Conscious Leadership

*Note: The following text is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Bill Berthel
Welcome to the Get Emergent Podcast. The Get Emergent podcast guides leaders to creatively strengthen relationships and improve performance of their leadership and those that they lead. We like to provide concepts and ideas that you can turn into pragmatic experiments to help you develop your higher potential in your work and in your leadership. And hopefully you’re gonna find some better practices to apply in your work. I’m Bill Berthel.

Ralph Simone
And I’m Ralph Simone.

Bill Berthel
Ralph today we want to talk about conscious leadership. And that could be a pretty lofty title. What are we talking about here around conscious leadership?

Ralph Simone
I think the word sometimes is off putting to people. I think, you know, being a conscious leader means embarking upon an intentional journey of development and really development is three levels. Self development, team development, organizational development. Now, if we want to be really ambitious, we could say community development. Ah, world development. But this idea of embarking upon an intentional journey of, development, that is one way that we like to define conscious leadership.

Bill Berthel
So conscious leaders operate in all three of those areas. I almost think of them as like concentric rings. Right. We start with self, go out to the team. Right. Or the, you know, the group that I work with most closely as a leader, and then an organizational impact, that, you know, the systems around me, the enterprise of the organization.

Ralph Simone
Absolutely. You. I think conscious could be a fancy way of saying awareness. There’s awareness by the leader of the interdependencies between those overlapping rings.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. Cause they’re so related. Yeah. That interdependency. Yeah.

Ralph Simone
You know, the ripple effect. None of our actions are done independently. And so there’s this awareness. There’s a systems thinking of how what we do impacts the broader organization, the broader community in which we operate in. It’s a level of awareness that requires time. It requires quiet time, reflection time, contemplation time to really determine the intentionality of your leadership and the impact that it’s having on, all of the stakeholder groups.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. What’s coming up for me in that space is that conscious leader is both contemplative and in action. We can’t just be acting, performing all the time. And we also can’t just be contemplative or that’s something like maybe a philosopher or, just being super thoughtful. Both to be a conscious leader.

Ralph Simone
Absolutely. I think, you know, we’ve brought this another podcast, the conjunction of And. We need to be thoughtful and in action. We need to be contemplative and reflective, and we need to be moving the needle. I think another way of looking at conscious is being more thoughtful. More awake, more compassionate, more intentional and really connecting it to the purpose that you have in this world and the impact that you intend to make.

Bill Berthel
I like where we’re going with this because sometimes I hear a term like conscious leadership and I think wellow, that’s really lofty. What does that look like? A yogi on a mountain just sitting all day or it’s almost off putting in a way. But that’s also. I understand the kind of more action oriented part of my mindset. Right. To achieve, get things done. We’re really talking about maybe a balanced both / and between doing and being.

Ralph Simone
That’s interesting. So I think we ought to be talking about the yogi on mountain and the frontline General. I think unfortunately a lot of our business metaphors find a place in war. Right. The metaphor of war is often things become overly imbalanced to a competition. And I think the conscious leader sees the value of competition and he or she sees the value of collaboration. And they really are able to not only see it, but they’re able to actively or proactively manage the tension. We need to be aware of those tensions and we need to be able to manage them adroitly.

Bill Berthel
I’ll  go back to something you shared just a moment ago and tease out to the idea of purpose. I think you said conscious leaders are intentional and they’re thoughtful and they have purpose. I think is what I heard you say. So there’s a grounding in one’s purpose early or maybe first.

Ralph Simone
I think early, maybe not first because I think sometimes you discover or detect your purpose that as you evolve. I think there’s this awareness that you are serving something larger than yourself. And you know, this goes back probably to the 70s and I don’t know if Greenleaf who talked about servant leadership, if you use the term conscious. But a servant leader is a person who prioritizes the needs of others, driving his or her authority from the heartfelt impulse to help. And I think that when leaders get too carried away with a competitive nature, with winning, with being in action all the time, they lose that connectivity to the purpose of leadership itself.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. I think we’re talking about. I almost think of it as purposeful dosage in a way. Right. Toxicity is defined as the dose and the frequency is too high and makes something damaging. The dosage of competitiveness can be very healthy in an organization. And for a leader. Right. They need to be able to compete and innovate and expand their market and grow. But too much, right? Not enough collaboration, not enough thoughtfulness in full systems, in their organizations, with their teams, even with themselves. That becomes unconscious.

