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New Terms (of Awareness Intelligence)

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If open enough, one encounters ideas, even new ones, for which even the words are missing. If one tries to name these ideas aptly, our spelling is doubted. Clearly, the monopoly of defining terms and declaring important existing ideas dictates and those who do not comply are left as irrelevant behind search queries as unfound. For my part, I also help innovative, original ideas to exist, which have not (yet) received the favor of general knowledge; for there could be very important ones among them. That is why I am not afraid to create and use new, little known, and unpopular language. Have fun with it!

  1. Awareness Intelligence
  2. Awarialand
  3. Bent time
  4. Circumthoughts
  5. Extuition
  6. Humantime
  7. Socio-temporal matrix
  8. Three beasts of unawareness
  9. Three doors to the soul
  10. Thoughtthinking
  11. Trinity Warriors
  12. White holes
  13. World of red
  1. Awareness Intelligence

Like Relativity theory is essential to Physics, Awareness Intelligence guides a new understanding of the mental world. Contemporary issues such as health risks, conflicts, and inequality do point to a single most critical cause: Unawareness of lack of awareness. Awareness Intelligence is a specific constellation of ‘awareness about awareness’ and represents the break-through decoding of a socio-temporal structure of the human soul.

Without consciousness, we cannot think any thought. Without awareness, we cannot create meaning from our thoughts. Non-aware thinking (while it can be still “5-sensory”-conscious) is random, often problematically emotion-driven, and potentially confusing. Awareness Intelligence is about the intelligence of creating meaning in one’s mentalizing and about the intelligence of self-generating useful thinking through awareness. Such meaning- and useful (wholesome) thinking can be best described with a worldview consisting of a specific mental schema as possible to visualize with the socio-temporal matrix (see explanation for this term below).

Changes in a person’s life situation can rearrange one’s mental socio-temporal schema in such a way that new coherences emerge. A person may become enabled to follow coherently through on the chosen/valued temporal or social focus, which might represent a form of versatility and agency. Creating more coherence and, therefore, also more agency might be a learnable capacity. The ability to reflect on and mentally cover the whole socio-temporal scope of the world makes Awareness Intelligence. 

For a starting point to the extensive research and writing behind Awareness Intelligence, I recommend:

2. Awarialand

Life is proving us constantly that peace is possible to the extent human awareness is embracing it. Consequently, if all the world is scoped-in for ambitions of peace, a peaceful world indeed becomes attainable. An awaria can come through the dissolution of the illusion of separated and separating personal and societal identities, which would not be bounded together by life across times. It will be a future world in which all human beings are aware of their shared awareness of life. Thanks to intelligent awareness, the relational and temporal modes of life will be better understood, accepted as an essential truth, and consequently being acted upon for individual well-being, collective thriving, and the common good. Awarian life is possible thanks to the systematic and continuous practice of Awareness Intelligence, the chief liberating and humanitarian enabler of a new age.

3. Bent time

Part of Awareness Intelligence is the ability to mentally stretch to both sides of the circle of life. For our eternal soul that is a breeze, but for our human lifetime awareness and related thinking, it is a gymnastic split we need to practice for. All-inclusive and endless knowing requires to mentally stretch enough into the time before our physical birth, as well as into the time after our death to bend the timeline into a circle of perpetual and unified life. We have to sense our soul-relatedness to the immaterial consciousness to detach ourselves from the illusion of time that is only bound to objects such as our bodies. Despite the need to handle practical time for physical experiences, one needs to connect to the timeless sphere of universal intelligence. It is our human capacity to be aware of this co-existence of practical and universal, cosmic time; the awareness of the parallel truth of life, life’s immortal intelligence that breathes the energy vibrations of consciousness even into our objectified temporal bodily manifestation.

