There is a powerful association between leadership and ‘vision’ – especially when thinking about leadership in difficult and uncertain times. What is this quality of ‘vision’? In the same way that one speaks approvingly of ’embodiment’ – conveying someone’s congruent, connected relation to their purpose and values – what can we say about ‘envisioning’?
The idea of ‘reverie’ in psychotherapy illuminates this issue. A mother’s pre-occupation with her child is described by Winnicott as if it were an illness. Bion talks about the developmental necessity of ‘maternal reverie’ – to the extent that the absence of it is a source of deprivation, if not trauma. This maternal gaze reminds me of the animal gaze of ‘looking into the eyes’ of some living thing that is other, as other as mother.
- Given that all leaders have to have followers, and when I am a follower, I am consenting to-be-led, do leaders ‘hold’ their followers in some king of gaze?
- Do I want my leader to be pre-occupied with me and with my interests and my future development – preoccupied to the point of illness?
- How do leaders ‘wait’ for their followers, in the same way that parents ‘wait’, with their attention held whilst those they lead are doing whatever they need to do?
- …and so on and so on….
Our leadership & reverie presentation and workshops explore this take on leadership and follower-ship
Slingshot