A special art exhibit came to the Denver Art Museum recently and I had the opportunity to visit with my family. Becoming van Gogh brought to Denver a diversity of van Gogh’s art from museums and private collections around the world and took seven years to organize.
The idea behind the exhibit was to share van Gogh’s decade long journey of development and influence as a post-impressionist artist. van Gogh’s art career started later in life and lasted only a decade. This was interesting, but discovering he created 2,100 works of art in that short time span added a deeper wonder.
The exhibit told a compelling story about his development as an artist. His primary signature, the use of vibrant colors in his painting is what we remember about his art, but his use of perspective is an overlooked aspect.
The early work in perspective was interesting, because his work was expressed more as a point-of-view – 2 dimensional, rather that the expected three dimensional view. His early focus was clearly oriented toward the strong expression of identity in people he drew and painted. Later, he began the challenge of sketching and painting landscape, with a desire to improve his work in perspective.
It was clear from the progression of his work, his work in perspective improved. The improvement came through persistence and the use of a supporting devise called a perspective frame. But, the depth and angle of perspective always remained a bit two dimensional, with an odd twist, which added to his uniqueness as an artist.
Moving through the exhibit, from his earliest works to his more mature pieces, I reflected on the parallel between van Gogh’s growth and the growth of many of my client leaders. Examining the notion of point-of-view (POV) versus perspective from the context of leadership core competencies, a pattern emerged from my thinking.
An effective leader stands in their leadership from a certain place, like the functional title of Vice-President of Marketing or Sr. Director of IT. A POV about accountability, responsibility and accomplishment within their organization and department. The focus is on two dimensional results, mostly directed toward their team, group, department or organization. A more comprehensive picture is missing from a leader, leading from their POV.
Leading from a POV is easy to identify. While those leaders may be effective managers, every leadership decision is a bit skewed one way or another. The ‘picture’ within the context of their leadership, is missing other dimensions that inspire people to rise to a higher level. A leader focused on their POV have a difficult time getting out from underneath the daily fire drill and tactics. Great leaders seek perspective…a three dimensional view of themselves, their people and their organization.
Shifting from a point-of-view to a perspective means leaving the single positional view to perceive all the positions at every angle, standing in the possibility of the best result for everyone and the organization. What Albert Vicere calls, “Big Picture Perspective: The ability to rise above details and activities to see a situation in terms of correlations, patterns, and potential.”
How to accomplish the transition from POV leader to Perspective leader? What is the leadership equivalent of van Gogh’s perspective frame?
- The first place to start, reflect on your behavior as a leader. Are you inviting all the perspectives to ‘sit at the table’ of your leadership? What would it look, feel, sound like to have each perspective, no matter how contrary to your own, available.
- If those voices are missing, then strive to listen in a different way. Listening for all the voices who might contribute to the perspective creates the context of perspective.
- Know and identify your boundaries. The frame of the ‘perspective frame’ provides a boundary, determining what belongs in the picture and what doesn’t.
- And, allow the ‘lines of perspective’, within your leadership, to converge and align to the multidimensional picture of your organization.