4. Circumthoughts

Human thought reaches farther than the sight of the eye. As thoughts and not the eyes create our circumstances, we should rather be aware of circumthoughts. Thought encircles all there is, ourselves, our relationships, and anybody imaginable anywhere in the world; a social panorama the eye is incapable of grasping. Also, thought encompasses eternity of time. We may not see immediate consequences of all thinking in the visible world, but our soul’s quality of inspiration and connectedness highly depends on the collective consciousness whose condition is influenced by all thoughts there are; of course, including ours. Thoughts are determining our spirituality, which has no contentual barriers and therefore is the cosmos of all. Think awareness-intelligently to contribute with full positive capacity and energetic attitude to this spiritual realm, which in turn, is the source and fuel of your and all further life as well. Our circumthoughts, not circumstances, represent the real context of conscious life.

For the full article:

5. Extuition

Extuition is the illusion that we choose with intellectual logic, the belief that our believes are not believes but proven when they can be seen with our eyes. Extuition is the opposite of intuition, which is the inner voice that (if it is real intuition) comes from our eternal and universal source intelligence.

6. Humantime

Having witnessed times of building war forces in spacetime, the time for exploring love in humantime has come. Awareness is not everything, but without awareness there is nothing. When consciousness becomes aware, when awakening becomes intelligent, and when balance becomes harmonious, humantime has begun. Think yourself aware, which is best done through self-reflection about ones socio-temporal mental worldview schemas (socio-/human – temporal/time).

7. Socio-temporal matrix (incl., intra-past, inter-present, extra-future modes)

The tripartite socio-temporal matrix of Awareness Intelligence provides for a mental reference system that empowers for spiritual exploration and practical application of meaning, love, and compassion that is teachable to anybody for increased well-being, organization thriving, and the common good alike.

The socio-temporal matrix was developed to assist in self-reflection as a visual guide to explore thought patterns in terms of the most essential dimensions of human psychology: the social and temporal world. These two dimensions put together in a coordinate system (x axis = temporal dimension; y axis = social dimension) form the novel socio-temporal matrix of mental worldview schemas. Each field of the matrix represents a building block of a person’s socio-temporal mental schema. In other words, these are the possible spots of socio-temporal thinking. Its configuration determines one’s life significantly as

humans are mind-wandering up to half of their waking time.

For more details, please see

8. Three beasts of unawareness

Expressed with mental worldview schemas, the three beasts of unawareness stand for the psychologically unhealthy spots in the coordinate system of the socio-temporal matrix. One beasts represents the possible ties of the past that create, e.g., loss of self, stagnation, and regret. The beast of the present exemplifies hurdles to awareness such as increasing distraction, e.g., through technology, and possible absorption from the world through meditative retreat into oneself. Last, the beast that endangers a fulfilling future, seduces through egoistic fears and over-identification with societal and cultural expectations. The three beasts of unawareness, in that sense, signify the antidotes to the healthy modes of Awareness Intelligence.

Here’s a poem about the beasts:

9. Three doors to the soul

When we are not inheriting the past and instead do the work ourselves, we are fit for giving our best. This is the first of the three doors to the soul. Secondly, overcoming social anxiety through compassion leads to kindness that is as timeless as unconditional love. Such genuine kindness is the ticket to free from time and to access eternity. The third door to the soul opens when we follow the human calling of service to all, regardless of compensation and pulled by true inspiration.

10. Thoughtthinking

The indefinite power of the human soul and mind can be unlocked as human beings evolve from doing ‘sightseeing’ to ‘thoughtthinking.’ This will intensify the understanding and appreciation of the mental world and propel the development of Awareness Intelligence. No field of science or any advanced forms of artificial intelligence have been able to solve the disconnect between the people that causes all the issues of inner and outer conflict. It’s the power of awareness that has the potential to link separateness together and to unify. It’s time to become more aware of our absence of awareness, the only way to solve the remaining problems of humanity, which are all due to shallow lives lost in thoughtless wandering.

11. Trinity warriors

The trinity warriors I have created are non-violent ‘fighters’ for Awareness Intelligence that comprises the three treasures of Taoism:

  • MODERATION leads to generosity (All are born the same as humans. There is no superiority of anyone, just different cultures, and societal norms. -> I’m thinking about my INTRAPERSONAL PAST. Who am I really regardless of my upbringing?)
  • COMPASSION leads to courage (Unconditional love removes fear from pressure, allowing to be oneself and even unliked amidst the expectations of others. -> I’m thinking about my INTERPERSONAL PRESENT where I share the present moment with others; are these free from judgment of the past and expectations into the future?)
  • HUMILITY leads to leadership (Benevolence and responsibility benefit all humanity rather than ego-inflated ambitions. -> I’m thinking about the EXTRAPERSONAL FUTURE that will outlast my lifetime. Am I leaving the next generation a better world?)

