3. ?
What is the Purpose of a Business?
All professions have a
higher purpose that relates
to the public good.
Why shouldn’t business?
Who gets to define the
purpose of a business?
5. The Good
The True
The Beautiful
The Heroic
Service to others;
improving health,
education, communication
& quality of life
Discovery and furthering
human knowledge
The courage to do what
is right to change and
improve the world
Excellence and the
creation of beauty
16. Make a Positive Difference
Conscious leaders are NOT in their role to
maintain the status quo.
They:
Work to make the world
better in a significant way
Inspire
Mobilize
17. “The best organizations are ones in which
leaders walk the talk and reveal the meaning
in each person's task. People are invigorated
by their work and feel a sense of balance and
completeness, a sense of effectiveness and
competency, a sense of autonomy, initiative,
belonging and creativity.”
-Leadership scholar Manfred Kets de Vries
Create Workplaces with
Meaning and High Energy
18. Help People
Grow and Evolve
Develop leadership
potential
Discern the unique talents
and gifts of each individual
Unleash creativity
19. Create Win-Win Strategies,
Not Trade-offs
Conscious leaders:
Are driven by
purpose
Lead by inspiring
and guiding
Think Win-Win-Win
20. Decisions guided
by the company’s
purpose and core
values create the
most long-term
value for all
stakeholders.
Make
Tough Ethical
Choices
21. Be the Love You Want
to See in the World
Bring love out of the corporate closet.
If we want love in our enterprises, we
must embody that love in ourselves.
Seek to eliminate fear.
Promote on the basis of love capacity.
Express love and care even when
facing difficult decisions.
Use appreciations, which are
transformative in helping to create a
workplace of love and care.
26. Life Is about
Learning and
Growing
Take chances, and be willing to
make mistakes.
Grow through your relationships.
Practice forgiveness.
Everyone is trying to help you to
wake up.
27. Evolve to Higher
Consciousness
in Stages
Conscious leaders are dynamic and
evolving.
Growth proceeds through distinct
stages or waves of development.
Avoid being stuck in rigid ideological
orthodoxy – strive to evolve your
consciousness upwards.
28. Role Models
• An important and
time-tested way to
grow
• Practice their
qualities and
virtues.
• Ask yourself, “What
would they do?”
Coaches & Mentors
• Give you the
foundation to make
fewer mistakes and
learn quickly from
those you do make
• Accelerate your
growth
Find Role Models,
Coaches & Mentors
29. Stay with the process.
Expand your consciousness wider,
open your heart and mind further,
and make yourself even more
vulnerable.
Engage in spiritual practices.
A Crisis Is a
Wonderful Growth
Opportunity
31. Just as we shouldn’t fill our
bodies with junk food, we
shouldn’t fill our minds with junk
ideas that have little real
substance.
The world’s collective knowledge
and wisdom is at our fingertips –
available to access anytime,
anyplace and virtually for free!
Study
Timeless
Wisdom
32. Personal Growth Is a Choice
That is the Hero’s Journey!
Our greatest challenge is to manage
and lead ourselves.
It is also our greatest opportunity
for service, and the rewards are
virtually limitless.
First, we must become more conscious.
Then, we must share our wisdom
with our organizations and society.
33. Adapted from Lynne Twist
Those of us alive today have the
opportunity to lead the most meaningful
lives ever lived.
Our challenges are great, but so is our
entrepreneurial creativity.
We have all the tools we need; we just need
to unleash human innovation and creativity
on our challenges. There are no problems
we are incapable of solving.
Uncompensated effort going up – volunteer work is nourishing people in a ways that paid work simply is not.
Implication: Need to shift the focus from Profit Maximization to Purpose Maximization
The Highest Ideals Humans Aspire to…
Strategies, processes and structures reinforce the higher purpose and Conscious Leadership
You cannot have a conscious business without a conscious leader.
Our culture looks for high EQ in leadership promotions.
Developing a high EQ is more important than having a high IQ.
SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Leaders who serve have learned the secret of the “helper’s high.”
Generosity is a win-win-win virtue that creates value for the giver, recipient & larger community.
Servant leaders embrace transpersonal values which lift them to higher levels of consciousness.
“I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” -Albert Schweitzer
Uncompensated effort going up – volunteer work is nourishing people in a ways that paid work simply is not.
Implication: Need to shift the focus from Profit Maximization to Purpose Maximization
Conscious leaders want to make the world better in some significant way. They willingly shoulder the responsibility.
They mobilize others to strive towards the same ends.
They inspire people to commit to change voluntarily and to work together towards a shared goal.
They are NOT in their role to maintain the status quo.
Redefine success as having a positive, lasting impact on the world.
Focus on creating high performance, high energy work cultures that resonate with your Team Members and their personal passions.
CONSCIOUS LEADERSHIP
To become a conscious leader, we must first WANT to become a conscious leader.
