Developing a conscious leadership
Developing a conscious leadership
In this article I present a model for conscious leadership development based on Ken Wilber's integral theory, particularly his twenty tenets
In my previous article, I identified the level of consciousness of individuals in an organization as one of the three critical elements to create better human organizations able to leverage their augmented collective intelligence (the other two elements being the connectivity between people in the organization and the integration of technology augmentation tools). This idea comes from the believe that the level of consciousness of people in an organization sets the limits for their capacity to effectively collaborate and give rise to a collective intelligence, rather than just being a collection of individuals. As an example, many companies try to accomplish deep organizational transformations that in practice don’t work because their people -starting with their leadership team- are not in a high enough level of consciousness to transcend their egos and truly pursue collective goals.
The level of consciousness of the leadership team exerts a multiplying influence over the rest of the organization, as the consciousness level of an organization can hardly be higher than that of its leadership team. Similarly, a rise in the consciousness of the leadership team will likely pull up the consciousness of the rest of the organization. The problem is that some times the members of the leadership team tend to be egocentric as a result of having had very successful careers and being surrounded by flattering teams. Therefore, those leaders who are able to make progress in transcending their egos and growing in their consciousness can have a big impact in their organizations.
From this perspective, developing a conscious leadership can be a very effective way to improve the functioning of an organization and facilitate the emergence of its augmented collective intelligence. We can define conscious leadership as a kind of leadership that is based on self-awareness (knowing who you are) and systemic vision (understanding the world as an interconnected system), that leads you to transcend your ego and develop a vocation of service to others. The purpose of this article is to present a model -and a practical guide derived from it- to help any leader develop a conscious leadership.
A conscious leadership development model
Leadership is above all a personal development process. In order to understand this (or any other) development process, the American philosopher Ken Wilber has given us an unparalleled model with the twenty tenets from his integral theory. Accordingly, I have reviewed these twenty tenets aiming to draw conclusions about leadership development from the perspective of increasing one’s own level of consciousness. The complete review of each and every tenet can be found in this <paper>. I strongly recommend to read the full paper in order to understand the philosophical basis of the leadership model I am going to present. Nevertheless, in this article I will skip the detailed review of the twenty tenets to directly jump into the conscious leadership development model that I have built from that review.
Note: in this text, I will interchangeably and alternatively use “he” and “she” to refer to the leader in order to avoid the repetitive use of “he or she” and “his or her”.
The model is based on six principles.
FIRST, LOOKING INWARD
1. Know yourself
A conscious leader must work on finding his personal identity: that personal identity that defines oneself, remains stable over time and is nourished by a changing environment while maintaining its essence. That identity does not depend on my professional context (as my position or my career do not define who I am) nor does it depend on my professional connections (since I am not defined by who I report to or who reports to me) but ultimately connects with my self, with that self that remains there if I leave my job.
Accordingly, the first and foremost task of a leader is to know oneself. Conscious leadership can only emerge from knowing who I am, how myself expresses itself, and what my entelechy (the intrinsic purpose of my Being) is. Reflecting on my roots (where do I come from) and my values (what do I stand for) will help me understand who I am, what my purpose in life is, and what kind of leader I want to become.
Thus, the greatest imperative of a leader is to know oneself in order to be able to lead oneself, since this is a necessary previous step to being able to lead the way for others. As Dee Hock explains in his book “One From Many”: “The first and paramount responsibility of anyone who purports to manage is to manage self -one’s own integrity, character, ethics, knowledge, wisdom, temperament, words, and acts. It is a never-ending, difficult, oft-shunned task”.
2. Care for all your dimensions
We as human beings present a physical-material dimension, which is transcended and integrated into a biological-emotional dimension, which is transcended and integrated into a mental-sentimental dimension, which in turn is transcended and integrated into a transmental or transcendental dimension. To lead oneself, a conscious leader must first of all be able to recognize and integrate each of these dimensions of her being (not just the mental one, as is often the case), since denying or not integrating any of them would end up causing a pathology. Thus, as leaders:
We need to take care of our physical body: getting enough sleep, eating well, exercising
As well as to manage our emotions: recognizing them and letting them go, rather than ignoring them or repressing and somatizing them
As well as to manage our thoughts and feelings: developing the ability to observe them, depolarize them and conduct them
As well as to delve into our transcendental dimension: having the ability to transcend our ego and connect with our essential being
The conscious leader needs to continuously care for all of these dimensions of her being, investing time regularly to cultivate each and every one of them.