You can admire some of the trinity warriors and their awareness-intelligent qualities here:

12. White holes

How convenient that science creates formulas suggesting black holes resembling so much its sponsoring society of economic institutions and politics towards which all material gravitates. But maybe this is yet another cheat pack to distract from the truth? I know it’s trendy to cite Einstein, yet humanity hasn’t managed to leave its Newtonian world. While black holes support the narratives of the necessity of a humanity exposed to fear, greed, and destruction, I prefer a more positive worldview of human potential that educates about white holes (if it needs to be called a ‘hole’ at all). We don’t need to defend a taking dark warfully; instead, we needed to welcome the giving bright peacefully. Why is fear of material loss instilled instead of a notion of an infinite expansion of spiritual life?! The latter is more realistic (i.e., durable, constant, real). Ever-evolving life spirit and love have proven that they can’t be taken by a material-sucking black hole.

13. World of red

As opposed to the world of blue, red is the color code for aggressive emotional strain. A world of red visually depicts the endless strong hunger/greed of consumption society. On the other hand, a world of blue would mean spiritual strength of a blue water’s depth.

02. IDEAL VS TRUE SELF (Acrylic Paintings), All posts, Awareness Intelligence, Charging, COLORFUL PAINTING, Ecology, Equality, Essays & Articles, Female nature, HAPPY WRITING, Learning, Psychology, Spirituality

The Rhythm of the Dance of Life

How to Synchronize, Increase the Frequency, and Sustain the Rhythm of the Dance of Life

Painting RHYTHM: DANCE OF LIFE (M. Sager, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 120 x 150 cm)

RHYTHM & THE DANCE OF LIFE T-Shirt Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee (Awareness Intelligence, 2021 Edition)

Humans like stability to feel safe, and they seek preservation of their identity, whether it be good or bad. In the short-term, though, people often also do not like repetition as it leads them to boredom. In a time paced rapidly by ever shorter business cycles, everything tends to become judged as boring by the declining attention span of the consumer mind. In contrast, as to the creating mind, education and professional practice training are considered successful if one has learned to tolerate the monotonous tasks of the streamlined information and production processes as input to the modern economic societies. That’s how many forgot the excitement of rhythm and surprising improvisations of a freely lived life.

Like evenly-timed rhythms such as four-quarter times are often interpreted through triple step dances (for example, two quick steps and one slow step), it is the shift from the balance of even patterns to the harmony of three that introduces a higher level of human experience. Having three entities combines both brevity and rhythm with having the smallest amount of information to create a pattern. To overcome the avoidance of change caused by the monotonous evenness of commercial mainstream and its resulting addiction to stability, we are well-advised to hear the rhythm of the dance of life in all three the past, the present, and the future.

Therefore, the three steps of the dance of life can be seen as follows:

•    Step 1: SYNCHRONIZING THE RHYTHM – Guidance by the past of universal unity

•    Step 2: INCREASING THE FREQUENCY OF THE RHYTHM – Attendance to the present without fear

•    Step 3: SUSTAINING THE RHYTHM – Abundance through service to the future of all

Step 1: SYNCHRONIZATION OF THE RHYTHM – Guided by the past of universal unity

Most people are not able to not have to belong, respectively are not able to belong to everybody, so they will belong to certain/specific groups. Group thinking often inhibits critical thinking. However, experiences of togetherness also reveal the motives for unity that involve rhythmic, synchronous movements like marching and dancing. To march or dance together to the same rhythm creates intense feelings of unity and fosters a willingness to sacrifice one’s life for one’s mates. Again, this bears risks and opportunities: Applied to an exclusive group, this is the essence of the birth of radical ideologies and religions; However, when extended to all of humanity, true spirituality opens up.

