Oh, welcome to the last lecture in section two of the organic leader learning to lead from within. In the previous lecture, we looked at the importance of self leadership, and the tools you can use to become a better, better at self leadership. And in this lecture, we're going to look at a key part of what self leadership is about which is understanding your own leadership story, because that's clearly impacts and influences. What, how you approach the issue of self leadership becoming a more effective leader. And I guess the key is the whole idea of understanding of leadership story's been around for a while people use timelines and other devices to get that. But what the great leadership scholar Warren Bennis coined the phrase, a term that he used to describe these Important experiences in your leadership in your leadership journey we hear referred to as crucibles and a crucible are these sort of defining moments where an incident occurs.

And it's our response to that incident, how a react what, what influence that has on our future judgments and actions as leaders that are really crucial to your effectiveness ultimately, as a leader. And in this case, on how you become a more effective organic leader in the future. So what is a crucible? It's this, you're at the crossroads, you have to make an important decision. There are these incidents that might occur moments of enlightenment if you like, but but in a sense, it's where you hit as I say, these, these Crossroads where you have to actually make choices and the choices you make inform what your leadership approach effectively looks like, both to yourself and from the perspective of others. And during the process of going through what those crucible moments are, what your story is, will really help provide you with a self awareness you need in order to lift your game in future.

So what I'd like you to do now for a couple of minutes, is to think about the perhaps two or three moments in your, in your career. Potentially, prior to joining the workforce, you may have had a defining moment as a leader and to think about what your response was, to those defining moments. They're not all necessarily good, some maybe and that's great if they are, but but for many of us, those defining moments are actually based on perhaps a an adverse situation we found ourselves in and our response may not have been on reflection what we would have liked it to have been. So the three ways that we typically respond to these situations. Are that we end up feeling badly about them in some way. And so instead of kind of addressing them in an appropriate manner, will end up projecting our anger or hostility, pent up frustration, whatever it might be onto others.

And clearly as if you want to be an effective leader, projecting these emotions and and if you'd like your response to perhaps an adverse situation on to others is not cool. Like it just doesn't resonate with people who are, who are your who you're trying to lead as an example of what best practice and leadership is. So, understanding if in fact, as you look at those crucible moments, whether that's something that you've chosen to do, or if you haven't realized that you've continued to do it, that you on reflection, you realize you have a choice. Do it or not. That's that's an important first step to to be aware of. The second way we typically react to these situations is to pretend it never happened.

Like, we just sort of bury it and keep it hidden so that it's not necessarily reveal to others. And so is that happens, what we typically do is we end up suppressing our emotions. So our first option ends up over expressing our emotions in the form of anger or hostility. Our second response might be to actually suppress those responses. And again, we're balling this stuff up, means we're not being authentic. And as we know, when we refer back to the dancer, metaphor for becoming an organic leader being seen in previous lectures here is an important element in the process.

So So that's the second option that we typically have as leaders. And then the The final one, and the one that I guess authentic leaders and leaders who really end up excelling in their leadership career are those that actually stop, see what those moments are and actually engage with those circumstances that cause them to perhaps make a decision which in hindsight, they weren't happy with. But ignoring it or expressing anger at others doesn't resolve it. What you need to do is actually get in touch with it yourself, engage with it, accept it at some level, and then be willing to share that story, that incident with others as one of your career defining leadership journey moments, and in a sense, own it and feel proud of it, that you've actually acknowledged that it wasn't. You weren't at your best, but it or that it affected you in some some way.

That wasn't Excuse me. For you, but you get it now. And you now use it as a way of being genuine and authentic in your dealings with others. So by by doing that, and reframing that critical incident, that crucible moment, into a positive outcome for what might have more than likely been a negative experience initially, you're actually able to transform that into something that provides energy for you, and energy in your interaction with others. So that's really what I wanted to get to around this, these sort of crucible moments and how they influence your your life story, and how they influence your your leadership journey. And I encourage you to watch the external external resource that's attached to this lecture by Bill George, Harvard professor, because he talks about a couple of incidents in particular that in his experience were emblematic of The kind of story that highlights the importance and the role that crucibles play in, in your journey as a leader.

So that brings us to the conclusion of section two in the organic leader learning to lead from within section three will be about leadership styles and I look forward to joining you shortly on the next stage.