Reflecting Within: The Path to Transformational Leadership

One significant growth moment at the Leadership Circle Unity Academy came with a core truth: what we see in others necessarily exists within us in some way. Whether positive or negative, projections reflect our internal system and invite us to grow our leadership. I hadn't seen my projections mainly as such but as 'truths,' and I lived my life based on those truths.

As you read this, I'd like you to reflect on your own experiences and consider sharing examples from your business where you've noticed projections and their impact at play. Your insights can help us create a richer dialogue and foster collective growth.

Exploring the implications of our projections is both confronting and liberating. Rather than sustaining the blind spot, the invitation is to look within. When another's arrogance, lack of care, accountability, or passion triggers me, or when they demonstrate too much or too little of an attribute, I can look within to see where this precise element also finds a home within my heart and mind and offers me an invitation to grow. When fueled by empathy and compassion, this shift from judgment to insight fosters human-to-human connectedness, opening a space to hold the view of the other differently and laying the basis for generative dialogue. This shift supports me in becoming a presence and an embodiment of something bigger than myself. We both are one, leaving space for much bigger possibilities to emerge.

As CEOs, we can easily confuse judging with noticing. Our projections, dressed up as observations, can impair our leadership effectiveness. With courage, we can look within to connect what we see with what also lives within us. We can become a presence and conduit for transformation to the extent that we can do this internal work.

This week, I invite us to discern with self-compassion where our noticing becomes a reductive judgment emerging from our projections. Let’s go one step further and pause to imagine: What if the structure of what we notice is empty and open to being shaped in a way that unlocks possibility? What might be waiting to emerge if we can allow something larger than ourselves to enrol us? How might this transform our ability to be a presence for what is truly possible in our organisation, broader ecosystem, and world?

To foster a deeper conversation, I encourage you to identify and share instances in business where you've noticed these patterns and how recognising and working with them has positively impacted your leadership impact.

Navigating complexity and emergence demands a more integral approach to leadership. CEOs who lead deep transformation must be willing to undergo their profound transformation.

Call to Action:

1. Reflect on your experiences and identify where you've noticed projections within yourself and others and their impact. Please share those insights in the comments below.
2. Consider how this awareness can transform your leadership and unlock new possibilities for what gets created within your organisation and beyond

The Unity Academy is a community of transformation and a master practitioner school for Unity-informed integral practice—the practice of conscious leadership, consulting, and coaching beyond the Creative level. The academy is an integral master practitioner school grounded in a comprehensive integration of diverse traditions (theoretical, scientific, and experiential). If you are interested in attending the Unity Academy, see: https://lnkd.in/gGANFuhv

#TheUnityAcademy Leadership Circle #CEOLeadership Robert (Bob) J. Anderson Ron J. West Kellie Garrett, PCC, ICD.D Peter D. Schwartz Nickolas Nyhus, SPHR, SHRM-SCP Dave Schrader, PhD Sarah Bua, PCC William A. (Bill) Adams Stéphanie Laflamme, M.Ed. Deb Loftus, Ph.D. Lisa Eckmyn Terri O'Fallon