This blog brings me to the H in my series on A.U.T.H.E.N.T.I.C. leadership, which is Head & Heart.
A key learning for me over the last few years has been the importance of reconnecting my head with my heart and my body. Our society and our education system are very geared up to reward our cognitive capabilities so we learn to cut ourselves off from all the other great learning and data our heart and body can provide.
Even one of the 20th century’s greatest thinkers , Albert Einstein said
"And certainly we should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve; and it is not fastidious in its choice of a leader."
And yet I believe we have made intellect our leader. This is especially true if you work in technical fields; certainly I know that through all my technical training as an accountant I was required to operate wholly with my head, yet as we become more senior and take on leadership roles it becomes increasingly important to connect with our heart. If we are not careful we look at development plans through the lens of what additional technical skills do I need to master, what knowledge do I need to acquire, rather than a broader perspective on how can I bring my best self?
We also see this disconnect with doctors who may be academically and technically brilliant and yet have a terrible bedside manner which leaves a patient feeling like a number rather than a person, which is not conducive to them getting the best care, or optimising their recovery. Connecting with our hearts (and bodies) allows us to tap into our own emotional responses, and that in turn enables us to connect with others at a deeply human level.
In the modern corporate world emotional responses and intuition are often dismissed, and yet they are rich with information for us, whereas rational thought and analysis are held up as the gold standard of decision making, whilst they may be missing important elements of information. I am not suggesting that we only focus on emotions and intuition, rather that we should be accessing all aspects of our intelligence.
When we become mindful and pay attention to our heart and other organs we will discover that there are physiological signals we receive significantly before our brains catch up. Developing this awareness of our sensations and emotions leads to us building our embodied self-awareness as well as our conceptual self-awareness.
So how can we do this?
We must start by creating time and space to connect with our heart, to slow down the task-oriented action and ask ourselves what do I really care about? Allowing ourselves to unwind and sense in our bodies what it feels like to care. If you place your hand on your heart as you focus on someone you love you can sense what happens in your heart - you may notice warmth, openness or softness.
We can do a similar exercise connecting with our gut – there’s a reason we have expressions like “having a knot in our stomach”. When something either upsets me or delights me what am I feeling in my belly?
About a decade ago I attended a yoga retreat and a therapist asked me what my gut instinct was on a decision I was struggling with. I burst into tears because I felt so distraught that I had cut myself off from my gut to such a degree that I had no idea what my gut was telling me – no wonder I could never make a decision!
As we build our ability to sense what happens in our own heart and bodies we are also building our ability to connect with compassion with others, and that is something we absolutely need as leaders. When you come from a place of being centred and with a strength in your core about who you are and why you do what you do, you will be able to listen to you those around you with greater empathy, and when you communicate from that place you will be able to inspire them in a whole new way. You will also be able to maintain your own healthy boundaries and get new perspectives on priorities.
This takes practice, unfortunately there is no shortcut. Going to a yoga class is not a panacea, I had been doing yoga for years when I realised I had no sense of a gut instinct! What matters is learning to pay attention to what is happening in your body, and this is why I love to bring breathing and simple movement exercises into my coaching.
Are you bring all your senses to work? Are you tapping into all aspects of your intelligence to connect with people and make decisions? Or are you operating purely from your cognitive capabilities - your head?
There is no doubt that if you start to do this work you will feel vulnerable but vulnerability is key to building trust and trust is essential if you are to lead. So perhaps it is time to take some deep belly breaths and dive into powerful authenticity?
A = Awareness & Acceptance
U = Unique
T = Transformation
H = Head & Heart
E = Engage & Empower
N = North Star
T = Trust
I = Influence & Impact
C = Compassion, Courage & Curiosity
RSS Feed