Transforming Leadership through Awareness
A Journey into Conscious Leadership and its Business Benefits
Let’s start by considering two different conversations between a boss and an account manager:
Scenario 1
Boss: I just got off the phone with Peter at Productcorp. He was very upset. Apparently the latest product release was a complete disaster and he says it’s our fault.
Account Manager: Yeah, I know, he called me earlier today…
B: You knew!? Why didn’t you give me a heads up?
AM: I don’t know… I guess I wanted to fix it before I talked to you. But there wasn’t enough time.
B: This is really serious, do you understand that? This puts me in a very bad spot.
AM: Yes of course, don’t worry, I’ll fix it. I promise.
B: Unfortunately, it’s too late for that. I am forced to give the account to Lisa.
AM: Wait, what, I can fix this!
B: It’s my responsibility as a manager to act. This is our most important client and I need to show them that we take this seriously.
Now, another version:
Scenario 2
Boss: I just got off the phone with Peter at Productcorp. Thanks for giving me the heads up this morning. He really was very upset. He’s in a difficult situation.
Account Manager: Yes, he was putting a lot of the responsibility of the failed product launch on our work. On my work personally, actually.
B: Yes, I heard that. That must be difficult for you. What’s your take on it?
AM: I think I have to consider that there’s truth to what he’s saying. I want to really understand what’s going on and take responsibility for my part in it.
B: We will all have to look at our part in this. Wow, this is big… I notice my leg is shaking, I think I’m scared actually. I never liked this feeling of being out of control.
AM: Yeah I’m deeply concerned as well. What do you think we should do? I would like more information before I act.
B: I agree. And we need to make sure Peter knows we have his back. That we will take full responsibility for our part. Let’s check if he’s ready to see us and let’s start by just listening to him.
Not only is the second one a better conversation between the two people. It leads to a better outcome for the client and the company. Very likely affecting both companies financially in a positive way. Switching account managers right away may be a tour de force. But here it happens out of (unacknowledged) fear, even panic, and we have no idea whether it’s the best solution. Yet. Or if it’s even what the client wants.
So what’s the difference between these two scenarios?
This is a prime example of the difference that Conscious Leadership makes in an everyday situation. Leading consciously is simply sound business practice.
There’s just one problem. The world doesn’t seem to know what Conscious Leadership actually means. So I made it my job define it. We’ll start off with the principles, and if you read the whole article, the pay-off will be some practical tips and next steps at the end. Let’s go!
The short definition
Here’s the shortest definition that I could come up with:
Conscious Leadership: The act of leading from a place of deep personal awareness
We could - and will - add a million things to that, but that’s the central concept.
No feel-good movie
This is not a feel-good, soft, non-demanding, anything goes approach. In fact, it’s just the opposite. If you require people to really commit to the work that needs to be done, if you crave interpersonal clarity and frank conversations, Conscious Leadership is exactly what you need. It’s completely aligned with company success, commercial growth, and even - if that’s your cup of tea - making lots of money.
The basic idea is “just” to align the way you and your organisation behaves with the deeper aspects of human nature and behavior, amplifying the best parts of it. It will open up creativity and motivation, leading to better work. It will also help you align closer with your customers and partners, for joint success and progress.
The only exception is if you’re entrenched in a business climate where the paradigm is cut throat, zero sum, every man for himself, that kind of thing. If that’s the case, it might be hard to coexist with these principles.
Let’s dive into seven principles of Conscious Leadership to clarify what this is all about.
1. First lead yourself
Recognizing and addressing reactive behavior
This is the principle of putting on your own oxygen mask before helping others.
Bad news: Stuff happens all the time in the workplace. You are continuously exposed to things to consider, interactions with other people to manage, big and small decisions that have to be made, all of this often under time pressure. Your sensory and processing systems are constantly activated. To conserve energy, your brain takes shortcuts and drives on known highways to get to the perceived goal quickly and easily. However, that system of reacting to the world isn’t optimal. One of the brain’s core considerations when finding the most efficient path to the goal is to avoid feeling badly, and this avoidance slips into our behavior. See the conversation above. The boss in the first example is reacting from fear, the account manager more from shame. Together they are creating a perfect storm of reactive dysfunction.