3. Seek to grow in your personal development
The conscious leader, as a human being, has the capacity to transcend. This means that the leader has the ability not only to express his personal identity (agency) and to form part of an organization (participation) at a given level of development, but also the ability to grow in his personal development to reach new -deeper and more relevant- levels of consciousness from which to express his agency and participation.
Hence, the conscious leader has a genuine interest in growing, going beyond, becoming. This requires the willingness -and the courage- to transcend oneself, i.e. to open oneself (mentally and transcendentally) so as to integrate new realities and allow a new level of development to emerge from that integration. This self-opening entails:
Gaining perspective of one's own thinking
Courage to question one's own mental models
Curiosity to explore new views and perspectives
And equanimity to integrate the new realities
Beyond cognitive development, our moral development also requires growing in our vocation of service to others, extending our circle of service to an ever wider group of people.
SECOND, LOOKING OUTWARD:
4. Integrate new perspectives to expand your mental paradigms (grow in Wisdom)
A conscious leader must understand that every view is partial and every context is part of a larger context. This requires to be continually working on expanding our mental paradigms instead of operating solely on the basis of our existing mental context. Accordingly, the conscious leader is always open to recognize new perspectives from other people so as to enrich her understanding of reality by integrating new ideas into her original thinking.
In this way, the conscious leader grows in her level of consciousness not by extending the knowledge of what she already perceives, but by growing to a new level of consciousness that increases her capacity to appreciate and understand reality, so what was not perceived before becomes recognized. Thus, the conscious leader is not characterized by her extensive technical knowledge in one or several fields that may be relevant to her role, but by the depth of her Wisdom that transcends these disciplines to have access to higher forms of knowledge.
By doing so, the conscious leader increases her relative autonomy and finds a wider freedom, making progress towards reaching the full potential of her being in giving oneself to others.
5. Build personal relationships to develop your vocation of service (grow in Intention)
The conscious leader must develop his ability to adapt to other people and to his organization in order to establish participative relationships that allow him to transcend himself as part of a greater whole, while preserving his identity and autonomy. In this context, the conscious leader must balance the expression of his individual identity (being loyal to his personal roots and values) with his participation in the organization (connecting with others with humility, empathy and generosity) in order to progress in his process of leadership development.
As the conscious leader develops new levels of consciousness, he impacts the people around him (pulling them to grow in their level of consciousness) and is impacted or influenced by the people around him (in his ability to continue growing and developing). The conscious leader drives a cultural change in the organization to elevate the level of consciousness of its people, but can also have a hard time in doing so if the rest of the organization lags far behind.
Ultimately, the conscious leader seeks to build personal relationships based on trust that allow him to develop his vocation of service. The conscious leader thus becomes at the service of the team, so that instead of telling them the specific tasks they have to do, he conveys the objectives of the organization and inspires the team to achieve them. Rather than supervising what the teams do, he empowers the team to act autonomously and is at their service to help them whenever they face difficulties. And instead of controlling that they meet predefined objectives, he cares for people’s growth and development giving them his support as a coach.
This vocation of service results from the process of transcending one’s own ego, discovering the value of each and every person and aspiring to serve the whole. Hence, the intention to serve eventually goes beyond the limits of one’s own team or organization to become universal.
6. Embrace creative emergence
The conscious leader lives in a world of creative emergence, both in her own development and in the development of the world around her. This vision helps her to look beyond without fear, to discover new possibilities, and to develop a mindset of abundance instead of a linear, reductionist thinking. This abundance mindset leads us to focus on the process and let go of the results, since pretending to “control” the results is a source of stress and frustration that reduces our energy and lessens our impact.
Consequently, the development of a conscious leadership increases the range of possibilities for action (as we discover a new world of possibilities and opportunities), elevates the intention of the actions that we take (as we act from a deeper dimension of our being) and leads us to focus on the process rather than the results (maximizing our energy and our impact). The higher the level of consciousness of the leader, the more able she will be to understand reality as an interconnected whole and the more opportunities she will find to positively impact the interconnected system of our world.
Practical guide and tools
In this section, I suggest a set of practical ideas and tools that may help any leader to develop a conscious leadership.
1. Know yourself
Knowing oneself is a process that requires pause and reflection. You need to gain perspective (so you don’t identify yourself with your current context), look back to understand where you come from, and look forward to visualize who you aim to become.
