Finding a Leader Within
“Instead of looking for a great leader, we are in an era where each of us needs to find the great leader within ourselves.”
– Werner Erhard
Conscious Organizations require Conscious Leadership.
How then will you and I find or create a great leader within? What will make you and me great Conscious Leaders committed to the future of Conscious Organizations?
Conscious Leadership comes from an authentic commitment to creating a future for ourselves and others that is both inspiring and tangible.
Leaders don’t dwell in the world of predictability; we look into the future, through the lens of our vision, and create the future we envision. We are self-aware and in tune with our internal world. Being a conscious leader requires passion, commitment, courage, and authenticity.
Conscious Leadership requires overcoming resistance to change and managing our own egos and ambitions so that we inspire and empower those around us toward something bigger than our individual selves.
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
– Winston Churchill
According to Burge Smith-Lyons of www.essenceofbeing.com, who teaches The Essence of Courageous Leadership, lifting the veil of filters through which we all live, lead, and approach situations creates awareness that allows for courageous leadership.
To raise consciousness, we have to alter our way of speaking and communicating so that everybody feels safe to communicate authentically, and everybody gets heard. Once we become truly aware of the differences in peoples’ mindsets, approaches to life and beliefs, we can actually begin to appreciate how similar we are in our deepest needs and desires. Seeing those commonalities allows the development of deep trust and kinship. This enables the kind of authentic and courageous communications which cause conscious leadership and organizations.
Burge offers an insightful approach to working consciously within an organization. She says: “I look at an organization as a family – it brings out the same kinds of subconscious beliefs and thoughts that a family does, because we project our family onto everyone we work with. And if you are projecting something onto your boss or direct reports, you are then reacting to your projections, not to the people. So we need to become aware of those subconscious thoughts, and their impact on how we conduct ourselves in a work environment.”
“Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.”
– Tom Peters
Dee Elliott of www.DECMentoring.com, offers the following acrostic for LEADERSHIP:
L – Look and listen with our mind and heart, trust our gut, and respond with vision and deep purpose
E – Emotional bonding: we can’t be great as leaders if we don’t really bond with our team
A – Awareness of who we are and what we stand for as well as what the situation demands
D – Doing: taking necessary actions to produce desired result
E – Empowering ourselves and others
R – Responsibility: living up to our own values, taking mature risks, and “the buck stops here” mindset
S – Synchronicity: ability to create our own luck and to connect with an answer from our own soul
Now, your turn.
What does leadership mean to you, and how will you create your great leader within?
