Genuine Leadership

I believe we have reached a tremendous tipping point.

It is time to show up and be who we are.

I believe we have reached a tremendous tipping point.

It is time to show up and be who we are.

Step One: Cultivate Genuine Presence

The truth is, whether we remember it or not, we live in our body. We inhabit this viscera, this sack of bones and blood and muscle, flesh and air and emotions. This is where we reside, yet we often think that we live only in our heads, in a tiny tunnel of sometimes focused, sometimes blurry vision.

As the brilliant Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche says, “Fear, shame, guilt, greed, competitiveness, and so on are simply veils, perspectives inherited and reinforced by our cultures, our families, and personal experience.” (click here to read more)

Connecting to genuine presence through awareness of the body allows us to taste the world more directly and see much farther than we usually assume we can. Our capacity for experience is far greater than we *think* it is.

Presence means something is arising and you are right there with it. It means not being so lost in your anger that you can’t feel the sadness underneath. You are right here with the sadness. It means stubbing your toe and being right here, feeling the pain. Being present means we can walk the razor-edge quality of nowness. 

In order to connect with vastness, we have to connect with the presence point: the undeniably vivid place in which we are genuinely available. We are nowhere else, thoroughly landed in the space of nowness, and approaching this as a path means we are able to come back to that again and again. We can actually practice this, activating our capacity to embody presence.

From this place of presence, our actions and expressions are free to arise, allowing our expression of leadership to be a communication of that presence.

If leaders around the world engaged their own genuine presence, society at large will benefit. Are you ready for the deep dive?

Step Two: Leadership = Expression of Genuineness 

I shy away from the term “authentic leadership” because I think our culture often interprets authentic as meaning: “be who you aren’t,” “be more, be better.” Genuine leadership, on the other hand, means: “Be who you are!” 

Genuineness is based on being in this very moment. This presence allows us to show up exactly as who we are right now - in this body, in this environment. But it is a path. We work to keep showing up and be who we are in relationship to others versus trying to be perfect or trying to be “right.” We do not need to be *really fantastic* based on someone else’s idea of what fantastic is. We simply need to be who we are.

Genuine leadership is quite different from leadership based on materialistic conditions. This quality of leadership often looks shiny and attractive because there’s a display of confidence and poise and good clothing. No doubt there’s some genuineness there, but being based on conditional confidence is extremely limiting.

We think we need to have the right amount of money, the right car, the right technology or having enough coffee, enough money and a perceived position of power, and there is intelligence in conditionality. But this is missing the bigger perspective of what is possible and how we can manifest that possibility. 

Conditionality is, I dare say, missing the boat on embodiment, genuineness and presence. Conditionality says we can’t be effective unless we have ________ (please fill in the blank). The deep reservoir of unconditional confidence, on the other hand, is not based on a prerequisite. It is based simply on presence, on a sense of primordial okayness.

Unconditionality just is, like the sky, like the sun that is always shining. The clouds are material and always changing, but behind them the sun never wavers. And we can totally tap into this. It’s there, existing, not coming from anywhere else or anyone else, and it is up to us to tune in.

When a leader is existing, operating, expressing, communicating and acting from this place of genuine presence, now that’s interesting. 

Leadership based on genuine presence is effective: responsible instead of reactive, fluid instead of rigid, available in the midst of chaos instead of fighting with it. Genuine presence makes room for others to be who they are.

Genuineness means anything is possible.

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Now, please share your thoughts on Genuine Leadership! What does it mean to you to show up and be who you are and express from a place of genuineness? Engage in the conversation!

Sarah Lipton has guided hundreds of leaders as they navigate all the challenges of leadership. Through her business, The Presence Point, Sarah works with organizations who wish to empower their leaders from the inside-out. Her passion is rooted in over twenty years of service, training and teaching and stems from the conviction that when leaders are genuine, society can bloom. She is the founder of Genuine, Inc, a nonprofit organization pending 501(c)3 status, and is a soon-to-be-published author, keynote speaker, podcaster and leadership consultant and lives high on a hill in East Calais, VT with her husband and two small daughters. Click here to set up a free discovery call with Sarah to learn more about how she can guide your leadership journey.