Let´s communicate

Communication is an essential skill in our life. Who cannot communicate with others loses access to civilizational progress. In these times of globalization the importance is even greater. With regard to leadership, the Communication sets out the difference between the effective leader and the tyrant leader. We know exactly what we want but we cannot forget the team that will develop these ideas. We cannot think as acquired that what we want is shared by others. Such inconsistency of wills is caused by inconsistent communication leader. Leader who wants better needs to develop, from the beginning of their mission, 'healthy' communication lines. Explain that the preferred method of communication will allow followers to use it when they have questions. And just learn to be better who you are not sure or afraid to ask.

Critical thinking

I went back to writing ... about leadership. In addition to contributing to the satisfaction of a personal need, I feel that writing is also a contribution to improving the lives of others. Weak leadership that is served to us as an example in television programs and in most political campaigns impels me, once again, to point, at this time, some aspects that seem to me important for us to improve our demand towards the future. So it is understandable to accept that there are people who are born to be leaders and others which lack natural talent to assume such a project of life. However, it is not true that people, all of them, are unable to develop highly effective leadership habits. With the understanding and the practice of effective leadership habits, anyone can learn to be a trusted leader. Here is one of the six skills that can help this individual transformation that then can make all the difference in the community. Leader who wants effective have to be able to think critically. That is must know to look past near or away, check what has been done correctly and incorrectly and use the research and the triangulated reasoning to find the best solution for the present problem. It may seem complicated, because everything can be very complicated. Critical thinking is a practical exercise of non-linear thinking. Life is anything but a straight line. Those who are able to think beyond the obvious, to discern what is decent and right and also contribute to solving problems that affect everyone, are examples for effective leadership. Everyone can improve to some extent, their critical thinking skills. It is to focus on the main goal, gathering evidence, looking for all possible sources, listening to the team's perspectives by pooling resources and being creative. If one properly use this set of capabilities will come in its own way, the formation of a team and effective relationships among its elements. And this is ... leadership.

The better thing

Leadership appears or already exists? To me leadership is a state of mind. Yes. Something within us and that only appears when we become aware that it exists in us. However, as our brain is lazy and defends himself from overwork, are the trigger events that can, if we want, lead us to the awareness that our brain has an owner (Antonio Damasio). When we conscientize (become aware) like Paulo Freire, we never cease to have that starting mark for leadership. I am, I exist and command what you will allow me, in my life. This is leadership; I know what I want and I'm not going there. If I can develop a reasonably balanced speech I will begin to "delight" other and other. These are the followers who, on our behalf, will be free and build your own way. When that happens that's leadership: others to do what they think is the right thing.

The Gift

Science and technique cannot consider the gift. State can't tax it and market tries, but fails, to reduce it to merchandise/goods or services. Gift is both anarchy and acracy. However, carries with it the weight of tradition and ancestral wisdom. Can be understood, but not closed, using a body of concepts. How do we say actually it is quantic, towards the non-linear, the indeterminate, the diffuse and the uncertain. Gift is in the opposite field of the coeteris paribus, the accumulation, the efficiency, the productivity, and the utility. As a paradoxical element of our existence, gift shapes what concerns and scares us in the obligations, losses, differences, debts and relationships.

The orange management

Keep calm. I'm not speaking about the governmental party's colour. I'm not yet a political commentator. When I speak of the Orange I am referring to the color of Ken Wilber’s dynamic spiral. That color which corresponds to the modern and self-oriented man. That one set aside the rational and competitive woman. By the way, the one who sticks the teams motivated by success and playing to win. If Don Beck, American Psychological Association (APA) member and founder of Integral Studies Institute, visited Portugal he would recommend the change of the Primer of power exercise. In fact we need to develop an intelligence of power that reflects the complexity of the world today. For starters it was nice to have in the country a noble purpose to life. Later, politicians should act with elegance and dignity. On the other hand, was a sign of wisdom not to forget that the ideology of the market is important but market is imperfect in crisis. It was also essential to take social responsibility of all in relation to all. In conclusion we left the desire that the public things be treated above the mere homemade and mean corruption.

The importance of doing what you say

One of the aspects where I fight with myself is in the congruence between what I say and what I do. I can't get high percentages, but it's not, I'm sure, with percentages that the life one lives. Life is, above all, like to feel every moment with happiness. In search of love and happiness of every moment we go making concessions, establishing agreements and mitigating conflict. Life is not a straight line, as Edson Athayde said, in 2012. Life is a space of encounter when there's so much mismatch in this life (Vinicius de Moraes). Indeed, do what you say is more difficult than you might think. It is not always feasible. Always is mismatch, now is real. Before the other, our psychological pair, essential to our existence, now, we have to be what we are: Beings in transit to a better life. We can only achieve with a greater knowledge of ourselves and thus we will be able to know others more deeply. Then, it's doing what you say, with happiness.

The powerful and the transformational leaders

In 1978, a biographer, with the name of James McGregor Burns wrote a book titled "Leadership", in which described the lives of people who he felt were world-class leaders — Gandhi, Mao, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Stalin and Hitler. An important conclusion of the book is the distinction between two types of leaders, those who wield power and the transformational ones. The criterion used by Burns to make that distinction was the leader's concern for the wishes and needs of their followers. According to Burns, which simply wield the power impose an external control over their followers. These are leaders who see their own ends as more important than those of others. In fact, they see others as objects that are desirable because the others are instruments to help them gain what they want, or so undesirable, because they can make others’ lives or interfere with what they want. Although these leaders are able to achieve results in the short term, they do so at a high price. At best, their tactics result in followers that do not reflect, they learn to keep their heads down and do as little as possible to avoid problems. At worst, they create an atmosphere of ill-will or latent malicious compliance. At the base of a toxic environment is fear. For its part, transformational leaders are concerned about the needs and interests of their followers as well as their own. They create an environment that induces the motivation and commitment. They see people as human beings capable with their own needs, feelings and opinions. They seek mutually beneficial goals and lead their followers to higher levels of motivation, behavior and even morality. These leaders, according to Burns, judge its effectiveness not by their press clippings, but for real social change or transformation of individual attitudes and organizational behaviour.