The 9 Disciplines of a Facilitator Review

By Jon C. Jenkins and Maureen R. Jenkins
Published by Jossey-Bass, 2006
ISBN-10: 0787980684

This book is about the most difficult thing any leader can do: master themselves. Leaders have always faced doubt, anxiety, and cynicism. Some of the world’s oldest stories talk about leaders like Odysseus, Moses, and Siddhartha facing their own dark sides. Leaders need ways to continually restore their personal energy, maintain respect for both the people they work with and themselves, and find new sources of ideas and inspiration.

The situation today is especially pressing. There is a new paradigm today for what organizations are, and this is dramatically changing what people expect from one another in the workplace. Organizations today call for growing levels of personal commitment and creativity from their employees, and employees expect organizational transparency, meaningful work, and significant participation and influence on the quality of life in the workplace. There is an awareness of mutual dependence between leader and follower. A new way of leading is emerging—facilitative leadership.

Facilitative leadership calls on leaders not only to project personal commitment, innovation, and charisma themselves, but also to call it forth from their colleagues. In short, leadership today means powerful self-mastery. This book, written by IAF members and current Board of Directors members Maureen and Jon Jenkins, gives nine ways to work on mastering yourself divided into three developmental pathways -- regarding others, regarding yourself, and regarding the world. While not a self improvement manual, the book aims at the practitioner, and includes a wealth of reflective material, exercises, and tips for maintaining a personal practice.