A Construction Metaphor

 

 Chapter 3

A Construction Metaphor and Analogy

A young JJ in the back of Dad's truck next to his chainsaw
getting wood up the mountain near our home in Monticello, Utah.

All of my life, I have been fascinated by construction of all kinds. My dad was, among other things, a general contractor by profession. From ages three to seven, during the time I lived in southeastern Utah, I eagerly accompanied Dad everywhere I could. I was especially excited to tag along if he was heading somewhere that involved heavy machinery, power tools, lumber, concrete, bricks and mortar, or the hardware store. At age seven, my career plan was to someday be a builder—just like Dad.

While I did not end up pursuing a career in construction, architecture, or engineering, my interest in certain principles and processes pursuant to these subjects is alive and well to this day.  

Nature's wonders, including the famous
Delicate Arch in Utah, were the closest
things to a skyscraper that I grew up near.

Something else I've always been enamored with is city skylines and the skyscrapers that form them. 

Growing up in a tiny rural community in the middle of the sparsely inhabited, mountainous deserts of the Four Corners area of the United States, skyscrapers were nowhere to be found—unless you consider mammoth rock formations (e.g. Shiprock, Agathla Peak (aka: El Capitan), Delicate Arch, Natural Bridges, etc.) to be skyscrapers. Perhaps this geographic isolation from urban areas further fueled my fervor to eventually visit what were, for me, elusive cityscapes—an ambition I vigorously pursued as a young adult.  

Over the years, I've had the extraordinary opportunity to visit nearly every metropolitan area in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. From the magnificent dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in London to the cavernous city centers of Lower and Midtown Manhattan; from the unique urban sprawls of Chicago and Toronto to the endless beach condominium towers of Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties in Florida; and from the spectacular southern skylines of Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Miami, to the wondrous West Coast cityscapes of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver, I have been continually entranced with and thrilled by such sights.  

With my kids in Dubai, UAE.
January 2025

Recently, my family and I traveled to the Middle East where we had the chance to visit Dubai and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and Doha, Qatar. Touring these ultra-modern cities—including the tallest building in the world at the time (Burj Khalifa)—was icing on top of the cake of this lifelong hobby of mine—and I know that similar modern marvels exist throughout the world, and more especially in East Asia and Indonesia. 

What a marvelous time to be alive! 

This lifelong interest in construction and skyscrapers led me to design the SAL Model using high-rise construction as a metaphor. Just as there are certain physical laws, principles, and practices of architecture and engineering that apply to the sound construction of building, bridges, dams, and homes, there are likewise certain metaphysical laws, principles, and practices of Self-Action Leadership that govern Existential Growth and successful long-term living. 

The SAL Model provides YOU and me with the incredible opportunity to envision, design, engineer, and then build your own life and/or career. What could be more exciting and engaging than developing and then directing your own destiny?  

SAR and SAL Projects

The purpose of the SAL Model is to identify disciplines and establish habits that will empower your ability to conduct self-action research in your life and career. 

What is self-action research, or SAR? 

SAR is action research applied by, to, and for the SELF.

As you may recall from BOOK the THIRD, Chapter 2, action research (AR) refers to: A four-step cyclical process of identifying and strategically solving problems. By way of review, action research also involves "four core processes." (1)

These four processes include:

Process 1:  PLANNING            Deciding how to deal with a problem.

Process 2:  ACTING                  Implementing your plan.             

Process 3:  OBSERVING          Paying attention and recording what is happening.

Process 4:  REFLECTING       Analyzing outcomes and revising plans for another cycle of acting. (2) 

Self-action research, or SAR, is the application of action research to the self. It is directly related to SAL and is defined as: action research applied by, to, and for the self to gain self-awareness, aid self-improvement, and solve personal problems. 

ACTION  RESEARCH

Action research applied by, to, and for the self to gain self-awareness,

aid self-improvement, and solve personal problems.  

The purpose of self-action research (SAR) is to strategically apply SAL principles in an effort to achieve specific, targeted objectives related to your own character development and personal growth. Self-action leaders can do this by engaging in a SAR project, which is defined as: A self-led research experiment or project aimed at increasing self-awareness, aiding self-improvement, and solving personal problems. 

