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Three Ways To Understand Mastery
“Seek first to understand, then be understood.” Stephen Richards Covey
First Roll The Pitch
Leaders face a constant challenge: navigating the complexities of human behavior within their teams. While some seem to possess an instinct and the emotional intelligence for understanding their people, perhaps because they have a higher Emotional Quotient (EQ), others struggle.
A mastery of the psychology of leadership requires an understanding of what needs improvement, which includes an active self-awareness on a leader’s part of their own strengths and weaknesses and a preparedness to act on these.
It also requires integrity, agility, courage to drive the right change, empathy, and the ability to influence.
The American playwright and author of ‘Mastery’ Robert Greene, the author of ‘The Fifth Discipline’ Peter Senge, and the occupational psychologist and systems thinker John Sneddon understand all this and share through their ideation and writing a common purpose to better understand and articulate Mastery — Both in the personal and professional context.
Then One Way
In his 2012 book, ‘Mastery’, Robert Greene writes about the romantic poet John Keats, who in his quest to become a great poet sought to do this in two specific ways. First he read as many of the Classical Greats as he could find to teach himself about Poetry. Second he set himself the task of writing a poem, but not just any old poem.
The result was the epic ‘Endymion’, a poem of 4000 lines and Keats finished it to his satisfaction in six months, by undertaking an approach which Robert Greene calls resistance practice. He took the hardest path possible to test his resolve, endurance and stamina, and by understanding (i.e. learning), undertaking ( i.e. thinking) and then teaching himself (i.e. doing), he achieved something he previously thought impossible. This became a catalyst spurring him on to greater achievements, and it reenergised his endeavours and enabled him to find within himself Albert Camus’s, “Invincible Summer”.”
Another Way
In 1990, MIT Professor Peter Senge posited in his book ‘The 5th Discipline’, that…
