This article is actually the introduction to my upcoming book "Rubble to Rebel"
Each morning when you wake up what pulls you out of bed? The excitement of leading the people who trust in you and look after you? What is the driving force to help you drive through many obstacles and challenges in your daily missions? Who are you? Who you want to become? Whom are you leading? What do you want to achieve and why? What’s the purpose behind your leadership? What is your visionary destiny that you want to lead your people to? Where are you now and where you want to be on the leadership spectrum? Do you want to be a legendary great leader who can be remembered many years, decades, or even centuries from now? Or you want to just pass by and be happy that you are appointed by some authorities to push people to do something that the authorities want? Leadership is a spectrum from toxic to the great. The reality is, nobody is perfect even the great leaders. We all move back and forth on the spectrum of leadership. However, the great leaders learn how to move toward the greatness, how to serve their people to lead them to a great destiny, and how to stay most of the times in the greatness side of the leadership spectrum. Despite public belief that they think of management team as leadership team, the management teams are not leadership team. Each and every manageror authorities at any level can be a great leaderbut being appointed to a position by authorities or by nominal political election does not make someone a leader. Leadership is a choice that comes from using the power of the mind and this great power can be used in either a negative way and be a toxic leader like Hitler who had a strong power of leadership and influence or can be used in a positive way like great leaders in history such as Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Cyrus The Great, and many more great leaders. Among the leaders in history of our species, those who became ingenious rebel leaders, who challenged status quo, envisioned a new idea that often was strange at the time and unacceptable for the mass were the ones who have written the golden pages of human history. The power of ingenious rebel leaders is extremely strong that attract people, often gradually but for everlasting. Although the word “Rebel” is stigmatized by authorities and dictators but the real meaning stays strong that comes from Anglo-French and Latin “Fresh declaration of war by defeated.” No wonder this word is stigmatized and even the dictator government interpret this word as terrorist, which is completely wrong meaning of Rebel. In today’s world, the age of awareness and finding the real meaning of the mind power and the age of awareness against war, atrocity, and dictatorship we know that rebels are the ones who challenge status quo, the ones who challenge the public belief, the ones who help people to realize the realities about the Universe and the truth that we all are holographic particles of the amazing Universe. We know that rebels like Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Lincoln, Dr. King, Gandhi, Mandela, Cyrus The Great, and recent leaders like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and many more have changed the course of history by inventing and discovering new ideas. Now it’s time for you to know if you follow the mass or you find yourself and the great power within you. It is the awakening time for each and every one of us to realize who we are and who we want to become? It is time to find our calling and our purpose of our being. It is time to discover ourselves and what we want to accomplish and why. Who are you? Who you want to become? What do you want to accomplish and why? Do you want to be an ingenious rebel and change your world and the world of those around you and those whom you are leading? Do you want to move up to the greatness side of the leadership spectrum? Read this book and use the leadership workbook to write down any lesson you learn, good or bad from the people who were in this journey, then, move toward the greatness, toward serving your people as much as possible, and toward becoming a legendary great leader who will be remembered years, decades, and even centuries from now. The good news is, you can be a great leader if you choose to. Being a great leader does not require higher degree and more schooling. It requires, however, real education that come from Latin word of “educo,” meaning to draw within, and it requires serving your people and sacrificing when it is necessary. Being ingenious rebel leader like every great thing, is possible, however, it has a price to pay. If you are willing to pay that price you will become one. When you become an ingenious rebel leader, you write a golden page of the history of your world, the company, organization, or the state, or the country you serve. You will change the world of the people who follow you. Help those people to become great leaders and become a better version of themselves. Help them to become intelligent follower, not the blind ones, for the intelligent followers are the real supporters. They are the ones who look after you and sacrifice for you when it is needed. Remember that you are starting the journey of being a great leader and you are gradually moving toward the greatness side of the leadership spectrum. Will you slip back sometimes? Of course, because just like life, the path of the leadership is not a smooth road. The important thing is, to start the shifting your mindset and keep it going toward serving and greatness that will help you to get up after any fall and move forward toward the greatness. In this book you will discover many examples of toxic and great leaders, the tools they have used and the secrets behind their successes. Please learn the lessons and make notes in your leadership workbook. You will become familiar with the power of the mind and you will learn the basic tools of reprograming your mind and restructuring your brain. Leadership is both science and art. When you learn the lessons and apply those lessons to your leadership style with your artistic touch you will create your own way toward the greatness side of the leadership spectrum and you will learn how to:
When you apply the learned lessons something interesting will happen, you will become the leader you wanted to become and the demand for you will be incredibly high because you will be the rarity. In this book you will find the meaning of the leadership spectrum, the lessons from the great leaders, and their secrets behind their successful ways of leadership. The book resembles the spectrum of leadership just like the spectrum of life and many things in nature like colors or sounds frequencies that the fine line cannot be found but with slight shifting and gradually moving toward a specific color of light or specific wave length of the vibration of sound at some moment of time and point of space you will find yourself in a whole different world. This book will prepare leaders to bring the world together, save human kind through unity, and prepare the world to enter the golden age of new era of humanity.
