Others ask, “Why?” I ask, “Why not?”
You may have asked yourself in facing the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, “Wouldn’t things be so much better IF I RULED THE WORLD?”
Don’t worry, you already do!
What Is Conscious Leadership?
Some of us are leaders without being conscious, but it is difficult for us to be conscious without being a leader.
Leaders tend to be responsible, if not ambitious, people who enjoy helping others, as well as advancing a cause or an objective.
Conscious people are aware of who they ultimately are, and what this is all about. Hence, they are very reluctant to cast blame, as they know that whatever you say or do has a way of circling right back to you.
If there is really no one “out there” to blame, if everyone you see is ultimately another YOU, why not take responsibility and get on with it?
Conscious leaders are people with high integrity committed to actually living their vision.
They see beyond the surface, and they see what is yet to come. They serve people out of love as the ultimate expression of their enlightenment.
Manager or Leader?
You can easily see managers in every single sector of life. People play roles to keep our institutions moving along, whether they are political, commercial, educational or social. Every corporation has its C-level officers, every university has its professors and every association has its organizers.
It is important to identify a leader from a manager, a charismatic person from a mere functionary.
Your title or credentials, in and of themselves, don’t make you a leader. A leader leads.
Are the people really following you?
Conscious leaders lead from behind. You don’t even realize that they are leading you.
And they don’t seek any glory, because they are true builders and NOT egomaniacs, and destroyers!
Leaders identify with the people as one of them, much like Mahatma Gandhi, who was a brilliant young attorney educated in London who was later inspired to put on the robes of a beggar before leading the nation of India.
Leaders see what is calling forth to be accomplished, and then they transplant that same vision to others regardless of their station. It is not about them, it is about the dream.
Above or Below the Line: From the Love of Power to the Power of Love
Ever since Buddha and Christ, the world has been challenged to play a greater game, to abandon its tribal ways and see all people everywhere as one big family.
In the Roman Empire, the military occupied center stage, and many of the Caesars came to power as generals. Yet Jesus taught his students that the greatest among them would be the servant of all.
We are all driven from infancy by two complementary forces, fear and desire.
We initially fear the unknown, and then, through love, we find the courage to reach out to others. As we grow up, the fear becomes the lust for power, and the desire becomes love.
This is just like the higher chakras of classical yoga. The third chakra in the navel is focused on power, while the fourth chakra, just above in the heart, is focused on love.
In the body, the navel is servant of the heart, as the heart has a broader concern. The navel sees people as others, to manipulate and get its way. The heart feels into other people, and experiences those people as itself.
You can imagine a line between the two chakras. At any moment, you are either above or below the line.
While the leaders of the nations have largely come from below the line, more and more leaders are seeing the wisdom of coming from above the line.
360 Degrees of Self-Awareness
In corporations, executive coaches have a powerful tool in the 360 degree survey, where a manager is assessed from her peers, those above her and those below her.
The assessment is given in confidence to the coach, who later meets with the manager and goes over the feedback. Very often, it has a transformative effect.
It is challenging for us to see ourselves as others see us.
We all have blind spots. It is so easy to regard ourselves in either the best possible light, or the worst possible light. It is difficult to see ourselves in a realistic way. The survey acts like a mirror to reveal what we might be good at, and what we need to work on.
Conscious leaders are aware of themselves and how others see them, and also, highly perceptive about what is going on with the people they lead.
They see their respective strengths and weaknesses and work with the people to make the most of their strengths, while helping them to maneuver through their weaknesses.
Like Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), they have the uncanny ability to assess the highest potential of a person in this incarnation, and support him in its fulfillment.
Transforming the Dramatic Triangle
All of us live from time to time below the line. This often feels the most comfortable to us as familiar territory.
In both work and family relationships, we often see a triangle form over various issues that emerge. Somebody ends up as victim, with a villain persecuting her, and a noble hero stepping in to rescue her.
While this triangle is the fuel for both soap operas and tent pole movies, it keeps us ensnared in a chain of causality, never willing to assume responsibility for our lives and how the world works.
Clearly others did it. Even the hero is often suspect, as he will have a racket around feeling needed. If the woman matures and is truly empowered, she may not need him anymore. It is possible to go back over the line and live from love. Everyone in a close relationship is a sentient being who is capable.
Think of it like a tennis match.
To play a game, you must have an opponent, and you also need a coach to call the shots. Each player needs the other, but no one is a villain, and no one is a hero. It is all just good, clean fun!
Living Out of Possibility
Landmark Education, with its Forum, suggests to its participants that possibility lives in language… in how we communicate and what we say about the way that it is.
When President John F. Kennedy declared that America would successfully land a man on the moon by the end of the 1960’s, he was going beyond mere expediency.
Yes, JFK was competing with the Soviet leadership. But he was also embracing a whole new possibility without precedent in human history. He saw that the time had come, and by declaration alone, out of nothing, he put his legacy on the line.
Possibility lies always in the future. Never in the past.
While it appears that the future comes out of the past, that your past actions determine your future reality, the future is always emerging from the eternal NOW moment.
The waves behind an ocean liner don’t drive the ship. The engine and rudder pointed to the future drives the ship!
What you think and say shape your future.
When a dream occurs, you can share it. The more you share it, the more likely it emerges in front of you.
The Universe bends itself to accommodate your faith. You have the power within you to awaken all of humanity; a few of us, the great spiritual masters, already did. At some point, the dream, the vision, the idea takes hold, and the world is never the same.
Since You Are Already a Leader, Why Not Be Conscious?
Every one of us is a leader in his or her own domain. You influence others. You impact lives. Whether people look to you or not, they will eventually notice what you did and that will gradually shape their behavior.
Who can possibly estimate the power of a housewife with a family of six, giving life to the boys and girls, teaching them to walk and talk? Giving them faith in themselves, and making them wise in the ways of the world.
Who can possibly estimate the power of an artist or musician or author? Could we imagine a society in which the Beatles had never lived? It is clear they shaped a generation and will enjoy a permanent place in history.
So also YOU. You arrived on this world with a purpose, and that purpose will be fulfilled.
The more conscious you are about it, the bigger game you will enjoy. If you come to the realization that you are divine, along with everyone you meet, you will play the biggest game of all!
Conscious Leadership: Your Ticket to a Greater Game appeared first on http://consciousowl.com.
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