Poetry is a street fighter. It has sharp elbows. It can look after itself. Poetry can't be used for manipulation; it's why you never see good poetry in advertising.
David WhyteRead
One of the great difficulties as you rise up through an organisation is that your prior competencies are exploded and broken apart by the territory you've been promoted into: the field of human identity.
Interpretation
What this quote means
As you advance in an organization, your previous skills may become irrelevant due to new challenges involving human relationships and identity.
David Whyte highlights a common challenge leaders face when they ascend within an organization: the skills and competencies that helped them succeed in their previous roles may not necessarily apply in their new positions. The transition to higher levels of leadership often requires a deeper understanding of human dynamics and identity, which can be significantly different from technical or operational expertise.
Themes
LeadershipCompetenceHuman IdentityOrganizationGrowth
In practice
Example use cases
In a leadership seminar focused on career advancement.
More from David Whyte
All quotes →Poetry is often the art of overhearing yourself say things you didn't know you knew. It is a learned skill to force yourself to articulate your life, your present world or your possibilities for the future.
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By definition, poetry works with qualities and dynamics that mainstream society is reluctant to face head-on. It's an interesting phenomenon that by necessity, poetry is just below the radar.
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The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears
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The severest test of work today, is not of our strategies, but of our imaginations and identities.
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We learn, grow and become compassionate and generous as much through exile as homecoming, as much through loss as gain, as much through giving things away as in receiving what we believe to be our due.
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