Conscious leaders are driven by the firm’s purpose rather than self-enrichment, and lead by mentoring, coaching, developing and inspiring people rather than through command-and-control or a carrot-and-stick approach.
The conscious leader doesn’t think zero-sum or win-lose, but rather win-win-win-win-win-win (W6).
Different types of questions are posed and therefore different types of solutions are discovered and created. Look for tradeoffs, and we’ll find them. But look for win-win solutions, and we’ll find those instead.
The human mind is infinitely creative. Conscious leaders create new mental pathways to unleash human creativity.
Some ethical issues are easy because they involve a choice between something clearly right and something clearly wrong.
The real test of leadership comes when the choice is between right and right.
Conscious leaders are guided by the company’s purpose and values to make decisions that result in creating the most long-term value for all stakeholders.
The more self-aware we become, the more we learn about ourselves and discover we have so much more to learn and become aware of.
Our emotions are the windows into our soul.
Emotions such as envy, resentment, greed, bitterness, malice, anger and hatred contract and diminish our lives.
Emotions such as love, compassion and forgiveness are expansive and life-enhancing. We need to consciously cultivate them – they enrich our lives.
Develop your self-awareness skills so you know when you are truly following your heart and when you’ve lost your way.
Learn how to deal with fear.
It doesn’t exist in the present moment.
It is primarily a creation of our minds.
What are your passions, your deepest yearnings?
What do you most want to do in life?
A life of learning, growing and evolving is the richest type of life.
Take chances, and be willing to make mistakes – learn from them and move on.
Grow through your relationships with the people with whom you are most intimately connected.
Practice the idea that every person you meet is fully “enlightened.” An interesting thing happens – they start living up to that vision.
In a quest to be more self-aware, keep a journal of your feelings, emotions, thoughts, dreams, ideals, aspirations.
Conscious leaders are dynamic and evolving, not static.
Growth in consciousness generally proceeds through distinct stages or waves of development.
Jean Piaget; Abraham Maslow; Clare Graves, Don Beck & Christopher Cowen; Lawrence Kolberg & Carol Gilligan; Jane Loevinger
Avoid being stuck in any rigid ideological orthodoxy – strive to evolve your consciousness upwards. This benefits not only you but contributes greatly to the evolution of consciousness in other people and in our company as well.
FIND ROLE MODELS
An important and time-tested way to grow is to find role models – people we most admire and want to be like.
Make a conscious decision and effort to begin practicing their qualities and virtues.
Ask yourself, “What would they do?” You can make those choices too.
Who are your role models?
Friends
Parents
Siblings
Teachers
People from history
People of your religious faith
Living people you’ve never met
A GOOD COACH OR MENTOR CAN BE INVALUABLE
They can give you the foundation to make fewer mistakes and learn quickly from the ones you do make.
They can help you accelerate your growth in new directions.
My father was my mentor from the time I co-founded Whole Foods Market at age 25 until I was about 40.
When problems press all around you, it sometimes feels like the strategies that have worked so well in the past are not working any longer.
This is because we are being called to grow to a higher place.
Stay with the process.
Expand your consciousness wider, don’t get defensive, open your heart and mind further, and make yourself even more vulnerable.
Engage in spiritual practices…meditation, prayer, “Holotropic Breathwork”…to get back in touch with your deepest feelings and highest aspirations.
DON’T WASTE ANY CRISIS AS A LEADER
Contemplative practices such as meditation, yoga, Tai Chi, breathing exercises, chanting, affirmations, visualization, and prayer are invaluable. Practice regularly.
Setting time aside to be by yourself is critical for self-awareness. It helps center yourself, helps you become more aware of your feelings and emotions, and slows down the mind.
Just as we shouldn’t fill our bodies with junk food, we shouldn’t fill our minds with junk ideas that have little real substance.
The world’s collective knowledge and wisdom is at our fingertips – available to access anytime, anyplace and virtually for free!
Since the collective human experience and knowledge is available to us, it is well worth our while to “hang out” with the wisest, most enlightened beings that humankind has produced.
They will stoke our aspirations to evolve higher, and we can learn many valuable things from them that we can use to enrich our lives.
Our greatest challenge as leaders is to manage and lead ourselves: to make wise choices, to learn and grow and evolve as human beings.
It is also our greatest opportunity for service, and the rewards to our company, our families, and to ourselves are virtually limitless.
First, we must become more conscious, and then we must share our wisdom with the world.
That is the Hero’s Journey.
Leadership matters today more than ever before.
When leaders are primarily driven by service to others and the firm’s higher purpose, and when they lead through mentoring and motivating, developing and inspiring others, you see “peace and happiness in the individual, respect and solidarity in the community, and mission accomplishment in the organization.”
Leadership in the third millennium must be based on the power of love, caring, and compassion. We must bring love out of the closet.
Conscious leadership is fully human leadership. It integrates the masculine and feminine, the heart and the mind, the spirit and the soul, and Western technology and efficiency with Eastern wisdom & effectiveness.
You have the power to be a Conscious Leader!