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Leadership is a spectrum not multi-level
Leadership is a spectrumfrom toxic to great leadership. Leadership is the process of leading people to a specific destiny. Leadership is an evolution process just like the universe and everything else in the universe. On this evolution process if a leader fall in the toxic side he/she will be remembered as a toxic leader. If a leader becomes rigid and resist the change, that leader will be extinct or will be erased from memory as a nonproductive or just an average leader. Leaders are human being and we all learn gradually. Just like our universe and everything else in the universe we are in the process of evolving. There is no one leader that has been great all the way from the first day to the end of his/her leadership. Not only we are evolving on the spectrum of leadership but also, we may slip back to our previous habits or behavior with bad attitudes. Just like the spectrum of light that the colors are evolving gradually and there is no jumping from one color to another or like the stages of our physical and mental maturity that cannot be pushed or bypassed. We are evolving not jumping to the next stage, leadership is an evolution for each leader and there is no distinct abrupt level of leadership. Leadership is a personal choice. Leadership is not based on position or appointing by someone or a group like board of directors and so on. That is only appointing and giving the power of authority to someone but it does not make someone a leader. Leadership is by personal choice and if people choose to follow him/her, he/she becomes a leader. Now let’s see how leaders can learn the lessons of evolution to move toward the greatness side of the leadership spectrum. It was the spring 1978, an uprising started in Iran. Right about that time my speaking and leadership mentor was teaching me the last lessons of his course and I was ready to show my skills. Since my grade school I had a poetry book in Kurdish, my native language but I had to hide it because reading books in our mother tongue was forbidden by the government. Just give you a brief idea about Iran. Iran is an ancient multi ethnic country. At the time of Shah, the King of Iran reading and writing in any ethnic group language was forbidden. My long wish for freedom, and my longing for being a speaker to speak and influence people all happened at that time that looked like a perfect timing. Here I was in the third year of my high school, full of energy and as a typical teenager I thought I knew much more than my parents, grandparents and even my teachers. Do you remember those years that you thought you knew it all? And when you got in trouble you were deflated like a balloon? I led over 200 high school students to the street to demonstrate against Shah’s dictatorship. Everyday especially at the time of difficult classes, off we went to protest, a good excuse to get out of school. Gradually thousands of adults joined us. I was proud of myself for speaking and chanting some slogans behind the microphone and leading thousands of people to protest and demand for freedom. The Islamic revolution happened not because of we were demonstrating but because the western world was protesting against the oil price that was stabilized by OPEC, established by Shah, the king of Iran. OPEC stands for Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Less than a year after regime change and the Islamic government was established I learned that my leadership was completely wrong because the Islamic dictatorship was much worse than Shah’s dictatorship. I lead my followers to hell instead of a great destination. I could blame it on the situation and it was easy to say I was following the other big leaders who were orchestrating the scenario but I realized that was just getting out of my responsibility. As a young leader and a speaker, I accepted my mistakes and promised myself that I would only defend true freedom and basic rights like minority right, women right and other human rights. Lesson 1 of leadership evolution: you are not perfect and you don’t know everything. You may make a mistake, accept 100% responsibility and own your action and the result. Leaders are not perfect they make mistakes and they move back on forth on the leadership spectrum. Early 1982, while in my two years mandatory military duty in an Air Force Base in Tehran, the capital city of Iran, within the first few weeks I was called to the office of the commander. The commander and his deputy appointed me as the commander of 180 soldier and bad luck would have it, it was the worst group ever in that air force base. My higher-level commanders told me to use my power of authority and change the group. I almost fell in the trap of military hierarchy and authoritative system and something happened that changed my vision. The first few days I was searching for the way to make that group better. It was a mystery why that group almost never accomplished any given task; the number of absentees was high and their performance in almost everything was very low. One day one of my soldiers was caught in sleep while on his watch post. They put him in prison. I went talked to him and asked why he was sleeping. First, he didn’t want to talk about it and when he realized I was willing to help him he opened up and talked about his family. He was the father of two kids and he had to leave his wife and two daughters to come to military. He said they didn’t have any financial support so he had to go to work at his nights off so he was tired when he was on duty. That incidence became a wakeup call for me so I decided to talk to all 180 soldiers in person and in private. Since I was there every day I made my mind to talk to 10 soldiers every single day and I finished my task in 18 days. That 18 days changed the way I was thinking of leadership in a military environment. The problem was revealed and I learned I must actualize the problem then focus on a solution to make the group better. Finding out people’s problem needs listening to their life story without any judgment and that was another big lesson that I learned. There were so many shocking real-life stories way beyond what I could imagine. When I realized the actual reasons of low performance of the group easily I organized the problems in a few categories and came up with solutions. In about three months that group became the best group every in that air force base. We became such a unite group that not only we finished every single given task with very high performance but also, at the time of military march we were so united on moving and singing the chants that the buildings around the march field were shaking and for that reason our commanders named our group the earthquake group. Three lessons I learned:
July 1988, while I was proudly awaiting the final result of being accepted in a medical school, because I passed the exam with extremely high score and I was ranked one of the tops nationwide I received a letter from the higher education. The letter said: “Mr. Dowlati although you have passed the scientific exam with very high score however, the Islamic committee has determined that you are not religious enough to go to medical school and study medicine.” I fought back and finally after six months I was allowed to go to medical school. I went to Tehran, the capital city of Iran to get the confirmation letter. In my surprise the letter was for a medical school in the second extremely religious city in Iran and even worse that medical school was not one of my choices. When I asked what was the reason, I was told the reason is obvious and that was the only option. I was confused by the meaning of option. When I arrived in that newly established medical school I realized that our class was the second group of that medical school. Although the medical school was sponsored and served by Tehran University of Medical Sciences but the environment was very different. It was an exile place for people like me who were not religious enough and for those applicants who had lower score on the exam. On the other side the extreme religious of that town was insufferable. The students were very depressed and unmotivated. A few students resigned already. I felt responsibility to do something about it and change the environment. I talked to many students they were really hopeless. I organized a general meeting, delivered a speech and attracted 86 students out of 124 to join the club of the “Science of Medicine,” a club that was not existed yet except in my mind. We divided all participants in different study and art group to encourage people to have some fun. Although the music and poetry were forbidden and discouraged in Iran at that time I managed to establish poetry group and later we added music and had music and poetry night inside the medical school. Those activities created such a synergy that not only changed the medical school environment but also it changed the culture of the town. Interestingly our scientific performance went up dramatically in the third year when we took the basic science exam, equal to the USMLE step 1 here in the US, we were ranked in the third place nationwide, meaning we were ahead of all big medical schools except two of them. I learned lesson of synergy: synergism of the people who unite for a purpose of common beliefs is beyond of measure. In third year, I got married with a girl who was living in a different town. Jut mention in a parenthesis that medical school in Iran is 7 years and it starts right after high school so all premeds are included and there is 18 months internship with rotation in all major medical fields. So, in my fourth year I transferred to the town that my wife was living. When I arrived, I realized that many students knew my already and right of the bat I became the president of students once more and it continued till I finished medical school. In that medical school I focused on improving the internship and sure enough our internship became number one nationwide. A couple of months before graduation our attending professors made a list of three top interns including me and two others and sent the list to the dean of the medical school to prepare the things for the graduation ceremony and party, we had group party at the medical school. All three names were declined by the Islamic committee of the medical school and the dean who was a loyal to the government. As the result and revenge I announced that I would boycott the graduation ceremony and the party. Almost all students except the eight of them who were part of the Islamic committee decided to boycott the graduation. The dean threatened us that he would refuse to give us our medical diploma but that didn’t change our decision and we made it happen. The graduation ceremony and party happened with empty hall. The two lessons I learned:
Several years ago while I was working here in the US I was called and hired as a medical director by a healthcare providing company in Kurdistan, north of Iraq, the oil rich area of Iraq, to serve American oil companies. Upon my arrival I realized the company was a very small company with six doctors, three ICU doctors and three general practitioners working in oil fields. They also had six nurses in ICU. The ICU was rented from a local hospital in that region because that was the main concern of the expats. The owner and the CEO of the company were concerned about their nurses because few of them left the company already to join other healthcare providers. The other concern was their ICU was not attractive to the American oil companies. Besides changing the ICU, training their doctors, anesthesiologists as intensivists, and training the nurses I worked on all employees and especially on the nurses to see what was the problem why they were leaving. Per the company authorities the nurses were not appreciative because they were paying a high salary but despite the very attractive and competitive wage the nurses were leaving. My previous experience in different businesses and different companies showed me that usually the salary alone is not the main issue for people to leave a company. So, I made up my mind to talk to the nurses in particular and with all employees including