Step 2: INCREASING THE FREQUENCY OF THE RHYTHM – Attending to the present without fear

The ego always fears to lose, why others are seen as threats. This attention to the fear of loss eventually is missing for the attendance of inspiration and love. Because of the fear of losing one’s identity, change becomes the ultimate threat. However, on the dance floor of life, many people dance, and the music will change all the time. So, we should not get angry and fearful when the rhythm is changing again. However, we also shouldn’t necessarily let the music played by others let us dictate our pace. It’s best to choose the music that reflects our natural rhythm so that we can pace ourselves in our journeys of personal development. It’s exciting to meet new people. Meeting strangers creates high levels of synchronized rhythmic activities in the brain. Therefore, let’s enjoy social arousal from novel encounters; the more exciting and less frightening they are perceived, the higher is the frequency of the neuronal dance in your brain.

Step 3: SUSTAINING THE RHYTHM – Abundance through service to the future of all

The commitment to live life in a sustainable rhythm, without greed, without unnecessary selfishness, helps to avoid depressive thoughts of loss, burnout, despair, and getting stiff in the ability to dance smoothly. If we change the rhythm from an attitude of “getting what’s in for us” to one which services the others, it’s possible to create a different cadence in life, a rhythm of an all-new quality. We think our life with birth and death is different than anything else as we consider it not to follow a recurring rhythm. That’s why we mistakenly don’t dance through life. On the other hand, we run as straight and fast as possible in one direction, completely denying the possibility that there is no other place than the here and now to go. Shouldn’t we joyfully embrace life as an endless and abundant dance of collective consciousness to which we can contribute as an equal part (not as less nor as more)?

In that sense, let’s overcome avoidance and become guided and attentive dancers for abundance. To live from unity, in love, and for service to all is the ability to synchronize the rhythm and dance the dance of life. This was, once again, another analogy for describing the socio-temporal rhythmic system of the universe on which Awareness Intelligence (see www.mathias-sager.com) is based.

#Kunst #Künstler #art #artist #painting #malen #Gemälde #contemporaryart #abstract #Zeitgenössischekunst #abstrakt #Rhythmus #rhythm #dance #Tanz #life #Leben #psychology #Psychologie #philosophy #awarenessintelligence #Bewusstseinsintelligenz

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Three-way matches for better decision making

20210322_painting_TIPTYCH 123 3_acrylic on canvas_30 x 30_mathias sager_3
Paintings (all 3) THREE-WAY MATCH (M. Sager, 2021. Triptych, Acrylic on canvas, each 30 x 30 cm)

If you want to increase reliability in decision-making, you need three fixation points, respectively three sources, for a three-way match. If for a point to be confirmed, you can’t find two other reference points, verification is weak. Think about a tripod and how its three legs need to interact simultaneously to provide a stable stand. Only by such a well-established awareness, more significant logical arcs of higher importance and sharper thought can be captured. Whether you want to achieve better thought-through results or to relax mental tension, think thrice, the same way as you take three deep breaths as a physical exercise. Don’t judge too early; only cross the street of thought after applying a ‘watch-listen-walk’ attitude in your decision-making.  For your own and all others’ safety, watch (1) your intrapersonal self, (2) the interpersonal others, and (3) the extrapersonal all, as well as (1) the past, (2) the present, and (3) the future. Awareness Intelligence comes in through the combination of (1) watching the intra-past, (2) listen to the inter-present, and (3) walk the extra-future.

#art #artist #painting #painter #modernabstract #contemporaryart #acrylic #psychic #blindness #awareness #decision #decisionmaking #triptych #thinking #psychology #philosophy #mind #bewusstseinsintelligenz #awarenessintelligence

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The Knotgoblin

20210313_painting_The KNOT GOBLIN_acrylic on canvas 50 x 50 cm
THE KNOTGOBLIN (M. Sager, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50 cm)

The KNOTGOBLIN (M. Sager, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50 cm)

Consistent thinking is the knotgoblin that is strangling our Self. That’s how I’d interpret the deeper meaning of the saying ‘Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds’ by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

First, not changing one’s mind testifies the absence of learning, the addiction to the ever-same thoughts, respectively the missing implementation of lessons learned. Second, if the mind is consumed with matters of consistency (i.e., the texture of material things), there is no space for the world of consciousness that is the seat of the soul.

