Quality Leadership and Strategic Thinking

POST: Taking Stock. Posted by Thomas P.M. Barnett on July 16, 2008

This posting from Tom Barnett, is one of the many reasons I admire him and his work.  He shares his personal and professional experiences that provide a  “360 view” from an individual perspective.  The personal insight may get us all thinking on the need and challenges involved with balancing our personal, spiritual  and professional lives.

Tom Barnett is also a great example of what I refer to as a Quality Leader that has an intuitive awareness and understanding of the variation principle.  My thesis is that a conscious awareness and understanding of variation will develop more great leaders.

If you notice on most of my posts, I typically capture themes by categories and I sometimes add comments.  It’s kind of an R&D process at this point that I hope will lead to helping me separate the proverbial signals from the noises.  The Top 10 category I am using to capture key concepts. The Taking Stock posting from Tom helps bring out what  I hope is some clarity on strategy and leadership.

Regarding comments in the  posting, on the professional side and from a system and strategy perspective, I think the boundary of any rut for a strategist would be defined by the timeframe of the strategy. The long-term view from a strategic perspective would cover the time humans have been on the planet. Religious leaders typically represent this perspective, e.g., the Episcopalian priest option.

I think the ultimate “living” system/strategic thinker is the Dalai Lama. He thinks in terms of hundred/thousands of years. But he has the advantage in that he recalls past lifetimes so he can build on lessons learned. Interesting to follow his strategy for obtaining autonomy for Tibet. One of China’s counter strategies was to pass a law that attempts to prevent living Buddha’s from reincarnating without permission.

I think the foundation for strategy is represented by the win/lose paradigm. Win/Win being the ideal, e.g, positive thoughts, words, and actions, that benefit everyone. Love captures the concept.  Mother Teresa one of the better examples. Dalai Lama falls into this category as well. The win/lose paradigm is the most prevalent. The lose/lose option represents the ultimate in negative action. Diplomacy/Politics represents the most common example of the win/lose mind-set.

The U.S. Founding fathers captured the ideal/non-ideal concept in the design of our system of government: Ideals of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness combined with a system of checks and balances on power that was designed to be continually improved. On the emergence of our two-part system, the value added by the parties is identifying the polarity on respective issues; the downside is not working together in making progress towards our ideals. American Transformation to Quality Government.

Tom Barnett is a great examples of what I refer to as Quality Leader with an intuitive awareness and understanding of the variation principle.  Quality Leadership is “a” way ahead for developing more great leaders.¼/p>