Language is a magical tool – imagine life without it. Speaking or just thinking certain words can have an awakening quality. One such word is ‘perception’. You can try it right now – think ‘perception’ and say it to yourself in your own mind a few times, in different ways. Do you register the awakening effect it has on the mind asking “what am I missing…?”
Leaders Are Perceptive Individuals
Perception lives at the heart of leadership practices. How can a designate leader function properly without being able to impartially perceive what is in play? What’s happening? Why is it happening? are potent perception promoting questions when asked and answered, especially in the way of weaving stories, experiences and key anecdotes.
Strategies fail when leaders make a 100% decision that is based on a 10% perception
Perception Has Multiple Overlays – From The Easy To Reach To The Hidden
Before proceeding further let’s make this tangible with an example. An answer – one of many – to “what’s happening on planet earth?” can be: “Global climate change is in progress”. The answer to its sister question: Why is it happening? is not that straight forward. To what degree is global warming an outcome of human thought and behaviour running amuck, thus reflecting the overheating of the human mind? Think about it.
Communicating Perceptions Is One Of Leadership’s Greatest Challenges
Another essential leadership quality is the ability to communicate key perceptions in a way that is receivable by others without the loss of meaning. This calls for the development of special skills and capabilities, such as the ability to be sensitive to the states, proneness’s and moods of others – who rely on a leader’s perception capabilities – and the ability to convey challenging needs and hard facts with mindfulness, clarity and simplicity.
Courtesy of modern technology, attention deficit disorders are present in most people you deal with. How do you take this into account when communicating importances?
Perceiving the Human Possibility
The perception of the incredible range and scope of the human possibility determines a person’s self-awareness. Perception therefore leads to cognizance which in turn, leads to enhanced consciousness.
Perception manifests at two distinct elevation:
- The first elevation is a product of sensory perception – the five senses – at brain/body levels. At this level the touch, hearing, smell, sight and taste constantly combine to form the first platform of cognizance and consciousness, which is the enabler of leading a meaningful carnal existence.
- The second elevation is a product of perception at mental/mind level, and a developing ability to translate unseen opportunities and ‘vibes’ into sensible concepts and ideas. This is also related to presence of mind, which speaks of the mind being a point of attraction to ‘intelligent energetics’ that enhance and power a person’s perception and cognizance.
Developing Impartial Perception Capabilities
Perception training bring together many different disciplines. Let’s highlight thee of them.
- Developing the ability to filter away the vast amount of ‘spam sensory overloads’ that the conscious aspects of the brain are invaded by hour by hour, day by day.
- Developing the ability to relate to focus on the impressions that offer real news, hints, and clues regarding what is really important for us to be aware of.
- Developing one’s ability to formulate trigger questions about all and everything. “Why is the human on earth?” “What is my purpose?” “What are the purposes of living?”
The Power of ‘Why?’
The mind loves the challenge of ‘why’, such as “why is the world so locked in the grip of the short-term and so blind to the long-term?” As you may well observe while reading this, perception is at peak when the processes that live at the two levels combine to engender states of perception that attract new intelligence, new ideas and revealing insights.
Leading through the unknown challenges of radical change and the thrill of translating unseen opportunities to tangible outcomes lives at the heart of true leadership
David Gommé
1 July 2009
Feedback, comments and enquiries are most welcome. Please direct to david.gomme@capabledynamics.com
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