We all have experienced the feeling of the depressing weight of a knot in our hearts we wish to untie. When the knot gets too tight, we even want to cut the rope. Actually, that’s precisely what needs to be done to remove what makes us feel stuck, stiff, and ugly. If we declutter our minds from stuff, we become free to reach out, love, see the bigger picture, and thrive intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Declutter from consistency, unravel tribulations, detach from dependencies, and the rope will flatten and relax. That’s how the space arises in which we grow.

Do you know your knotgoblin? How’s it holding you knotted? Have you ever tried to untie it?

#art #artist #painting #painter #modernabstract #contemporaryart #psychology #philosophy #consistency #depression #mind #soul #bewusstseinsintelligenz #awarenessintelligence

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LET YOURSELF OFFEND. The benefits of letting you get offended.

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You get an understanding and compassionate ear here, but the most significant benefit lies in permitting me to offend you. First of all, if I didn’t dare to offend, I couldn’t be honest. Being offended offers a real-world check outside of one’s comfort zone. Second, if I solely entertained you, I’d waste your time distracting from the real work to be done. I will, however, offend you with substance, so you can accomplish getting very clear on your worldview / identity: Who are you really beyond social conditioning? What would you stand for if you had the self-confidence to overcome social pressure? Why are you here as a complete human being beyond economic considerations? Also, the feeling of being offended is a warning indicator that is showing you where to look within yourself for unresolved issues.

I may offend people, but I also make it easy for them to forgive me. You’re not alone; my content and approaches contain wisdom that offends quite everyone. I love people in general (not only the proximate ones who flatter me), and that’s why I care to offend you too. To be genuinely kind means to have the courage to offend. Of course, people like sugar. But shall I, therefore, feed them with more of what is not suitable for health? I’ve learned that if I love myself, I have the courage to allow me to get offended (which doesn’t mean to let me abuse, though).

If we feel offended without being able to forgive the offender, we actually say to disagree with the Right of Freedom of Expression. By instilling more fear, people become more susceptible to being offended without the willingness to forgive. And that’s how the freedom of expression gets strategically undermined by authoritarian systems. Today people are brought to be offended by others just breathing (we can even see it by people wearing masks;-)). It’s more important than ever to stand up for the right to offend, which is implicitly part of the Right of Freedom of Expression. So, have the courage to use the right to offend “sacred” symbols (who says they are sacred?), offend emotions and feelings, offend countries, governments, organizations, as well as political parties, religions, and traditions, and cultures.

Living in a comfort-seeking and fear-based materialistic society, my humanistic approach rejecting salvation-seeking from extrospection is offending people, of course. For me, however, respecting people doesn’t mean accepting their illnesses, victim roles, and unfulfilled potential. If we respected such unhealthy limitations, we’d offend humanity (and life, or god, as you like) as a whole. Indeed, many people live life in the offense to life itself as they put material goods over life. Yes, we justify our physical survival (which in our society doesn’t have much to do with survival rather than with a decadent luxury lifestyle) by not assuming responsibility for the many who suffer hunger, exploitation, and abuse.

I deliberately combine the science of psychology, the wisdom of philosophy and the intuition of art. Art is often very well suited to insulting people, challenging them and opening them up to creative and self-reflective thinking. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to offend or hurt someone who doesn’t care. This is the reason why people often have no interest in the artistic (or spiritual).

Group thinking inhibits critical thinking in favor of a wider human community. For example, religions proclaim to spread unconditional love and the universal truth of their respective God, but feel offended by other religions that believe in another God, who in turn should represent the same unconditional love and absolute truth according to these others. That’s the big lie of hypocrites on both sides. Such belief systems do base on exclusivity to offer fearful people the seeming security of belonging, which, however, they nevertheless never experience (therefore their defensive attitude). But there is a more inclusive way to feel more satisfyingly human. Learn to love truly! Love is the opposite of fear. If you’ve learned to get offended, you’ve learned to love. Love is hard to offend; a heart full of love doesn’t get irritated and offended irrevocably; it doesn’t see the world in terms of threats against one’s ego-assumed superiority, advantages, and privileges over others. Instead, strong minds who dare to seek being offended, not for hate but growth purposes, can find what humans actually are looking for: actualizing themselves through meaningful change toward their best self (which can’t be measured by material success alone, to make that clear once more).