Self-Action Research (SAR) Project

A self-led research experiment or project aimed at increasing self-awareness, aiding

self-improvement, solving personal problems, and bolstering Existential Growth.

Like any action research project or initiative, the goal of self-action research (SAR) is to learn, improve, and grow by strategically applying the four (4) core processes of action research (AR) to the self. A SAR project is similar to a SAL project, which is defined as: A self-led personal initiative aimed at achieving long-term objectives in the domain of Existential Growth for self and others. 

Self-Action Leadership (SAL) Project

A self-led personal initiative aimed at achieving long-term objectives

in the domain of Existential Growth for self and others.  

These definitions are similar in their substance and desired ends. There are, however, important distinctions between the two. In the 2017 academic journal article introducing the SAL Model in the Journal of Leadership and Management, my colleagues and I clarified the difference between SAR and SAL Projects thusly: 

"In a sense, SAR projects are conceptually indistinct from SAL projects because in both cases, the end goal is always to do what is right in the pursuit of long-term existential growth for oneself and others. The main differentiating factor between the two involves time frames. For example, SAR projects primarily deal with micro issues and goals that can often be addressed and completed (or solved) in relatively short periods of time (e.g., days, weeks, and months). SAL projects, on the other hand, deal primarily with macro issues that usually take much longer periods of time to address and complete, or solve (e.g., years, decades, or more). As such, SAR projects are more akin to short- and mid-term goals, while SAL projects focus on longer-term goals in support of one's personal and professional statements of vision and mission. SAR projects, therefore, serve as smaller, piecemeal initiatives within a context of much larger SAL endeavors. (3)

Another way of conceptualizing these terms is to view YOUR LIFE as one grand SAL Project that can then be filled with a variety of SAR Projects that facilitate your ongoing quest for Existential Growth (4). 

Or, you might view life as being filled with a few (or several) overarching and extremely important SAL Projects, each one of which is then broken down into a variety of smaller SAR Projects that collectively serve as the engine driving your long-term progress upwards into the higher levels of the SAL Hierarchy. 

The SAL Model incorporates the four (4) core processes of action research into four (4) analogous stages of SAL-oriented action. These stages—and their 23 sub-stages (or step-habits)—of SAL are likened to the stages of building a skyscraper. 

They form a practicum aimed at helping you develop the character and habits that lead to Existential Growth. Thus, the SAL Model is defined as: A comprehensive academic model of Self-Action Leadership and character development rooted in action research theory and construction science and metaphor. 

SAL  Model

A comprehensive academic model of Self-Action Leadership and character development

rooted in action research theory and construction science and metaphor.  