Being a conscious leader means putting a spotlight to all this and training yourself to recognize when you’re acting and reacting out of avoidance. Building freedom to chose a wider palette of options. Knowing yourself is especially important in interaction with others because then we have the additional complication of your brain trying its best to interpret what’s going on inside of the other. More on this later.
There’s no beating around the bush, building personal awareness is work. You need to engage in self-discovery, increase your personal consciousness and explore the way you relate to others. As a leader, I say that’s part of your job description.
Good news: You don’t have to be perfect (whatever that would even mean), no one is, not even Dalai Lama. Just good enough. Great conscious leaders have done just enough self-examination and created just enough space in themselves to notice their own thoughts and feelings well enough to choose whether to react on them or not, when it matters.
Also, self awareness is a skill available to all of us. It can be practiced in various ways, and you will have to find yours. And it’s not an on/off switch, it’s a continuum. Training it is just like going to the gym or doing yoga to build muscle or increase agility.
2. Build real relationships
Prioritizing investing in meaningful human connections
Bad news: It’s really hard to successfully lead (or work close to) people you don’t really know. As a conscious leader you need to make it a priority to invest in human connection. And you need to stay clear of what Gervase Bushe so eloquently calls ”interpersonal mush ”. We are sense-making beings and unfortunately that means that we constantly make up stories about what’s going on inside other people’s heads – based on our own experiences. It’s a shortcut to spending the energy to find out what the world actually looks like to them. And it doesn’t really work that well.
Good news: It’s really fun and rewarding to be in deep connection with other people and explore the world together with them. Once you stop trying to mind-read others and also realize it’s OK to show your own vulnerability, you’re going to find that a beautiful universe of connection and meaning opens up.?
3. Act with integrity
Aligning actions with values and being open to updates
Bad news: It’s really hard to define integrity in a concise way. We wind up swimming in a soup of words such as ”consistency”, ”honesty”, ”acting ethically”, ”transparency”, ”accountability”, etc. I say:
Integrity is acting in accordance with your values, while being willing to update those values when they’re challenged.
The second part is there because the right thing to do is not something static, it’s a conversation.
Good news: You know integrity when you have it. Or at least, you know it when you don’t. We all have experience of taking unfair advantage of a situation or a person, and feeling shitty about it afterwards. And then hopefully adjusting our behavior going forward. That is the positive outcome of guilt and shame , the mechanisms that build conscience in children growing up. By working on our general awareness we can train ourselves to stay on the path of integrity, while not being too rigid about it over time.
This principle is described beautifully throughout The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership . If you always live ”above the line”, you are living in integrity.
4. Nurture intrinsic motivation
Understanding what actually makes people tick
Bad news: The world of business is seriously lagging when it comes to the science of motivation. We’ve known since the 40’s that putting rewards towards desired behavior just doesn’t work. In fact, if the person already enjoys the activity, giving them a reward to do it only deteriorates their motivation and performance.
Good news: All humans have the capacity to create their own intrinsic motivation, given the right circumstances. And it’s your job as a leader to create that environment. Here we could get into a longer discussion about purpose, autonomy and mastery, as described by Daniel H Pink in the book Drive .? But that’s a longer topic that I’ll get back to in another article.
5. Live in wonder
The keys to creativity, learning, and flow
Let’s mix things up and be positive first. Staying curious is the key to being open, creative, a good problem solver and to keep learning new things. Together with psychological safety it’s the door to the house of flow.
Good news: Curiosity and wonder don’t have to be created, we have it in us. Spend time with children in the ages from one to three and you’ll see. They approach new situations or phenomena with this amazing sense of wonder. “What happens if I push the cup under water and lift it up again? And the rubber duck? What’s the difference if I put the big block on top of the small one, rather than the opposite?”. And so on. Look into their eyes and you’ll see this breathtaking sense of curiousity.
Note: When someone is in that mode, young or old, there’s really no need for external praise or reward. Deep, intrinsic human motivation and flow is reward enough in itself.
Bad news: We lose it. I don’t think we know exactly why, but as we grow up, that sense of wonder is blocked by risk of failing, comfort in the familiar, self-judgment etc. But we can find it again! There are many ways you and your peers can practice being curious, wondrous and get into flow, together.
6. Communicate without violence
Shifting to conscious conversation
Bad news: Even with all the best intentions and self-awareness, things can easily break down in communication. I wrote about one example here .?
