How do we Embrace Exploration to lead in uncharted territory toward continued transformation for all stakeholders?
Leaders in education, ministry, and the business and organizational world are longing for ways to be more effectively equipped to navigate ambiguity and strengthen adaptive capacity in today’s complex, rapidly-changing world.
The world in front of us is nothing like the world behind us, and we have an opportunity before us for adventure, hope, and discovery while also embracing anxiety, fear, and potential losses and helping each other through needed change.
The opportunity awaits to strengthen our ability to lead in uncharted territories.
“Transformational leadership is always a two-front battle: On one side is the challenge of a changing world, unfamiliar terrain, and the test of finding new interventions that will enable the mission to move forward in fruitful and faithful ways. On the other side is the community that resists the change necessary for its survival.” – Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains (Page 124)
When we lead in uncharted territories, we can become frustrated when we are hosting events, creating experiences, launching new products, and we find out that stakeholders and customers are conveying they are not getting their needs met.
So, we are invited to Lead with Empathy and make sure we are staying closely connected to the needs of the stakeholders we are serving and seeking to influence.
“Framing the right problem is the only way to create the right solution.” – Stanford’s d.school
One of the greatest tools to Lead with Empathy to understand the needs of others more effectively is to use the Empathy Map as a tool for reflection. Choose someone you serve, someone you want to understand better, someone you are designing for or ministering to, and dedicate some reflection time to fill out the answers to the questions on the Empathy Map.
The Empathy Map and questions allow you to take a deep dive into someone else’s world and look at life through their eyes. Sometimes the greatest AHA is the one where you realize you can not answer the questions. Incubate to Innovate has had many trainings in the past where we have used this tool and where individuals have experienced a lot of sorrow over not knowing the answers to the questions – AND that is what leads us to dig deeper and seek to understand others in greater ways!
If you take the time to use this tool, share your aha’s with us so we can all learn from each other. What was your greatest AHA? How is this going to IMPACT you moving forward?
“Don’t Just Do Something. Stand There…Then Do Something” Canoeing the Mountains, by Tod Bolsinger, Intervarsity Press, 2015, pp. 124.
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