Self-Action Leadership MODEL

FOUR (4) Stages and TWENTY-THREE (23) Sub-Stages (or Step-Habits) of

Construction and Self-Action Leadership

Construction Process

STAGE 1: Pre-Building

    Step 1:  Gathering Information

    Step 2:  Consultation

    Step 3:  Acquiring and allotting financial resources

    Step 4:  Obtaining approvals and permits

    Step 5:  Planning and scheduling

    Step 6:  Assembling a cohesive team and crew

    Step 7:  Drafting blueprints

STAGE 2: Building the Foundation

    Step 1:  Conducting geological surveys

    Step 2:  Drilling down to bedrock

    Step 3:  Anchoring concrete/steel piles to bedrock

    Step 4:  Pouring a steel-reinforced concrete slab

    Step 5:  Earthquake proofing

STAGE 3: Building the Superstructure

    Step 1:  Punctually showing up to the work site

    Step 2:  Concrete, steel, wood, glass, brick, mortar, and drywall

    Step 3:  Plumbing, wiring, and insulation

    Step 4:  Carpeting, painting, and interior

    Step 5:  Landscaping

STAGE 4: Maintenance and Upgrades

    Step 1:  Security

    Step 2:  Structural reviews, safety checks, and quality controls

    Step 3:  Maintenance

    Step 4:  Blueprints review

    Step 5:  Inventory and change recommendations

    Step 6:  Replacements, renovations, and upgrades

Construction Process

Self-Action Leadership Process

STAGE 1: Planning & Preparation

    Step-habit 1:  Self-Education

    Step-habit 2:  Build Relationships

    Step-habit 3:  Self-Awareness

    Step-habit 4:  Self-Organization

    Step-habit 5:  Self-Recording

    Step-habit 6:  Self-Oneness

    Step-habit 7:  SAL-Constitution

STAGE 2: Developing an Integrity-Based Character

    Step-habit 1:  Honesty

    Step-habit 2:  Humility

    Step-habit 3:  Reverence

    Step-habit 4:  Rectification

    Step-habit 5:  Service

STAGE 3: Taking Action

    Step-habit 1:  Self-Discipline

    Step-habit 2:  Self-Action in public

    Step-habit 3:  Self-Action in private

    Step-habit 4:  World Altering Strategies*

    Step-habit 5:  Self-Rewards and Natural rewards*

STAGE 4: Observation, Analysis, and Change

    Step-habit 1:  Self-Observation*

    Step-habit 2:  Self-Analysis

    Step-habit 3:  Self-Renewal

    Step-habit 4:  Purpose Examination*

    Step-habit 5:  External Feedback

    Step-habit 6:  Self-Alterations

*See Footnote 5

Self-Action Leadership Model

The remainder of BOOK the FIFTH will explain in detail what each of these four (4) stages and 23 step-habits entail.  

If you are ready to dive in and begin studying the academic and practical nitty gritty of the SAL Model...

    Then keep reading!  

In Your Journal

• What personal or professional challenges are you presently facing that might make a good self-action research (SAR) Project within a larger Self-Action Leadership (SAL) initiative or objective?  

• What do you want your own skyscraper (LIFE) to look like two, five, ten, twenty, or fifty years from now?  

 

—Dr. JJ

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA

Author's Note: This is the 428th Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013 and the 236th consecutive weekly blog published since August 31, 2020.   

Click HERE for a compete listing of the other 427 FF Blog Articles 

Click HERE for a complete listing of Freedom Focused SAL QUOTES  

Click HERE for a complete listing of Freedom Focused SAL POEMS   

Click HERE to access the FULL TEXT of Dr. JJ's Psalms of Life: A Poetry Collection

Click HERE for a complete listing of Self-Action Leadership Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Fitness, Heath, & Wellness Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Biographical & Historical Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Current Events, Cultural, Philosophical, & Miscellaneous Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Dr. JJ's Autobiographical Articles

.........................

Tune in NEXT Wednesday for another article on a Self-Action Leadership related topic.  

If you liked this blog post, please share it with your family, friends, colleagues, and students—and encourage them to bookmark this blog to access a new FREE article every Wednesday.

Click HERE to buy the SAL Textbooks  

Chapter 3 Notes

1.  Kuhne, G. W., & Quigley, B. A. (1997). Understanding and Using Action Research in Practice Settings. In A. B. Quigley & G. W. Kuhne (Eds.), Creating Practical Knowledge Through Action Research: Posing problems, Solving Problems, and Improving Daily Practice (Vol. 73, pp. 23-40). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Page 25.

2.  Ibid.

3.  Jensen, Beaulieu, and Neck (2018). “The Self-Action Leadership Model: A Qualitative, Nomological Expansion of Self-Leadership Theory Rooted in Action Research.” Journal of Leadership and Management. 11(2018). Pgs. 10-30. ISSN: 2391-6087. Page 17.

4.  An outstanding example of a venerable self-action leader who dedicated his life to self-action research is Mohandas Gandhi. He wrote about his many SAR projects, or his “Experiments with Truth,” in an autobiography—a book I highly recommend to all self-action leaders.

5.  Neck C.P., and Manz, C.M. (2010). Mastering Self-Leadership: Empowering Yourself for Personal Excellence (Fifth Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Pages 15, 17, 19, 21, 27, 38. 

The BUILDERS

 

VOLUME II

An Action Research-Based Character Development Model

BOOK the FIFTH

The Self-Action Leadership MODEL

Dedicated to...

