In case you haven't read Part 1, below are the questions I set out to share my thoughts on as a result of my trip to South Africa in 2022. This is part two of an eight part blog series.

Why is racial healing needed, particularly at this undefinable epoch?

How do racial healing and leadership, a potent combination, rise to meet some of the unforeseen challenges we will likely face in the next several years?

PART 2: Leading From Within Self-Awareness

Another common theme or characteristic of a leader echoed throughout the semester was leading from within. All the writers argued that fundamental leadership traits are self-awareness and courage. Both are required to go against popular opinion and to lead effectively. At the heart of their leadership thesis is that a person must overcome personal fears and challenges to prepare to stand amid unpopular decisions, organizational complexities, and compromises.

In  Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces, the author compares the process of the hero overcoming personal challenges to a transformative process - similar to a new birth. [1] Simon Walker compared the growth process to someone undergoing severe trials, emptied and freed from all entanglements. [2]

The leadership process of becoming self-aware and being able to stand courageously is daunting. Not everyone can endure the journey's hardships. Walker writes on page 19 that when leaders do not free themselves of the entanglements or overcome the severe trials, they may resort to anger and bitterness. If this occurs, their leadership style will most likely be plagued by manipulation and coercion of their followers. [3]

Another concept that can correlate to a leader overcoming fears is the threshold concept discussed by Land and Meyer in their book Threshold Concepts. The high-level discourse of threshold concepts is moving beyond boundaries in our mind, embracing confusion and being willing to co-exist with a lens that magnifies and distorts simultaneously. [4]

Although threshold concepts were intended for the academic setting when I think about the personal leadership challenges I've experienced - the boundaries in my mind are analogous to the fears experienced as expressed by Walker, and Campbell. Going through any challenge based on fear was sometimes comparable to embracing my own Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - which is synonymous with the lens that distorts and magnifies simultaneously. In retrospect, overcoming fears has been a common thread throughout my studies this semester. 

This tension between self-awareness and trials can be palatable. Later in the series I'll talk more about how my experience in South Africa helped me to resolve some of my own tensions and fears.

[1] Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, 3rd ed. (Novato: New World Library), 74-77.

[2] Simon Walker, Leading Out of Who You Are Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership (Kindle Edition: Piquant Editions, 2007), 19.

[3] Ibid, 19.

[4] Breaking Through: Threshold Concepts as a Key to Understanding | Robert Coven | TEDx Cary Academy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCPYSKSFky4