Insights · 18 August 2014
Leadership retreat or immersion?
For several years I have been thinking about where in the world you could run a truly good, intensive three-to-four-day programme with room for immersion for leaders. Along the way I realised that the word retreat is part of the problem.
There are plenty of programmes of that kind, but in my view few of them show how to train leaders concretely for their future leadership — and not merely for a brief reset. It often becomes a run-through of popular theories and concepts, a little yoga and a cup of herbal tea.
A retreat is a withdrawal
A retreat is essentially a withdrawal. It rarely creates progress, not even on a personal level. I believe leaders need immersion far more — a descent into their own universe, where in humility you learn to listen to yourself as a basic prerequisite for being able to listen to others, and where you identify the unrealised potential we all possess.
It does not help much to get a breathless pause, only to be overwhelmed by harsh reality again. You have to change yourself before you try to change the world: learn concretely to handle chaos and find calm in the eye of the storm.
It can be trained
Calm under pressure is not a personality trait you either have or do not have. It can be trained — but it requires that you are put in situations where it is genuinely difficult, and that there is structured reflection afterwards. That is why we build our own intensive leadership programmes as immersion with tasks and responsibility, not as a break from reality.
Written by Mads Cronquist. Originally published in Danish on cronquist.dk (18 August 2014) under the title “Leder retreat eller fordybelse - hvor?” — here in an edited English version.