My Father—Rex Buckley Jensen—A BUILDER

Rex Buckley Jensen
Circa 1979

And to all BUILDERS—Yesterday, Today, and Forever

Bank of America Plaza
Structural Template for the SAL Model
Downtown Atlanta
Georgia, USA

Construction Process

Self-Action Leadership Model

 Chapter 1

The Builders 

I have always admired BUILDERS.

My dad was a builder. 

Dad with my four older brothers on the construction site
of our family home where I lived for 11 of my first 18 years.
Circa 1975

In conjunction with his two-decade career in education as a middle and high school classroom teacher, he was also a licensed contractor in the construction industry. Over the course of my dad's eclectic building career, he built or assembled 76 homes (including our own), 43 apartment units, a log cabin, and many other projects involving wood, brick, sand, soil, stone, and/or flora.

Always an entrepreneur at heart, Dad also started a business building custom-made shelves in customer's garages. He did this—and a variety of other side gigs over the years—to supplement his modest teacher's salary; raising seven kids was not cheap!

JJ kneeling next to a set of finished garage shelves
as an employee of JB Shelving.
Circa 2001

Dad started his shelving business in the late 1980s when my family lived in Mesa, Arizona. My older brothers and I worked in Dad's business during the years we lived at home.

Years later, three of my older brothers carried on Dad's business model in northern Utah to supplement their own incomes as college students and then later as teachers themselves. When I got to college, I also worked in my brothers' business as the lowest grunt on the crew. One brother continues the shelving business today as JB Shelving ("JB" stands for Jensen Brother) working alongside next-generation family members.

Dad's apartment complex under construction
Monticello, Utah
Circa early 1980s.

Click HERE to visit JB Shelving's current website and see Dad's legacy live on through his sons and grandchildren.    

After retiring from his career in construction, education, photography, real estate, trampoline sales, and everything else he did over the years, Dad did something that was classically him. At age 65, he and my step-mom set to work building their dream home on their own land with their own four hands and an occasional hired hand or two. 

Now, you must understand, Dad's dream home is no modest retirement cottage. It is a 47-foot high, 5-story, 8,000 square foot mountain abode complete with four wood-burning fireplaces, a library with thousands of books, a home theater, and other features emblematic of he and my step-mom's unique personalities and stylistic preferences. 

This project would have been audaciously ambitious for a 35-year-old ace builder in the prime of his life. For Dad—a retired senior citizen pushing 70—it proved to be one of the most painstaking, yet pleasurable and satisfying undertakings of his life. At one point during the framing process, a strong gust of wind blew down the first two stories of walls. That didn't stop Dad. He simply cleaned up the mess and began again; that's just the kind of man he is.

It took them many years to get the home fully livable, but they have now lived contentedly in it for nearly a decade—and they continue to work on the ongoing project today, despite Dad's advancing age of 83! 

With my Dad in front of our family home he built.
Monticello, Utah
Circa 1982

Infinitely more important than any of his material construction achievements, my father helped my mother build a family of seven children, which would later be joined by seven spouses and 31 grandchildren. 

I greatly admire both of my parents because of the things—and more importantly the lives—they have either built or helped to build through their many talents and efforts in the world of parenting, construction, education, sales, and many other fields.  

For these reasons, I chose to dedicate BOOK the FIFTH to Dad, whom I love and admire as my father, and more specifically to my Parents, both of whom were extraordinary human beings and impressive builders in their own ways and right. 

As a wee lad growing up in rural southeastern Utah, I was a classic "Daddy's Boy." Wherever my dad was, that was where I wanted to be; and wherever my dad went, that is where I wanted to go. 

It was a thrilling time and place to be a little boy because my dad was always on the move and continually working on a wide array of different construction-oriented projects. From getting wood up the mountain to building flower beds in the backyard; and from pouring concrete walks to adding on to the house, it seemed there was always something new and exciting going on around the land he owned and the home and apartments he built.  