You may have enough “friends” who will tell you what you want to hear and who are happy that you are unsuccessful (because it justifies their own stagnation). If I can’t offend you, I haven’t done my work of serving you decisively. With this in mind, thank you for allowing us to offend each other, not with style, but with substance for learning opportunities for our personal growth, individually and as a human collective.

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Paths to the true self

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Have fun looking at it (www.mathias-sager.com) and if you like what you see, welcome, and please spread the word. Thanks!

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The power of self-reflection

Self-reflection is the adventurous process of (1) becoming aware of self-judgment and developing self-motivation, (2) finding self-reliance and applying self-leadership, and (3) using self-imagination and exerting self-control.

There are available live 1-to-1 sessions on www.mathias-sager.com. Call, chat, or video-call!

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SOCIO-TEMPORAL WORLDVIEW PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT. Now basic online tool/report for free!

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A MORE RELEVANT AND HOLISTIC PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT. COME ON TO THIS PSYCHO-PHILOSOPHICAL ADVENTURE AT WWW.MATHIAS-SAGER.COM.

It’s not our circumstances that determine our lives; it’s our circumthoughts.

MATHIAS SAGER – PSYCHOLOGY

The ability to be aware and adjust the social and temporal scope in one’s thinking allows more effective approaches towards worries, remaining adaptive, and a sense of meaningful satisfaction.

Socio-temporal wheel SIMPLE EN

The scientifically and expert-validated novel Socio-Temporal Mental Schema Analysis (STMSA) provides a simple yet more relevant and uniquely holistic self-reflection tool that explores a person’s overall worldview. The tool, therefore, is an ideal starting point for further targeted and meaningful personal development.

Science and wisdom put into practice.
Based on the Socio-Temporal Mental Schema Analysis (STMSA).
Powered by Awareness Intelligence ™

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Inspirational Leadership: Allowing the Soul to be Free

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1.Inspirational leadership is a less studied, but holistic concept that centers within the presence of a whole mind that is aware of the being and doing of the self and others.

2.As an inspirational leader who gives ideas to others, investing time and effort into self-development is vital. One can only give what’s inside of him/her.

3.The human side of leadership is fundamental for an inspirational interaction between leaders and followers.

4.The most appreciated leadership aspect is the ability to inspire. The capacity to inspire does result in high employee commitment.

5.Inspirational leaders positively influence employee characteristics, such as independent thinking and pro-activeness. These qualities not only foster innovativeness and drive business performance, but also have a positive effect on followers’ happiness at work.

6.The quest for the ‘Why,’ critical thinking, purpose, passion, and caring emotional intelligence all come from within oneself. Self-awareness and autonomy is the foundation for accessing the source of inspiration. Allow your soul to be free.

7.Authenticity is the core of inspirational leadership. Authentic behavior arises when the ‘who you are’ and the ‘what you do’ are aligned. A genuine and ethical leader differentiates between the true needs of his/her inner being as compared to the many and often conflicting demands and conditions of society.

Slides from our 80% is Psychology event, December 12th, 2018 in Tokyo.

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Personality and Leadership Styles

 

Slides from our event, December 5th, 2018:

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The leader-follower relationship: Theories and related strategies

1.It is crucial to what role models children are exposed. Babies intuitively follow the eye gaze of their mothers. Little geese adopt the first seen subject after hatching as their caregiver (so-called IMPRINTING). And imprisoned children regard the prison guards as their parents to follow.

2.Followers emulate primarily other followers, not necessarily the leader. A movement is made by courageous followers who show others how to follow too. Therefore it is essential to nurture followers.

3.To form a positive social identity (as everybody seeks to), people use self-categorization. According to SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY, this risks leading to biased social comparison in which people tend to over-favorize one’s own group’s individuals’ positive characteristics while they stereotype and discriminate out-group members having mainly negative traits.

