You have been missing out on whether you are a consultant, coach, or leader and have yet to become familiar with Peter Block. We are fortunate to have Peter in this year’s leading complexity program for the fall.
He is mainly known for his books on Flawless Consulting and Stewardship. However, his latest writing on the Leader as Convener is more relevant than ever.
Peter Block’s perspective is about transforming organizational cultures to be more inclusive, empowering, and collaborative. He believes in moving away from hierarchical, control-based structures towards ones that value mutual accountability, empowerment, and adult-adult interactions.
He raises the challenges of accountability, caretaking, and entitlement that are often unintentionally caused by our leadership. With the best intentions, leaders foster a dynamic of parent-child relationships rather than adult-adult. This dynamic often happens when organizations aspire to be the best employers and leaders to be the best leaders they can be.
Peter has been a true inspiration, so we were excited to discuss his upcoming Master Class.
We asked Peter: What is Leader as Convener, and what are the benefits for leaders today? Here are some comments from the interview.
“We’ve trained leaders to be the center of the universe, to be role models, to make eye contact, to ask open-ended questions, to be coaches and mentors.
“Let go of that! All it does is create a parent-child world. And that’s bad enough because employees want a good parent. They want to know what their future is like. So let go of that!”
“We should stop being the center of attention. All that does is create entitlement and expectations that the world may not fulfill.
It’s not easy, but it’s simple.”
Check out the full interview below ( 7 min).
If you, like us, are intrigued by Leader as Convener, consider joining Peter’s Master class in Leading Complexity 2024. Check out the program to learn more from Peter and the other thought leaders, and sign up at Leading Complexity Program.