A very young JJ on an outdoor
adventure with Dad.
Circa 1984

Throughout my childhood, one of Dad's and my favorite things to do together was visit dams, and especially new earthen dam under construction. He'd drive up as close as possible to the dam site so we could soak in the beautiful views of massive bulldozers, dump trucks, excavators, and wheel tractor scrapers busy at work. Those gargantuan earthen (or concrete) dams were as beautiful to Dad and I as they are functional and important to society. Watching those enormous machines at work on such projects always provided us with a thrill.   

To this day, one of my hobbies is to visit construction sites and watch experts build homes, buildings, roads, bridges, and skyscrapers. I especially admire master masons and have a special place in my heart for bricklayers. To me, it is awe-inspiring to behold a mason mix and then manipulate mortar into creative and precise outlays of beautiful brick or elegant stone.

To me, some of the most glorious sights and sounds in all the world come from an artist or builder as he or she fashions something with one's hands that is either attractive, useful, or both. 

Crooked brick and mortar garden box Dr. JJ built himself
Conroe (Houston) Texas
Circa 2013

When I was a young husband and father, I lived for nearly a decade in the greater Houston, Texas area—one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the United States—where, much to my glee, there was never any shortage of building, housing, and highway projects underway. Such work is marvelous in my eyes, partly because it is so important and useful to society, and partly because I lack the knowledge and skills to replicate it effectively on my own—as the crooked brick garden box in my Texas backyard attests!  

BOOK the FIFTH is further dedicated to BUILDERS in general—meaning anyone who has ever built anything sturdy and useful, including: homes, buildings, bridges, offices, schools, skyscrapers, furniture, machines, tools, computers, needful products and services of all kinds, pedagogical texts and curricula, good books, honest and upright governments, nations, states, communities, organizations, and most importantly—families, marriages, and individual lives of character, integrity, and virtue.  

Anyone can be a critic or a cynic, and sadly our world is full of both. 

It doesn't take much creativity, education, or planning to critique, criticize, or tear something down. But it takes an authentic, courageous, knowledgeable, skilled, determined, and persistent person to build something up.  

SAL Mantra

Anyone can tear something down.

But it takes a self-action leader to build something up!

This Life Leadership textbook was written in hopes that YOU might become a BUILDER of whatever it is your talents, skills, education, and drive equip you to construct. More importantly, it was written to help and inspire you in the construction of the most important building project of all—your own character and life, and the lives you will touch and influence.  

Become a BUILDER

The world has too many critics; it needs more creators. 

        The world has too many theorists; it needs more practitioners.

                The world has too much deconstruction; it needs more construction and reconstruction.

        The world has too many pundits and planners; it needs more players and producers. 

The world is full of good ideas, noble dreams, and worthy visions; it needs more people who realize them. (1)

I therefore salute the builders; and call upon every man, woman, boy, and girl

        In this world who is not a builder to become one.

                Join me, and together we'll make something magnificent of your life.

        And in the process, imagine, create, and build things that will leave the world a better place

Than you found it, making YOU one of the honored and revered persons known simply as:

A BUILDER.

—Dr. JJ

Constructive Poetry

As a grade school student at Hermosa Vista Elementary in Mesa, Arizona, I began a love affair with poetry that has continued to deepen and mature throughout my life. 

Excerpt from Chaucer in Old English
Geoffrey Chaucer is considered the
"Father of English Poetry" 

It all began in fifth grade when my teacher, Bridgette Owens—who was passionate about poetry herself—serially introduced my classmates and I to a collection of famous poems—one each week of the school year. Among these poems were: Paul Revere's Ride and Casey at the Bat.

This budding passion for poetry was further fueled the following year when my sixth grade teacher, Nell Jean, assigned us to compile a personalized poetry anthology of our favorite poems from famous authors in conjunction with our own budding attempts at haiku, limerick, verse, and free verse. 

These assignments were landmark literary adventures for my budding intellect and served as liberal draughts of poetic ambrosia quenching the thirst of my prosodic proclivities. In time, I came to especially appreciate, enjoy, and value poems composed with a specific, constructive, and positive purpose while still maintaining their rhythmic richness and rhyming flourish.

My personal copy of Cook's Anthology
Purchased in 2001 with birthday money
from my Grandmother Jensen

Later on, I came across a book of poetry in my dad's office library. It was a concise anthology entitled: One Hundred and One Famous Poems, edited by Roy J. Cook. 