Ralph Simone
Absolutely. And I think what we’re looking for is for people to be more aware of the need for both of those things. I mean, the example for you music lovers out there is the balance between competitiveness and cooperation. With the Beatles, probably one of the most successful music groups in history, there was a tremendous creative tension that existed between Paul McCartney and John Lennon. There was the competition and there was the cooperation which led to outstanding music over time.

Bill Berthel
Arguably one of the most influential bands to have existed.

Ralph Simone
As we think about conscious leaders, conscious leadership is the expression of love and action. We are making things happen, but we are making better things happen for more stakeholder groups because we see this both/and and we’re aware of self, teams, organizations, systems, communities. And we recognize that there is a ripple effect of all of our actions or inactions.

Bill Berthel
Yeah, absolutely. So there’s awareness with purpose. It’s a balance, if you will, or some type of both, and equitable utilization of the leader’s energy to be able to really act and use compete. But I’ll even use the word perform. I think what we can observe as performance and the awareness when to almost retreat or I mean, it’s as strong as a formal retreat in slowing down, getting out of your space, going somewhere else for the opportunity to create in mind the opportunity to contemplate the opportunity to allow thoughts and ideas to come to them. Einstein was known for this. Einstein would say, I would think about it 99 times and I would retreat, slow down. And then the brilliance came to me the hundredth time. It wasn’t through thinking, it was through stopping and slowing down.

Ralph Simone
And well, the conscious leader manages that tension. I think we’ve redesigned our LeadFORWARD Retreat. We are learning that most leaders don’t know how to retreat. And one of the purposes of retreating is advancing.

Bill Berthel
Yes, we should call it an advance, not a retreat.

Ralph Simone
But it is managing that tension and it’s really managing the tension between practical possible. Many, what I’m gonna call unconscious leaders are in action. They get a lot done. They actually have a breath and a span of control. So most of their focus is horizontal, yet superficial. And when you take the time to be reflective and contemplative, you take it deeper, you go vertical. And that gives us the focus on what’s possible if you’re reinventing your business. If you’re looking for a new strategy, a new market, if you’re looking to scale, it’s not done by more action, it’s done by balancing that tension between action and reflection or between practical and possible. I like to think of it that way.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. I’d suggests that if, you know, our listeners, leaders who are feeling like they have to either muscle through or grind longer, harder to be getting results, that might be an indicator that the tension isn’t balanced and it’s not creative. It’s a reactive tension that’s happening for them.

Ralph Simone
Like a role in coaching. If we’re working too hard. Trying to get the client somewhere, managing that tension. You know, I think a conscious leader has a clear vision of what the future looks like. Their mission, their purpose is how they get there, what they want to focus on.

Bill Berthel
Right.

Ralph Simone
They have clear values.

Bill Berthel
Yes.

Ralph Simone
Values guide us to make conscious choices. They have a, mindset and strategy. Right. There’s a mindset of balancing these tensions. And they also focus on people and culture. Because an organization that scales and it has sustainable performance over time takes care of its people. It maintains its culture. And so you have to be aware. There’s a lot of. If you’re doing all the time, you’re not really elevating your perspective to take a look at what’s working and what’s not working.

Bill Berthel
And we get to witness this with leaders in our retreats. We get to actually watch this happen for leaders who might come in feeling the normal tensions of having to work harder or maybe supplement low staffing or feel like they really have to be out there in a competitive, continual, performing kind of 60, 70, 80 hours a week, grinding at it.

Bill Berthel
We get to watch these leaders transform. Usually takes a day or two, but they give themselves permission to retreat.