the doctors and all others in general to find out the cause of the problem. The very first thing I did, I cut the middleman and talked to everyone directly. The real issues were lack of communication between the doctors and nurses and between the authorities and nurses; ignoring the nurses requests for family leaves and for updating courses on new improvements in medicine. I organized weekly meeting and updates with courses on modern medicine, gave them family leave and I trained both doctors and nurses in effective communication. Just these three changes and a few minor changes turned that company to become number one healthcare provider in the region. I attracted American Consulate and later all, American oil companies and other companies including European and Australian companies. The net income of that company expended 11 folds and despite aggressive approach of the other healthcare providers with offering 150% salary to our nurses none of them left the company. The lessons I learned:
You as leaders of small or big companies and organizations will be successful and memorable when you:
The Role of Visionary Leaders in Surviving and Thriving
The uncertainty in many aspects of life and business is growing. Among the leadership styles on the leadership spectrum, visionary leadership that I call it ingenious rebel leadership is the crucial type of leadership in today’s world with the level of uncertainty and the predicted recession in 2019 to 2020. The fast pace changing world is undeniable. We have seen the impact of the quick changes in many fields of business several times, in the past two decades. Being at the peak of economic growth of the recent decade and the increasingly growing rate of uncertainty in the world, must awaken the sense of urgency in the leaders of the companies and corporates to start and/or strengthen their visions and plans for the downturn. Visionary leaders who can see the hurricane, way before hitting the shore, are the essential key to every company, organization, and country in order to survive the hurricane and thrive aftermath. Who are the visionary leaders? Those leaders who are driven, decisive, determined, and disciplined are the visionary leaders who can lead their people to a great destiny. Before diving into the details of the characteristics of visionary leaders that I call them ingenious rebel leaders, let’s answer one critical question that I have been asked by leaders during my coaching and speaking events. Can non-visionary leaders become the visionary leaders? The answer is yes, they can if they really want to. Leaders are not born, they are made. As a medical doctor working on brains and minds of people for many years and as an ingenious rebel leader who has made many changes in own personal and professional life and has taught many leaders how to become an ingenious rebel and visionary leader, I can assure you that you can become whoever you want to be. It takes courage and real want to become the better version of yourself and become a rebellious visionary leader who challenges the status quo and leads his/her people to a desirable destiny especially during the downturn. Remember that leaders lead people not companies or organizations. Companies and organizations are the products of the actions of the people who work together for a common purpose. Companies and organizations without people are just buildings and some tools and equipment. Now let’s dive into the most important characteristics of ingenious visionary leaders: Driven, Decisive, Determined, and Disciplined. Driven,great leaders are driven by their purpose. They deeply believe in their purpose, and why they are leading their people. Why they are holding the leadership position in that specific company or organization. If you have not found your purpose yet, it’s better to take some time and think about it seriously because if you don’t know your real purpose and your company’s real purpose of existing then you are not able to effectively communicate your purpose with your people, the followers, in other words, your employees and the other members of the leadership team. You may need help from people who can mentor you or coach you how to discover your purpose and your company’s purpose and make sure your purpose is aligned with your company’s purpose. When you are driven by your purpose you will become unstoppable power and will drive through the most difficult situations and come out successfully. Please make sure that you have effective communication with your team and all employees and give them a crystal-clear picture of your purpose, which is the why your company or organization exists. Once you communicate your purpose clearly with all members of your company or organization, they articulate it with each other and the clients and they become your voice to spread the word and the mission to everyone who are involved with your company or organization. Decisive,great leaders are the ones who decide quickly and firmly and change it slowly if ever needed at all. We have many examples of these types of leaders in history and modern world, including Henry Ford, Abraham Lincoln, Steve Job, and many more. I suggest read the “Decision” chapter of “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. Decisions can be made generally in two ways, analytical or logical and intuitional. Although in business and organizational world we need numbers and analysis of many things to decide what to do but the reality is, those numbers, figures, and analysis are all for helping us to make the right emotional decision as far as possible. Almost all decisions are based on our emotions and our preprogrammed pattern in our subconscious mind. Sure, I agree with analyzing the numbers and data to make an informed decision, besides, knowing the numbers are essential for success in business, however, we almost always decide based on our intuition. As a matter of fact, those decisions that are made more based-on intuition or gut feeling are mostly the better decisions. Determined,great leaders are determined to make things happened regardless of the situations and circumstances. It is