This little volume introduced me to some of the most legendary poets and poems in the history of English and American literature. From Wordsworth and Whittier to Kipling and Guest; and from Emerson, Dickinson, Burroughs, and Wilcox to the Great War poets (i.e. Kilmer, McCrae, and Seeger), such timeless works as: Ode on Intimations of Immortality, Maud Muller, If, Home, Each and All, The Rhodora, Not in Vain, Waiting, Solitude, Trees, In Flanders Fields, and I Have a Rendezvous with Death—among many others—deeply impacted my mind, heart, soul, and life and inspired me to become a poet and writer myself. 

Click HERE to buy Dr. JJ's Poems

Above all, I became acquainted with the work of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose verse I have come to deeply cherish, memorize, and otherwise emblazon upon the very sinews of my soul. His poem, A Psalm of Life, which I memorably recall my Uncle Hyrum once quoting by memory from the pulpit, was one of the works that inspired me to enter the self-help and personal development field. I, of course, committed this piece to memory myself and later published a collection of my own verse, which I entitled: Psalms of Life—in honor of Longfellow and his eponymous poem.

In addition to this masterpiece and other works by Longfellow reprinted in Cook's pocket anthology (e.g. The Day is Done and The Children's Hour), I came across another masterpiece of his entitled: The Builders. Cook appropriately positioned this particular piece at the very beginning of his famous anthology, making it extra easy to stumble across as I thumbed through the pages in search of poetic gems.

You might well say that seeds of the SAL Model were planted within me the moment I first came across this magnificent nine-stanza sampling of Longfellow's finest verse.

The BUILDERS

ALL are architects of Fate,

   Working in these walls of Time;

Some with massive deeds and great,

   Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is, or low;

   Each thing in its place is best;

And what seems but idle show

   Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,

   Time is with materials filled;

Our to-days and yesterdays

   Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;

   Leave no yawning gaps between;

Think not, because no man sees,

   Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,

   Builders wrought with greatest care

Each minute and unseen part;

   For the gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,

   Both the unseen and the seen;

Make the house, where Gods may dwell,

   Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,

   Standing in these walls of Time,

Broken stairways, where the feet

   Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,

   With a firm and ample base;

And ascending and secure

   Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain

   To those turrets, where they eye

Sees the world as one vast plain,

   And one boundless reach of sky. (2) 

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This poem, and many others like it, have filled me with an appreciation for poetry's capacity to teach moral lessons in beautiful, inspiring, and memorable ways. Such poems perpetually fill my mind, heart, and soul with pleasure, joy, and gratitude, influencing me to memorize them for ready recitation at appropriate opportunities of edification, education, or just pleasure and entertainment. More significantly, they motivate me to work hard and strive diligently to make something grand out of my life—and to influence others to make something grand out of theirs.  

In Your Journal

• If you were a licensed contractor, what kinds of construction projects would you like to build, and why? 

• What kind of metaphysical construction projects (e.g. character building and personality refinement) would you like to undertake as part of your SAL Study?

• What "Builders" (e.g. leaders, parents, teachers, coaches, mentors, siblings, friends, etc.) have helped to build or otherwise positively impact your life?  

—Dr. JJ

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA

Author's Note: This is the 424th Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013 and the 233rd consecutive weekly blog published since August 31, 2020.   

Click HERE for a compete listing of the other 423 FF Blog Articles 

Click HERE for a complete listing of Freedom Focused SAL QUOTES  

Click HERE for a complete listing of Freedom Focused SAL POEMS   

Click HERE to access the FULL TEXT of Dr. JJ's Psalms of Life: A Poetry Collection

Click HERE for a complete listing of Self-Action Leadership Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Fitness, Heath, & Wellness Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Biographical & Historical Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Current Events, Cultural, Philosophical, & Miscellaneous Articles

Click HERE for a complete listing of Dr. JJ's Autobiographical Articles

.........................

Tune in NEXT Wednesday for another article on a Self-Action Leadership related topic.  

If you liked this blog post, please share it with your family, friends, colleagues, and students—and encourage them to bookmark this blog to access a new FREE article every Wednesday.

