Colorful Leadership

What to do when Opinions Differ and
Objectives Conflict

Colorful Leadership
by Steve Wille,
with Bill Kuhn and Larry Nelson

Sometimes we need to take off our rose colored glasses and look through glasses of a different color.  Colorful leaders spin the filters to get a clear, rich, natural color image based on seeing multiple perspectives.  Perception is not reality but it matters a great deal. How others feel, is just as important as what they think. and where they want to go, matters a great deal, too.  The colorful leadership discipline is to look for the zone of overlap. You cannot have the complete picture without all three images.

What I see is filtered by my skills, needs, and experiences. It is incomplete. The same can be said for every other person. To get the complete picture, it takes the discipline of looking through multiple filters. This is easy to say and hard to do. Actually, it is easier than you might think once you realize that you can build a pretty good picture from just three specific filters, sort of like the red, green, and blue filters in a television camera that give you the complete picture on your TV screen.

The core message of this book is we all see things differently, and that is a good thing.  Colorful Leaders intentionally look at the differences from at least three perspectives and then act appropriately from the blended view.

Steve Wille, author of Colorful Leadership, is a senior applications manager at Great-West Life and Annuity. He has over 25 years experience in corporate information technology management. His article on Constructive Conflict has been published internationally. Steve is a PMP (Project Management Professional) and has developed multiple large information technology systems from the ground up. Steve's MBA degree is from Regis University in Denver, and his BSBA degree is from the University of Denver. 

Black and White Leadership - Interview with Steve Wille

What better way to understand Colorful Leadership than to take out the color and see in black and white. Black and white leadership is pretty good leadership. It is good enough. Excellence is overrated. Most of us want to go to work, have fund, get paid, and go home to our families. Colorful Leadership can take you further, and it requires discipline. You need to look at every situation from several perspectives before making decisions and planning a course of action.