4.PROTOTYPICAL PERCEPTIONS cause people to think that the followers of the group they identify with can be persuaded by information, while out-group followers are mis-perceived as needing to be coerced by force.

5.Individuals who follow a leader against their own moral beliefs or good judgment may do so because they socially identify with the leader and consciously choose to follow his/her MORAL COMPASS.

6.Leaders in a mutually beneficial leader-follower relationship provide public goods to their followership. In return, followers voluntarily pay their costs to the leader in the form of prestige. When leaders gain more relative power, and their high status becomes less dependent on their willingness to pay the costs of benefitting followers, the SERVICE-FOR-PRESTIGE THEORY predicts that leader-follower relations will become more based on leaders’ ability to dominate and exploit.

7.In the phenomena of RECIPROCITY, we should differentiate whether it is about our genuine desire to return favors unconditionally based on feelings of thankfulness, or whether we get trapped into “marketing tricks” that let us act upon feelings of obligation and guilt.

8.A secure ATTACHMENT STYLE helps people trusting in lasting relationships, self-confidentially seeking out and providing social support that empowers themselves and colleagues alike. Insecurely attached people may cause stronger exclusion and exploitation of others.

9.Effective followers as fostered by TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP are those who are not only actively involved, but those who are also critically thinking to influence decision-making and change. Conformist followers who are not challenging the status quo contribute less to innovation and business performance improvement.

10.DIVERSITY AND INCLUSIVENESS are vital also from a business perspective because better-connected networks enable more knowledge sharing that is favorable for innovation and improves business performance, which ultimately results in increased profitability.

11.REVERSE MENTORING allows any employees to assume, (informal) leadership roles. Reverse mentoring not only promotes bi-directional knowledge exchange, but it can help isolated older leaders to enter into more egalitarian relationships as well.

12.Utilizing CONSTRUCTIVE HUMOR may be an effective leadership strategy to win trust and commitment from followers as it bridges authority gaps and encourages the both-sided expression of positive emotions even when addressing difficult matters.

 

Slides:

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Reverse Mentoring and its Benefits

mathias-sager-reverse-mentoring copy

Traditional mentoring

Self-improvement can be intimidating, and personal interactions with other, like in a mentoring relationship might be extraordinarily valuable [1]. In today’s fast-changing world the potential for mentoring, especially if creatively employed, might be an increasingly useful type of relationship [2]. Yet relatively few employees got into a company mentoring program [3]. Traditional mentoring generally takes place between a senior and a junior person in a similar career field [4], a relationship that is hierarchical and one-directional in the sense that the mentor in its expert position carries the power while the newcomer mentee is deemed to receive learning [5].

Reverse mentoring for diversity and organizational success

Reverse mentoring, on the other side, can be defined as “pair[ing] younger, junior employees as mentors with older, senior colleagues as mentees to share knowledge” ([6], p. 569). Jack Welch in 1999 made this approach popular when using it in GE [7]. It is the first time that four or five generation with distinct values work in the same workplaces and have to manage related generational tensions ([8]; [9]). Reverse (respectively reciprocal) mentoring may be promising transfer processes to support global expatriate female managers as they were found to receive less monitoring than male and domestic colleagues [10]. Cross-racial reverse mentoring is another example of engaging diversity to increase organizational success [6].

Benefits for the employees

Reverse mentoring was found to benefit older adults with reduced social isolation, improved self-efficacy, and increased technological understanding, and younger colleagues can progress their teaching and communication skills [11]. Intriguingly, by collaboratively fostering the understanding of each generations qualities, inter-generational intelligence can be built [9]. Vitality, enthusiasm, and creativity are predominantly represented by the younger, lower levels of organizations; not surprising when remembering the evidence that toddlers, in general, are creative, compared to the only 2% of 44-year-olds [12]. Reverse mentoring is promising in generating new ideas [13], which is vital in valuing the human capital and use it for innovation and competitiveness as required for learning organizations [14]. Lane (2018) speculates that this effect might be the more pronounced, the bigger and the more global a firm is [7].

