I was listening to a podcast recently in which the CEO of a high-end UK Supermarket talked about the qualities of great leadership. He ticked all my Inspirational Leadership boxes. I’ve spent many years advocating for enlightened leadership, what I call the ‘Champion Mindset’, the alchemic combination of an innovative mindset, positive energy and highly developed EQ, namely self-awareness, empathy, and the ability to delay immediate personal gratification for a deeper long-term goal of greater value. I have many examples of why this mindset is not only great for business and creating highly motivated followership, but also for the individual leaders themselves. As one client expressed it: ‘Not only have I become a better and more successful leader, but I’ve also become a better and much happier person. And this has impacted positively on those around me, in all areas of my life.’
But as I was happily agreeing to the key attributes of great leadership expressed in the podcast, the image of Trump popped into my mind, and I began to feel very troubled. Being an inspirational and enlightened leader is hard work that requires great discipline and a highly developed EQ. It requires us to connect to our ‘Higher/Best Self’, even though it’s so much easier to choose the path of least resistance and succumb to our base, primal instincts and desires, i.e. our ‘Ego/Base self.’ Why should we bother? Why take the hardest path…as leaders and/or individuals…when we see that not bothering to do so seems to work? And if our leaders don’t care about being positive role-models and behaving with integrity, then why should the rest of us do other than go for quick fix, short-term solutions, based on immediate, self-serving gratification?
At this point I want to clarify that I am not writing this article from a partisan political party position. My field is Inspirational and Enlightened Leadership not party politics and I am focussing here on what makes an enlightened leader, i.e. someone who inspires us because they are thinking and behaving from their Higher/Best Self.
The initial questions I ask my clients, all of whom are transformational change agent leaders in their specific contexts, are: ‘What kind of person do you really want to be?’; ‘What does/might your Best Self look like? and ‘How do you sabotage yourself from reaching your highest potential as a human being?’ Our subsequent focus is learning to listen to their authentic inner voice, changing any behaviours that might be getting in the way and how to communicate and connect with others with greater inspirational impact.
If the essence of leadership is establishing loyalty and followership, the key task of a leader is to bring hope, the promise of a better future leading us out of times of adversity and onto even greater success. This includes our strategic vision of course, but it is also about our passion and positive energy, motivating and encouraging others to stretch to their highest potential. And this is perhaps the greatest challenge for the individual and for the leader: we cannot inspire others authentically if we are not feeling inspired and full of hope ourselves. And to do this, we have to start with another question: what makes my heart sing? i.e. what brings me joy and passion.
So, what does it feel like to be aligned with our Higher Self? I initially experience it viscerally through my energy and my instinctual body: my heart opens and I feel a warmth and peace flowing through me. My breath becomes calm and steady, and I move from the shallow breath of my flight/fight mode to the deeper breathing we were all born with as our default mode. I experience a generosity of spirit, respect and love for myself and also for others. I feel creative, empowered and hopeful about the future with a deep sense of purpose and meaning. And I know I have the necessary inner resilience and poise to grow and influence the future I want.
And what does it feel like to operate from our base/ego self? Again, I initially experience it viscerally: my energy is tight and hard. I become judgmental of myself and others…in my ‘Critical Parent’ state… and I get stuck in my head with anxious thoughts, dissociated from my instinctual body. I lose any sense of perspective; the future looks grim and I feel very helpless and powerless. It is from this place that my self-serving, survival instinct kicks in: ‘kill or be killed with defeat/failure not an option.’ And that of course stops any learning, innovating and growth. The litmus test is how we feel about ourselves: we feel inwardly bad and ashamed but it’s too threatening to own this, so we project these feelings onto others and attack them, awkwardly explaining everything away to justify our choices…a common phrase being 'the ends justify the means'... and hoping this will make ourselves feel better. It might in the immediate term, but it never sustains. Ultimately, we all have to face ourselves in the mirror.
In a fascinating article, Edward Docx describes why ‘Trump is the nearest any modern politician comes to pure id. And one way to better understand his inauguration – and the strange folkloric spell of his seduction during the election – is to look through this lens of human story, of human archetype and psychology. Because it is on this deeper level that Trump broadcasts; it is here that he makes his powerful appeal; and it is here that he connects.’ Fee, fi, fo…Trump: how an ogre won back the White House
Docx likens Trump to the Id/Ogre in all of us and explains why he appeals to so many. It’s the permission to gratify our primal instincts and urges without discernment or care that some of these urges might harm ourselves and/or others. Docx brilliantly notes the answer is not to tap into our ‘Critical Parent’, wagging our judgemental finger, like the puritan Angelo in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. This is not going to win hearts and minds and not all primal instincts are harmful. Many are joyous and healthy, connecting us to the delicious ‘Free Child’ within us. Inspirational leaders need to be human, to connect with and understand our primal desires and we also need them to inspire us to lift our hearts and minds and reach for the moon…and the stars!
We all have this choice, every day, to align with our Higher or Base Self. This is, for me, what free will is. It is that fundamental question: ‘What kind of person do you really want to be?’
So, back to that moment when I was listening to the podcast and feeling very troubled: the ogres had taken over with great glee and I was wondering despondently why I cared so much, why did it matter to keep stretching myself and others to face the often daunting challenges of aligning to our Higher Self when it would be so much easier to take the undemanding path and stay in our base self?
And then, with elegant synchronicity, hope arrived. For those of you who are regular readers, you will know of Sue Walter, an extraordinary enlightened and inspirational leader, who is now CEO of The Roof Gardens, a new private Members’ Club, built on the 3 Pillars of Kindness, Optimism and Impact. The key criteria for membership acceptance is kindness and I am very proud to be a member! https://www.theroofgardens.com
Sue is establishing many exciting events at the Club and last week was the first of a series: ‘Imagine: Salon Series at The Roof Gardens’ featuring conversations with leaders from around the world. This is a collaboration with the excellent organisation, Imagine, ‘Sung into existence in 2019 at the MoMA by a collective of space transformers, IMAGINE was founded with a belief in the positive potential of human beings to lead systemic change. Following the successful convening of CEO communities in the Food Collective and Fashion Pact, IMAGINE expanded to accelerating transformational leadership and disruptive innovators committed to climate action and social equity.’ https://imagine.one
This first salon’s theme was ‘Davos: doom and gloom…or bloom?’. There is so much to be gloomy about right now but if we give into despair, then we are truly lost. The energy in the room that evening was pumping, full of determined optimism and sharing many stories of hope and practical, positive impact. It was fascinating, relevant, vital... and I was riveted! The final statement came from Paul Polman, a co-founder of Imagine: leaders need the courage to speak up and challenge the current fear-based narrative of doom and gloom. And to find that courage we need to connect to our empathy and sense of purpose and ultimately, it comes down to: who do we want to be?
It’s easy to be upbeat and full of optimism when life is easy. The true test of character is how we respond when it’s not. This is when we need to dig deep and find our courage and take the infinitely more rewarding path of our Higher Self. It’s on this path we shall find our kindred spirits, our global community, in the most unexpected places: a worldwide web of fellow travellers. For further reading, see my article: A Global Mind: evolving beyond our tribal beliefs
Hannah Elizabeth Greenwood
コメント