Good news: There are straight-forward and fairly simple moves that you can use to stay on track, even in difficult and sensitive conversations. My two sources here are Marshall Rosenberg (Nonviolent Communication ) and Anita Simon (SAVI ).?
There’s so much to gain from shifting to a more conscious way of communicating with other human beings. If I’m to only highlight one aspect here, relevant to leaders, it’s practicing how to make requests (and separating them from demands).
7. Know that there’s enough
Shift from a zero-sum mentality to one of abundance
As I’m writing this I’m visiting New Zealand. Yesterday I was invited to play the Maori game of Poi Rākau. It’s an elimination game and in the end it was just me and another person left. The game leader then asked if we wanted to ”fight it out” or ”split the win”? We both suggested we split. It was an interesting experience, because it made me walk away feeling like a full winner. Not half a winner, certainly not half a loser. Of course it would have been fun to see if I would have beaten the other guy, but this outcome felt much more dignified. It also created a positive bond between me and that other person, we were winning together. I doubt I would have felt the same about him had he beaten me in the finals.
Bad news: Competition helps us focus and creates drive and purpose. However, it has several drawbacks. It moves the target from the actual goal towards winning itself, which shifts creativity in the wrong direction. And when people focus on individual success, you might lose the power of the group. As I’m sure you’ve seen, it can even encourage unhealthy behavior in team members.
Good news: There are ways to tap into competitive energy without so many of the negative side effects. The main idea is to move things away from a zero-sum game (”If you win, it must mean I lose”) to the idea that there actually is a way for everybody to get what they need and deserve, by each being their best, together. This is where the idea of there being enough comes in.
If the object in life is having the biggest house, the world record or even the most power, yeah, there can be only one. But if the quest instead is for things like meaning, safety, creativity, ”a good life” and love, there’s plenty to go around for all of us. In fact, the more the people around you have of each of those things, the more there is for you. How the guy next door is doing financially then becomes irrelevant to your own happiness.
As a leader you always have the option to use the zero sum game to create momentum, it (sort of) works, at least in the short term. But you can also decide to take the other path, for a longer, more fulfilling perspective.
Conclusion
OK, so there you have it, seven principles to live by as a leader:
Phew, that was a lot of philosophizing and ideas. You may rightly ask yourself ”What can I actually do tomorrow morning when I get into work, to move towards a more conscious way of leading?”. Here are some suggestions.?
What to do?
Engage in self-discovery
Get a coach or a therapist, go to workshops, read books etc. Get your company to pay for it and do it during work hours. It’s really a small investment and a great win for everybody. If you want to have a conversation about what could be the right path for you specifically, please reach out.
In addition, try Mindfulness. I recommend many of my clients to take the basic course in the Sam Harris Waking Up app. It’ll show you a new way to look at your wonderful mind.
Clarify your boundaries
Even if it’s only with yourself, it’s helpful to have a clarifying conversation about values, what is deeply important to you and where your boundaries are. If you do it together with others in the workplace, maybe even your boss - great! Making it a structured process (workshop or similar) - even better!
Learn about motivation
Fortunately, there’s a lot of research on this topic. Unfortunately, we seem to mostly ignore it. But if you’re the intellectual type, there’s lot’s of great literature. If you only want one piece of advice: Whatever you do, don’t reward people for stuff they already enjoy doing, it’s disastrous.
Listen
If there’s a single communication skill to explore, it’s the art of listening. Be aware that there’s something counter-intuitive about it. You might think that the best listener loses herself completely and has all the focus on the other person. That’s not how it works. The skill is to be present with the other person and just as much with yourself.
Not sitting there thinking about what clever thing you are going to say next. Rather, what’s actually happening inside you. I’m going to be more specific about this in a future article.
Take a breath and enjoy
This is the one I myself struggle the most with. It’s about giving yourself pauses in life where for a moment you set your difficulties aside and just marvel at what is and what an amazing thing it is to be alive. To make this work I suggest you - at the outset - acknowledge to yourself that not everything is easy. There are many complications in life that you should and will spend serious brain cycles on. Just not in the next three minutes.
Work with me
Helping people along this path is what I do. If you think I can support you or your organization somehow, feel free to reach out, no obligations.
Please use the comment field for conversation, clarification, pushback, sharing your experiences, I’d love to hear from you! And as always, if you liked this, please subscribe to my newsletter .