Wisdom and Insight
Wisdom and Insight
At the pinnacle of this pyramid is wisdom and insight. The gift that comes with compassionate and intentional leadership is alchemy.
As you deliberately approach life and each situation with compassion and awareness insight into creative solutions and even better outcomes begin to reveal themselves.
Have you ever met someone who every seeming obstacle seems to elevate them? Maybe you’re that person. This is the concept behind that.
Self-knowledge, knowing and honoring your boundaries, healing your heart, and powerful communication work together to provide tremendous insight on a practical level.
Leading with love and compassion is not all love and light - it’s unearthing and being with the shadow, clarifying, and realigning as wisdom and insight are given to you.
The practice of leading with compassion is a practice of inner work to support your ascencion through a situation, challenge, or problem.
This intrinsically creates a culture of transformation, connecting, and impact. It can’t not - this type of culture is always evolving and rising to the challenges and moment from a place of love, trust, and community.
As you cultivate these areas you will see what is happening without reacting yet being with the moment so you can respond from a place of wisdom and insight.
This is a cultivated skill, there is a level of instinct and a level of intention intermarried not overthinking or analyzing yet integrating and listening.
I was once on a called into a consulting project at a utility company because there was an organization of engineers that was very resistant to change. They were in a remote location, closer to the engineering facility, so they already felt a bit marginialzied.
The company brought me in to better understand the issues and essentially get this small yet pivotal group of engineers on board with the company wide transformation.
In a very short time, it was clear to me that the majority of their resistance had nothing to do with the current changes yet how they felt treated and this project was yet another example.
There were practical complaints and issues (all easily solvable) related to the proposed company transformation. However, it was not by far the source of the resistance.
I began working through this pyramid structure, organically with conversations, needs assessments, and change workshops. .
The dialogue and mirroring created much needed insight on both ends.
By the end of the week, the engineers were very much on board with the change and in their excitement began to propose quite helpful improvements.
The subtlety of their proposed improvements is that they were already onboard, whether consciously or unconsciously. The fact that they already had begin thinking and seeing how the changes fit into their life means at some level they were already in agreement. .
The behavior patterns could not match this until the clarity of insight had been distilled to create the alignment and connection needed.
Conclusion
These 5 components which I’ve presented as a pyramid all work together to meet internal and external needs for leaders applying compassion in their leadership in real time.
Leaders need compassion and self-care just as much as anyone else. Cultivating compassion in your leadership does not look like martyrdom - that actually is just another form of manipulation the flips side of the coin of dominating,
It may seem like a lot to take on with the standard day’s pressing demands. However, a little bit goes a very long way. Beginning to integrate these components into your life will have a resounding effect.
This process is not linear and you may find yourself shifting in between various concepts as you work through a situation. They all work together and are presented in this structure to show how one builds on the other.
Set 5-10 minutes aside for a week to reflect on one of the concepts and set the intention to integrate it into your day. You will be pleasantly surprised with how it goes. Email me and let me know how it goes.