After an intensive interactive session with the 30+ year old executive students at university this morning, one said "I would never express myself like this if my boss was sitting beside me." Another added, "It starts when we go to school. We have to sing a song in front of class and that makes us all feel like idiots. Then we are trained to do as we are told without question. We are never asked what we think." Another student questioned, "Why is it the companies want creativity and innovation, yet when I'm at a job interview I am never asked what I think or anything to do with my creativity or ability to innovate? They only want to know if I can do the job." Are we being trained to shut up and mindlessly take instruction?  Perhaps it is no wonder that after the age of 7 children have lost much of their imaginative ability, their willingness to ask "why?" and their willingness to try.. Until turning seven, what is later named failure, was just another fun experience. After then, the word failure is the label given for trying and then experiencing an outcome that was different from expectations... usually others. We are judged and begin to judge ourselves according to others standards. And the outcome? Could it be, one ceases being ones own person and instead becomes the standard model others want us to be? Does one cease to think for oneself and become disconnected and mistrustful of ones own natural wisdom? Have we  become like those USA college graduates who were questioned a few years ago to see how well they could appropriately apply in different situations what they had learnt? They were found to have the ability of seven year olds. Unless we are encouraged, we can lose our creative spark, initiative and willingness to experiment and try and to fully live. How do we break free from becoming a human robot? The steps back to sanity and our humanity: 1. recognise what thoughts, beliefs and values you have inherited from others and ask yourself, do these really serve me? 2. go into your heart. Move out of your mind, tune into how you feel and ask how do I want my life to be? 3. ask, what thoughts, beliefs, values and actions will cause me to experience my life the way I want it? Start to think, feel and act accordingly. Use your imagination and envisage you and your life being the way that allows you to feel the greatest amount of joy. The result. The kind of life you have been experiencing that has not worked for you, will simply fade away. You will begin to feel a shift. Rather than finding life draining you, you will have more energy, more enthusiasm, more inspiration and more joy for living. What's more, you will get more done with far less stress and effort. Being true to yourself, rather than a copy of others expectations, is totally empowering. You come alive to yourself and life. You become a full human. Only when you are, can you be of service to others.

"Does knowledge management mean the management of your own knowledge?"

Yes...

• the knowledge we most value and use is the knowledge we have
• the ideas we come up with are our most valuable ideas for us

I wished you to understand how important your own thinking and thoughts are.

What turns your thoughts into actions are emotions (unconscious or conscious ones).

Knowledge becomes valuable to you when you use it to produce value.

What you are in charge of are your ideas and your emotions. Bring the two together into action, that is your power.

The key is to know yourself. That is far more important and life-serving than any other knowledge

Your question "How to find your mission...the meaning why we exist?"

Your No.1 mission is to be fully you expressing your fullest potential and living life fully.  You are your mission and fully experiencing your life is your mission. You have nothing to prove. You are great the way you are.

You may chose any purpose you wish. All are ok. Some will enable you to feel great and others will cause you to feel bad. Some you will feel more alive about, others less alive.

Choose those purposes that enable you to fully express your capabilities in a way that enables you to feel great and fully alive. And your purposes may change.

That's OK too.

Your question "Do you need to have gifts in order to find love/motivation?"

We all have unique gifts and combinations of gifts. Our gifts allow us to create our unique value. It is creating our unique value that gives us the most joy. Charles loved sport. Because he loved it he became good at it.

Even when he was too old to be good at it he enjoyed assisting others to
express themselves through sport.

Keys:

• enjoy being yourself. You are totally great just the way you are. 
  That is your no. 1 mission. If you don't enjoy being you, nothing else will do it for you.
• when you know yourself, you will know what you do that gives you the most satisfaction. i.e. feeling fully alive
• focus on doing what enables you to feel and be at your best... and growing.

Stockholm. Out in front of us is a field of faces looking up as we address these Human Resource Managers from around Sweden on the future of leadership. At first we didn't notice. It was a face that caught our attention on the left about five seats in. We glance back again. A woman. Dark hair. Middle aged...but she's crying.

"What did we say? How did we upset her. Who else is crying?"

We scan the audience. No one.

At coffee-break we make our way through the crowd looking. There she is, by herself. The tears have gone but her shoulders are still down.

"You were crying during our address."

"Yes I was."...and she shared her story.

Non-Genuine Leadership:

"Ten years ago I set up what became Sweden's number one headhunting agency selecting managers.

As I listened to your talk, I realised I have been selecting the wrong people to manage. I know it now. It is all so clear. They have been the ones who are ambitious with something to prove; wanting to control others to do do what they want.  They come back to us for new positions to further their careers and I can see how it has been for those they once managed.

Once they are appointed managers they like the power and enjoy the control. Being over controlled, those under them shrink. They give up in a way. Give up on having their own say. When they do that they give up taking initiative and just accept instruction. They compromise to fit in to keep their jobs and in a sense they become less because they feel less.

Those managers then believe they are irreplaceable. That their people are in someway inferior and need supervision and to be told what to do. But it is they that have turned their people into passive followers. They are not like that. They become like that.

Genuine Leadership:

It does not have to be that way. I know some managers, very few, I think there is only a handful over the last ten years who are different and they are exceptional. They are the ones who encourage and support their people to recognise and use their strengths, helping them to excel and to stretch and grow. And how well their companies grow as a result! Their companies are always the top performers.

Their people will walk over burning coals for them.

I made a decision when I was sitting there. I am going to sell my firm."

"What will you do?" we ask feeling surprised.

"I will become a coach, a management coach and help managers to be the best they can be so they can help their people to be the same. That's what I'll do."

That was the last time we saw her. We left...she to her seat and we to the stage.

As we made our way through the people, inside we felt a deep sense of satisfaction: something we had said had made a difference.

Who is a genuine leader:

• who puts her peoples' interests first. If their interests are served, then her people will be better able to serve the interests of their organisation
• who selects the  "right" people. The ones who's values match those of the organisation. Who selects firstly, according to the persons character as demonstrated by their experience. Secondly, according to their aptitudes and skills. Thirdly, according to the assessments of those who they maybe working with. Fifthly, according to their qualifications depending on the work sector
• who sees herself as both a human resource manager and a business manager...no people = no business
• who validates each person for who they are
• who acknowledges their accomplishments both in their personal growth and in their work
• who encourages self-responsibility and self-initiative
• who empowers her people ensuring they have the authority to make their decisions and to work in ways that play to their strengths to best meet the needs of the organisation

...and these are not all.

Genuine leaders really understand that it is peoples strengths, abilities, attitudes and behaviours that create customer, business and social value. Businesses and other kinds of human organisations don't create value. People do. That is what Genuine Leadership is all about.

Please add other genuine leadership qualities you think are important and share your real-life stories of genuine leaders you have worked for.