The tool I suggest to do this is “Your introspection journal”, a personal journal in which you can register your reflections and ideas about all these questions, so you can revisit them (and evolve them) from time to time. A good guide to do this journaling exercise is the book “Total Leadership” by Stewart Friedman, professor at Wharton School of Business. More specifically, the exercises he suggests in chapter 2 (Clarify What’s Important to You) are a good path for self reflection by asking you to think about:
Critical events in your life that have defined who you are today
Someone you admire and what makes this person admirable to you
Your leadership vision, describing the kind of leader you want to become in the future
And the values that are most important to you and why
2. Care for all your dimensions
Caring for something requires regularly investing time and energy on it. Thus, in order to care for all your dimensions as a leader, you have to make sure to daily -or at least weekly- invest time in each and every of your dimensions.
The tool I suggest to do this is “Your multidimensional agenda”. This requires that for each of your essential dimensions (physical, emotional, mental and transcendental), you define one activity you commit to develop on a daily or weekly basis. To do so, you will have to add to your agenda one physical routine (p.e. making exercise on Tuesday and Thursday before lunch), one routine to manage your emotions (p.e. reflecting on how you feel when you are going to work), one mental routine (p.e. reading 20min everyday before going to bed) and one transcendental routine (p.e. doing 10min of meditation before breakfast). These examples may seem a lot of time but they actually imply investing a total of 5h per week to make sure you are in a balanced and healthy state of development, which incidentally will make you more creative and effective the rest of the time.
3. Seek to grow in your personal development
To keep the focus on your personal development, it is often helpful to define some development goals that set a direction for you to follow and help you assess your progress over time.
The tool I suggest to do this is “Your quarterly development goals”, i.e. setting some development goals for the next quarter, working on them during the quarter and learning from your progress so you can iterate on your goals for the next quarter. As an example, a development goal can be to become a better coach for your team by having a coaching session with a person from your team every week. The idea here is to select a few goals rather than many so you can have them on your mind and work regularly on them. Whatever the goals, it can be very valuable to have the support of a coach you trust with whom you can discuss your goals and your progress from time to time.
4. Integrate new perspectives to expand your mental paradigms (grow in Wisdom)
Gaining perspective on one’s own thinking is not an easy task, and questioning one’s own mental paradigms is an even more difficult exercise. Accordingly, it is advisable to identify some spaces during the week in which you may have the opportunity to do so.
The tool I suggest to work on this is “Your open mind: active listening and diverse reading”. This means that in order to open your mind to new perspectives coming from other people, you can “extend your antennas” by i) more actively listening to other people in your meetings at work -as Otto Scharmer says, listening is at the source of all great leadership- and ii) reading good books about topics that go beyond your usual areas of interest. These two exercises -made with the openness to discover your mental biases- can be a simple and practical way to grow your wisdom.
5. Build personal relationships to develop your vocation of service (grow in Intention)
The main outcome of our growth as conscious leaders is understanding our leadership role as a vocation of service to others, so we can support them in their personal growth and development. As we understand and live this vocation, we can progressively extend our circle of service to include more people going beyond our team, beyond our area and beyond our organization.
To develop such a vocation of service, you first need to build personal relationships at work based on trust, empathy and care. This is why the tool that I suggest to work on this area is “Your connecting heart: building trust and empathy”, meaning that every time we connect with another person we have the opportunity to do it from our heart by trusting that person and developing our empathy to understand his or her needs and motivations.
6. Embrace creative emergence
Our rational mind leads us to think linearly, limiting our range of possibilities to those we are able to logically and linearly conceive. But as we have seen, reality unfolds through a more complex process of creative emergence, thus opening a much wider spectrum of possibilities.
The tool I suggest to develop is “Your abundance mindset”, a mindset that helps you overcome the mental trap of thinking that you have limited opportunities and resources, so as to realize the unlimited resources and potential available to you and your organization. An abundance mindset is built from the belief that new opportunities arise every day and that you just need to be actively looking for them. Leaders who believe that the world is full of opportunities are more receptive to new ideas and better engage with the opportunities they are presented with.
In conclusion, the model presented, and the practical guide and tools derived from it, are intended to be an aid to any leader who wants to develop a conscious leadership or any coach working on conscious leadership. Beyond its practicality, the model is built upon a solid philosophical foundation as it is Ken Wilber’s integral theory and particularly his twenty tenets. Comments and suggestions about the model and its practical application are welcome.