Ralph Simone
Now listen to the language you just use. Grind. People will talk about grinding. And I’m a grinder. When it gets tough, the tough get going. I do. And so we have all of these metaphors that talk about digging in and working harder and sense of urgency. I’m always fascinated if you really want to balance the tension. As a conscious leader in an organization, you should be hearing about a sense of urgency and a sense of importance in almost equal parts. What happens is we talk about sense of urgency to the point that everything seems like it needs to be done immediately. And so we have to be really intentional. And this is the purpose of a retreat, really intentional to stop that flow of incessant activity and think deeply about purpose, about vision, about strategy and about systems. And if you really want to reinvent yourself, you’ve got to take some time and be aware of checking out for a period in time in making the space for the creative and innovative ideas to come through you.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. So that conscious leader is really connecting to the meaning of leadership and the meaning of the work that they do. Not just doing it, but deeply connecting the meaning through purpose, values, vision and mission.

Ralph Simone
You know, if you think about the four types of energy and I’m going to start with spiritual because spiritual is the force of energy and spiritual energy is connected to purpose and meaning. And we’re oftentimes in action, but we’re in action that is misaligned and it is devoid of purpose. You don’t have people leaving your organization for better jobs. You have people leaving your organization because of lack of purpose. You have people leaving your organization because they see the imbalance. They see it’s drive, drive, drive and not a lot of contemplation, not a lot of collaboration or cooperation. I mean think of the sound bites. Trying to get people in a face to face meeting lately is taking a lot of my creativity because people are so much in action that a lunch or a breakfast is an intrusion.

Bill Berthel
Absolutely.

Ralph Simone
They’re scheduled to get stuff done and it’s amazing. One guy say, can’t you just email? I said, I want to go to breakfast with you to nurture our relationship. So no, I can’t just email that to you. That’s transactional. The conscious leader is focused on transformation, individual transformation, team transformation, organizational transformation and societal transformation. And we, you and I need to spend more time being aware of managing that tension. And that’s one of the reasons we are participating in our own retreat.

Bill Berthel
Absolutely.

Ralph Simone
To step back in order to advance. And to advance in a way which positively impacts the entire system.

Bill Berthel
Your meeting compared to email example really brings up the relating and achieving or the relating and task creative tension. Equitable parts of relating and tasks. I think many of us, me included, sometimes I think that boy, I got to get more done or I’m not getting enough done is the inner dialogue. I’m so focused on the task but slowing down to relate actually to myself, relate to my teammates, relate within my enterprise and I will go out to the community because I think that’s relating to our customers, our clients, vendors, partners in the community.

Ralph Simone
Here’s a challenge if the listeners are up for it. It is a wake up call and I’m going to guess most of you aren’t up for it. So you can decide. Take a look at your calendar. You’re going to be probably sickened by how much is driven by achieving and how little is focused on relating. And one of the key roles of a conscious leader is to be the catalyst to connect all of the people in the organization with the mission and the output. But if you’re up for it, take a look at your calendar and see how imbalanced it is. Cause I’m gonna guarantee you that you are way too focused on achieving. And that’s why you’re gonna be on the hamster wheel for a lot longer. This is an opportunity to pause. Every single day is an opportunity to be more aware of what you’re doing and not doing and how you’re balancing that tension between being and doing.

Bill Berthel
I love that challenge. I’m up for it. I’m going to look at my calendar. When we’re done recording this, Ralph I’m going to take a look at my calendar. And I think I’m going to get a little more proactive and block some space in the next coming weeks for some relating opportunities.

Ralph Simone
Nice. Yes. Bill.

Bill Berthel
Ralph thank you.

Ralph Simone
Thank you, Bill.

Bill Berthel
Hey, folks, and thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode and that you’re looking forward to more. You can listen to a new podcast two times every month here at GetEmergent or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hey, we hope you picked something up today, something you’re going to apply or maybe you’re interested in our LeadFORWARD program. Maybe you’re interested in having a coach look at your calendar with you. Reach out to us, support@getemergent.com, or directly to myself or Ralph. Thanks for listening.