Ray has two great thoughts in this his blog. First, he emphasizes the importance of strengthening the core of our leadership. This makes sense in the physical realm. When I have had back or neck problems, the real problem was due to weak core. When I worked on strengthening my core, many other physical ailments went away. The core of our leadership is our identity/security and our spirituality. If we work on those areas, our other leadership ailments almost self-adjust.
Second, Ray highlights the need to be differentiated leaders-similar to what Cloud refers to as healthy boundaries. A differentiated leader can separate his or her emotional being from that of their followers while still remaining connected. The leader does not get caught in the emotional fray. He or she takes personal responsibility for their emotional health and requires others on the team to do the same. Ray explains this in more in detail in his blog. Give it a read and sign up to get his updates. He has keen insight into leadership, personal development and culture.

Raymond L. Wheeler, DMin

The most dynamic leaders I know are also the most interesting people.  Is that a coincidence? I don’t think so. Developing leaders is a multifaceted process that has much more to do with helping leaders develop who they are than it does developing a technical understanding of leadership.

Growth as a leader is multifaceted because people do not develop along a linear path of skill sets that build capacity. Instead leaders simultaneously develop technical skills, interpersonal styles and conceptual ability in a complex interaction between their internal sense of purpose, the context in which they lead (i.e., the relational dynamics of the organization) and the varying demands of the market place for product.

Identifying the factors of development along linear paths, as I have done in the diagram above, helps define the components of a leader’s development and illustrates that simply learning new skills is not the most significant aspect of…

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