172 Leading with NLP
With a system there is no ‘right’ perspective. You build
your understanding from multiple perspectives. All are par-
tially true and all are limited. NLP supplies three of these
perspectives.
First, you have your own view of any situation – your own
beliefs, opinions and values. This is how it appears to you;
you are in your own reality, with its characteristic and famil-
iar filters and ways of evaluating. Like it or not, it’s yours.
NLP calls this ‘first position’.^1 Leaders need a strong first po-
sition. They need to know themselves and their values so
they can be an effective role model and influence others by
example.
Leaders don’t, however, need to know themselves to the
degree of imposing their reality on everyone else. They need
to periodically clamber out of first position and imagine
what it is like to be in someone else’s shoes. NLP calls this
‘second position’ – the ability to make a creative leap of
imagination to understand the world from another person’s
point of view, to think in the way they think. Second position
is the basis of empathy and rapport, and with it comes the
skill to pace others. It gives us the ability to appreciate other
people’s feelings. Understanding how other people feel is
the first step towards leading them where they want to go.
‘Third position’ is a step outside your view and the other
person’s view to a detached perspective. There you can see
the connection and relationship between the two viewpoints.
I would add two more perspectives to these three. There
is another jump to a fourth position that lets you see your re-
lationship in the context of a wider system. For example,
suppose you quarrel with another manager. You know your
own point of view – you think he is overbearing. You go to
second position and understand that he sees you as too sen-
sitive. Neither of these opinions is ‘true’, they are just points
of view. You go to third position and see that the more over-
bearing he becomes, the quieter you become and the more
you resent his attitude. The quieter you become, the more
he tries to push you to become more outgoing. Now you can
see that relationship in the context of the business, how your