Click HERE to buy the SAL Textbooks  

Chapter 1 Notes

1.  The literary style and syntax employed in this otherwise original poem was borrowed from a similar style used in paragraph 16 of an October 2000 speech entitled, The Joy of Womanhood, by Margaret D. Nadauld. My thanks to Mrs. Nadauld for inspiring me with her stirring delivery and well-crafted prose, which I have seen fit to imitate herein.

2.  Longfellow, H.W. The Day is Done, reprinted from The Poetical Works of Longfellow (1912). Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press. Page 186.

Self-Action Leadership Model: A Construction Metaphor

I have always been fascinated by construction. When I was growing up, my Dad was, among many other things, a general contractor. From ages three to seven, I was the ultimate “Daddy’s Boy,” and eagerly followed Dad around wherever he went, especially when our excursions involved trucks, heavy equipment, power tools, lumber, and concrete or mortar. My interest in construction principles and processes remains alive and well to this day.

Builders: The Self-Action Leadership Model

The Self-Action Leadership Model

Dedicated to:
The builders … past, present, and future

Self-Action Research & Existential Growth

In my last post, I explained that Self-Action Leadership differs from just plain self-leadership in that Self-Action Leadership must contribute to the long-term well being of self and others.

In making this contrast, I described how evil people like Adolf Hitler could be described as effective self-leaders in the short run.  These people could never be described as effective Self-Action Leaders because their actions are destructive in the long run.

According to my dissertation, Self-Action Leadership is:

The strategic, lifelong practice of Self-Action Research aimed at maximizing one’s Self-Leadership Efficacy for the purpose of contributing to the long-term well being of self and others (JJensen Dissertation, Vol. 1).  

Self-Action Research is action research conducted by and applied to the self.  What then, is action research?  It is a method of identifying and solving problems.  It has four steps, or stages: 1) Planning & Preparation, 2) Taking Action, 3) Observation, and 4) Analysis.

Self-Action Research, then, is action research applied by and to the self to gain self-awareness, aid self-improvement, and solve personal problems.

The goal of Self-Action Leadership is to continually practice the four-step process of Self-Action Research for the purpose of achieving higher levels of Existential Growth.  According to the Self-Action Leadership Theory, there are eight levels of Existential Growth.  (Click HERE to see my book that introduces the Self-Action Leadership Theory).

Click HERE to download a copy of the Self-Action Leadership Theory as recently introduced in the Journal of Leadership & Management.     

1). Education Stage

2). Beginner’s Stage

3). Practitioner’s Stage

4). Refining Stage

5). Polishing Stage

6). Actualization Stage

7). Leadership Stage

8). Self-Transcendence

The goal of Self-Action Leadership is to practice the four steps of Self-Action Research in an effort to eventually reach the highest level of Existential Growth.

To assist self-action leaders in this process of rising steadily in their Existential Growth, I have developed the SAL Model.  This Model is based on a construction metaphor.  It utilizes the four steps used in Action Research and, by extension, Self-Action Research.  This process mirrors the same basic steps used in project management.  

Project Management Cycle ~ Building a Skyscraper (click to enlarge)

Self-Action Leadership Model ~ Building a Successful Life (click to enlarge)

In his poem entitled, The Builders, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote that, "All are architects of fate."  The Self-Action Leadership Theory and Model is designed to provide a template for the construction of your life in the same way that principles of architecture and engineering are used to construct a building.  As you learn the principles of the Theory and Model, you equip yourself with an increased capacity to successfully navigate the challenges of your life and take advantage of the opportunities that will help you to realize your potential.

"Build to-day, then, strong and sure,

With a firm and ample base ;

And ascending and secure

Shall to-morrow find its place." 

(Longfellow, The Day is Done, reprinted from The Poetical Works of Longfellow.

Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press (1912, p. 186).

Over the weekend, my wife, son, and I traveled to San Antonio, Texas. I was one of the authors invited to speak at a conference sponsored by OCD Texas, an affiliate of the International Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Foundation (IOCDF).  In my next post, I will share some of the lessons and highlights from this unique, educational experience.