar to those of local people. 13. Their philosophical system is based on the following ideas: nothing dies; all things evolve cyclically in such a way that at every cycle they are renewed and improved. Motion is the universal law. 14. They are said to have a hierarchy of leaders, but they have no visible devotion to God, no religion. 15. They have many pleasant and light books, but also serious and complex books dealing with abstract matters. 16. They can be made to appear at will before us through magic. The similarities between these observations and the story related by Facius Cardan, which antedates Kirk's manuscript by exactly two hundred years, are clear. Both Cardan and Paracelsus write, like Kirk, that a pact can be made with these creatures and that they can be made to appear and answer questions at will. Paracelsus did not care to reveal what that pact was "because of the ills that might befall those who would try it." Kirk is equally discreet on this point. And, of course, to go deeper into this matter would open the whole field of witchcraft and ceremonial magic, which is beyond my purpose in the present book.

Questioning conventional wisdom is not a sign of weakness but a mark of a forward-thinking leader ready to adapt and thrive in the ever-evolving business landscape.

Traditional silo or linear thinking is no longer sufficient to cope with unpredictable emergencies. We need the capacity to take a whole-system approach that is a product of personal development, of moving from the old fear paradigm to one of trust and of recognizing that humankind is evolving both socially and spiritually. Individuals can evolve far faster than the collective if they decide to embark on a personal developmental journey. Given the leadership failures that are so apparent today, a little compulsory evolution would do our leaders no harm at all. In practice the coaching process fosters evolution at every stage, for evolution emerges from within and can never be taught in prescriptive ways.

We no longer say, ‘It’s in their blood.’ We say, ‘It’s in their culture.’ Thus European right-wing parties which oppose Muslim immigration usually take care to avoid racial terminology. Marine le Pen’s speechwriters would have been shown the door on the spot had they suggested that the leader of France’s Front National party go on television to declare that, ‘We don’t want those inferior Semites to dilute our Aryan blood and spoil our Aryan civilisation.’ Instead, the French Front National, the Dutch Party for Freedom, the Alliance for the Future of Austria and their like tend to argue that Western culture, as it has evolved in Europe, is characterised by democratic values, tolerance and gender equality, whereas Muslim culture, which evolved in the Middle East, is characterised by hierarchical politics, fanaticism and misogyny.

Those who seek to aspire are those who achieve Greatness.

Many labor leaders are aware that the global economy is robbing communities of control over our own destiny (former AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland said as much during the anti-NAFTA struggle), but they do not link up with local communities to struggle against NAFTA and other legislation, because they do not understand or accept that the struggle to rebuild and control our communities is the wave of the future.9 That is why they are on the defensive and behind the eight ball in so many struggles, for example, the recent Detroit newspaper strike. On the other hand, as so often happens, it is right-wing reactionaries like the Militiamen and Pat Buchanan who have their fingers on the pulse of the people. Attacking these groups for their reactionary politics will only increase their defenders and supporters. As we wrote back in the early 1970s, “we must not allow our thought to be paralyzed by fear of repression and fascism. One must always think realistically about the dangers, but in thinking about the counter-revolution a revolutionist must be convinced that it is a ‘paper tiger.’”10 What we need to do instead is encourage groups of all kinds and all ages to participate in creating a vision of the future that will enlarge the humanity of all of us and then, in devising concrete programs on which they can work together, if only in a small way, to move toward their vision. In this unique interim time between historical epochs, this is how we can elicit the hope that is essential to the building of a movement and unleash the energies that in the absence of hope are turned against other people or even against oneself. That is why more and more I have been conducting and urging others to conduct visioning workshops using this basic format. When people come together voluntarily to create their own vision, they begin wishing it to come into being with such passion that they begin creating an active path leading to it from the present. The spirit and the way to make the spirit live coalesce. Instead of seeing ourselves only as victims, we begin to see ourselves as part of the continuing struggle of human beings, not only to survive but to evolve into more human human beings.

John Schmitt, a co-author of a critical Marine Corps Gazette article in 1989, described the new complexity of war this way: “War is fundamentally a far from-equilibrium, open, distributed, nonlinear dynamical system highly sensitive to initial conditions and characterized by entropy production/dissipation and complex, continuous feedback.”146 With that observation in mind, how the Army creates adaptability must also evolve as the service deals with the complexity of 4GW. Schmitt’s work with complexity theory as it applies to war can also be applied to the education and training of leaders.

Do not only strive to be the change you want to see in the world, but also help all those around you see the world through commonalities of the heart so that they would want to change with you. This is how humanity will evolve to become better. This is how you can change the world. Stop being a senseless, apathetic follower, and choose to be a courageous leader instead. A leader with a voice. Be different. Be authentic. Be a lion of truth. Do not pick a team or a side, left or right, but always stand up for what is right against the wrong.

Our questioning—again echoing Ghazali—of the likely impact of development efforts (“prosperity,” in his formula) also flew in the face of received wisdom. For years, the notion had prevailed that the best way to sway Afghan “hearts and minds” was by giving away stuff: blankets, bags of wheat, wells for drinking water, schoolrooms. Among the conditions fueling extremism, commentators and policy makers often repeat, is economic malaise, aggravated by demographic shifts or such externals as drought. Foreign assistance is seen as a palliative to those ills. Evolving U.S. military doctrine even referred to “money as a weapon system.” But examination of extremist leaders’ sociological backgrounds casts doubt on these presumptions. Studies by such analysts as Andrew Wilder have found that in Afghanistan, infusions of development resources often exacerbated local conflict rather than reducing it, by providing new prizes for opposing groups to fight over.6

When you can inspire others to dream, learn, evolve, and become one that they can appreciate and respect themselves; then you have arrived as a leader.

The overemphasis on the side hustle, on pursuing your passion, has created the belief that anyone can and should be an entrepreneur—that it’s the only route to true fulfillment.

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.

Thinking in Constellations is very different. In the Constellation mindset, we set ourselves in motion toward possibility, not toward a set destination, allowing for many branching paths. Possibility attracts the energy of like-minded individuals. Engagement is voluntary. Leadership flows as dictated by evolving needs. With vision and reciprocal commitment, power is given away, then grows, then more is given back.

On Wikipedia, however, users can stand out by expressing individual expertise, and also fit in by being part of a community of people who love information and accuracy. It is forever evolving, with no set destination, perpetuated by people joining together to serve a vision. What made Wikipedia take off was Jimmy’s letting go of the Pyramid mindset that defines both dependence and independence. And what made it stick was something that would make Charles Thomson proud: the principles, habits, and sentiments of a Constellation.

His concept of rights vs. shares was something like the difference between democracy and old European feudalism. Liberty wouldn’t be bought or dictated—it was an unalienable right, as Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams might say. When protected, this right unleashed the energy of cooperation and competition—a diverse and evolving ecosystem like Hock had observed in the Utah desert.

Strangely enough, it is easier to become a god-king than merely a king. To become god-king the successful upstart needs several things. Obviously, he must be at the top of the military chain of command. But he also needs to become the ritual leader, so that he controls the religious hierarchy—large-scale ritual cults that evolved to cement tribal alliances. Finally, the king-in-the-making needs a fanatically loyal retinue that will follow his orders without question and compel others to do the same. The king needs loyal warriors to protect him from assassination, and to put to death any commoner who shows insufficient respect and obedience. Basically, the king and his retinue are a coalition of upstarts, with the king as the alpha male and his followers as lesser upstarts, but who also do quite well out of the deal.