Often the very idea of giving or getting feedback puts our brains into defensive mode. Most of the feedback we get/give is some version of “You should do X instead of Y.” While it can be useful to get suggestions for improvement, there is another kind of feedback that we rarely get that’s even more helpful.
Are you disturbed?
If you’re not, maybe you should be. While events around the world continue to be disturbing, that’s not what I’m talking about here.
Robert Greenleaf, who first brought Servant Leadership into popular awareness puts it this way. “Awareness is a disturber and an awakener. Able leaders are usually sharply awake and reasonably disturbed.“
Awareness is disturbing. So why bother?
As leaders in these difficult times, we need this “disturbing” awareness to fully meet the complexity and uncertainty the world brings us. All of us have habitual ways of thinking that limit us.