HR supported implementation for improved employee retention

In a study in the field of academic medicine, it was found that half of the recipients of unsatisfactory mentoring did genuinely consider quit the firm, while positive mentoring experiences reduced this number to 14% [2]. In another study reverse mentoring predicted increased affective commitment potentially decreasing turnover rates among millennial employees [15]. While informal settings may take pressure away from younger persons mentoring their superiors [16], more formal mentoring provides for clear objectives and plans how to achieve them [17]. It is essential that older leaders get the courage [13] to open up, demonstrate humility, and enter into egalitarian relationships [18]. Ideally, such openness and the diversification of the workforce [19] through reverse mentoring is systematically supported by HR too [20].

References

[1] Bollig, J. (2016). What Company Do You Keep?. Superintendent, 32.

[2] Disch, J. (2018). Rethinking Mentoring. Critical Care Medicine, 46(3), 437-441. doi:10.1097/CCM.0000000000002914

[3] Bergelson, M. (2014). Developing Tomorrow’s Leaders: Innovative Approaches to Mentorship. People & Strategy, 37(2), 18-22.

[4] Ellis, R. (2013). Reverse mentoring: Letting millennials lead the way. T And D, 67(9), 13.

[5] Morris, L. V. (2017). Reverse Mentoring: Untapped Resource in the Academy?. INNOVATIVE HIGHER EDUCATION -NEW YORK-, (4). 285.

[6] Marcinkus, Murphy W. (2012). Reverse mentoring at work: Fostering cross-generational learning and developing millennial leaders. Human Resource Management, 51(4), 549-573. doi:10.1002/hrm.21489

[7] Lane, G. (2018). REVERSE MENTORING. Professional Manager, 7-8.

[8] Stephenson, G. (2014). Breaking traditions with reciprocal mentoring. Nursing Management, 45(6), 10-12. doi:10.1097/01.NUMA.0000449766.91747.77

[9] Meister, J. C. (2017). 4 Ways Companies Are Developing Millennials for the New World Of Work. Communication World, 1-3.

[10] Harvey, M., McIntyre, N., Thompson,  H. J., & Moeller, M. (2009). Mentoring global female managers in the global marketplace: traditional, reverse, and reciprocal mentoring. International Journal Of Human Resource Management, 20(6), 1344-1361. doi:10.1080/09585190902909863

[11] Breck, B., Dennis, C., & Leedahl, S. (2018). Implementing reverse mentoring to address social isolation among older adults. Journal Of Gerontological Social Work, 1-13. doi:10.1080/01634372.2018.1448030

[12] Walton, C. (2018). Lifting the lid on creativity. Training Journal, 24-26.

[13] Gardiner, B. (2015). RBA embraces competition and reverse mentoring to drive innovation. Cio (13284045), 1.

[14] Barrett, B. (2013). Creating Virtual Mentoring Programs for Developing Intellectual Capital. Proceedings Of The International Conference On Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management & Organizational Learning, 47-53.

[15] Catrin, H. (2017). Affective Commitment to Organizations: A Comparison Study of Reverse Mentoring Versus Traditional Mentoring Among Millennials. Binus Business Review, Vol 8, Iss 2, Pp 157-165 (2017), (2), 157. doi:10.21512/bbr.v8i2.3666

[16] Pieters, B. (2011). Reverse Mentoring: Fresh Perspectives from Future Leaders. Profiles In Diversity Journal, 13(6), 68.

[17] Jane, B. (2014). Reverse mentoring becomes a two-way street: case study of a mentoring project for IT competence. Development And Learning In Organizations: An International Journal, (3), 13. doi:10.1108/DLO-01-2014-0001

[18] Thoman, R. (2009). Reverse mentoring: How young leaders can transform the church and why we should let them. Christian Education Journal, 6(2), 432-436.

[19] Holden, L., Rumala, B., Carson, P., & Siegel, E. (2014). Promoting careers in health care for urban youth: What students, parents and educators can teach us. Information Services & Use, 34(3/4), 355-366. doi:10.3233/ISU-140761

[20] Chen, Y. (2013). Effect of Reverse Mentoring on Traditional Mentoring Functions. Leadership & Management In Engineering, 13(3), 199-208. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)LM.1943-5630.0000227