easy to slip into the victimhood situation and let the circumstances dictate what to do. Those people who look for the reasons to blame others and situations and circumstances they stay in victimhood phase and they lose the game. Great leaders realize and understand the undesirable situations and circumstances then they think and plan with determination and commitment to get stronger and wiser and become the victors not the victims. As George Bernard Shaw quoted, look for the circumstances you want and if you don’t find them create them. You are the co-creator of your life and your circumstances. Determination brings persistence and as Napoleon Hill mentioned, the quality of persistence is to the character of human what carbon is to steel. Persistence is the backbone of all other principles of success. Disciplined,great leaders are disciplined to do whatever it takes to execute their plans and achieve their goals. Self-discipline that is the result of self-control is the main key to establish discipline in your company or organization. Please do not mistake discipline for dictatorship. Let me explain it through an example of my own experience. While in air force for my two years military duty, I became the commander of 180 soldiers. It was the worst group in that air force base. Let’s call it group C. Group C had the lowest score in accomplishing any tasks, had the lowest discipline, the highest rate of absentee, and no cooperation and teamwork. When I faced with that very challenging situation I heard the two inner voices from inside. Then from outside world, the advice of higher-level commanders advised me to use my power of authority and take military disciplinary actions and punishment against the soldiers who were the most troublemakers. The two inner voices were constantly debating and arguing in my head to tell me how should I act to control that group. After deep thinking about my inner voice of authority that was similar to what my senior commander recommended, I found out, that kind of leadership was reacting to the situation. I wanted to respond not react to what was going on. As a young leader with a heart full of love and compassion I listened to my great rebel leadership voice and instead of using my authoritative power I used the power of love and compassion. I started with a speech to spread the power of love and compassion without judgment. I made my decision to meet with every single soldier individually and ask them questions about their personal lives, about their problems, their interests and dug deep in their lives. It was a very hard task but I stayed committed and accomplished it in 18 days. Then I made another speech and talked about the power of two and the power you, which now is the topic of one my coaching and speaking programs. In that speech I encouraged the teamwork and the benefits to every one of them. I did whatever it took to connect with them at personal level and help them to solve their personal issues and problems. The result was phenomenal. In three months, Group C became the best group ever in that air force base. We became united, helped each other to accomplish any given task to get the best outcome possible. At the time of military march, we were marching as one extremely united unit, resembling one power. Our senior commanders called our group the earthquake group because we were marching so harmonious that the buildings close to the field were shaking. In my early personal and professional life I learned that discipline was not synonymous with dictatorship and using the power of authority. Discipline is the self-control and when it is mixed with the power of love and compassion without judgment toward your followers you become the beloved leader. Your intelligent followers give whatever it takes to make you stronger and more successful. You may have read some articles about the other characteristics of visionary leaders; however, the foundation of all other factors are the aforementioned characteristics, Driven, Decisive, Determined, and Disciplined. Strong foundation is essential element to build upon it. Study the life of the visionary leaders and learn the key qualities they had or have. Every single successful visionary leader has those four fundamental elements. Long history of being a visionary leader and using the four fundamental characteristics have made me the Ingenious Rebel Leader in several companies and organizations that I helped them to grow their business exponentially. As a leadership coach and speaker now I travel around the world and help leaders and future leaders to become a great visionary leader that I call it Ingenious Rebel Leader. I learned this term or title from the people who took my coaching classes. Author: Dylaan Dowlati, M.D., M.B.A. Rebel & Authentic Leadership Coach & Speaker My passion is helping leaders and future leaders to be a better version of themselves with constant improving. I grew up with business and science and have been in leadership position since high school to military, to medical school, and many of my workplaces. I was born to a poor family in a small town in Kurdistan, Iran, on the border of Iran and Iraq. My childhood dreams to be a brain surgeon, a leader, a speaker, and an entrepreneur were the subjects of jokes of almost all people around me. I was told that a shy poor boy from a minority in Iran won’t be anything besides an ordinary employee, and I was told to be prepared for employment in a company. The neuroscience and the science of mind are the most fascinating branches of science to me because through those I have helped many people especially leaders to find the meaning of life. I believe together we can change the world and it is possible through the great leadership. Visionary leaders that I call them Ingenious Rebel Leaders (people called me this, during my speaking and coaching) shape the world. If the visionary leaders learn how to build an army of intelligent follower and train the future leaders then we can change the world to a better place to live. |
AuthorDylaan Dowlati, MD, MBA Archives
May 2024
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