Brain Aware Leadership
A 'how to' reference manual for leaders (& their coaches)
System roles impact behaviour as much as personality does
Your perception is also strongly influenced by 'stories' about your role in the system.
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Barry Oshry talks about systems as made up of Top, Middle, Bottom and Client spaces. What people experience when in these spaces is predictable - maybe exaggerated or mitigated by personality, but essentially a condition of being in the space. Just like wet feet is a condition of being in a puddle! Let me quote the introductory foreword to Oshry's book Seeing Systems...
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​​Tops are burdened by what feels like unmanageable complexity
​Bottoms are oppressed by what they see as uncaring Tops
Middles are torn between the conflicting demands and priorities coming at them
Customers are let down by non-responsive delivery
When this pattern develops, our tendency is to explain it in terms of the individuals involved or the specific nature of one’'s organisation. This pattern is neither. It is systemic. ​Unfortunately, there is also a tendency to resist this notion... this is the costly illusion of "system blindness"
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Read 'Seeing Systems' - or even better, attend an Oshry workshop. You will not regret it.