Leading with NLP

140 Leading with NLP

All leaders work with or outside boundaries. In the most
extreme cases, leaders like Martin Luther King, Mahatma
Gandhi or the Chinese student leaders in Tiananmen
Square work outside the largest boundary – the laws of the
country – in order to change them. They also have to work
outside the other boundaries – the local community laws
and their own internal rules – to do this. Some leaders work
outside the local rules of their community while still inside
the national laws. But all leaders have to challenge their own
rules of conduct. A leader has to venture outside accepted
rules and norms, not necessarily in an iconoclastic or violent
way (although some leaders do), but in a spirit of explo-
ration. Leaders journey into unknown territory – unknown
for them and for the others who follow them. This means as
a leader you must be ready to expand your personal bound-
aries, to take a risk, to do what you are afraid to do. If you
want a comfortable and quiet life with no change, do not
seek to be a leader (and don’t follow one either).

Ethics

and

morals

Self-imposed rules

of behaviour

Community rules

Laws