Leading from Center
by Beata C. Lewis, J.D. (www.bridginglives.com)

How can a person lead effectively in a world gone slightly mad? Especially in times of chaos and change, it is essential to lead one's life guided by a strong and reliable inner compass. Do you know what actions you need to be able to take in order to create the future you want? The more you can take--and inspire--action that is congruent with clear and compelling commitments to what is most important to you, the more effective you will be as a leader.

In a world characterized by high-speed change, increasing complexity and chaos, being a successful leader involves more than filling a role. Indeed, you can be intelligent and driven but that is not enough to build the trust and collaboration necessary for your long-term success as a leader. People respond to your full presence: your physical, emotional and mental modes of being. Emerging theories and models about integral leadership, spiral dynamics, emotional intelligence and organizational behavior based on current understandings of natural science (e.g. quantum mechanics and chaos theory) point to "new" areas of emphasis for success. Leadership presence is critical, as are the skills and practices for cultivating self-awareness, interpersonal relationships and networks.

If you want to navigate uncertainty and change successfully, then the first focus on is "center." Center is the place from which you perceive the world and move with greatest flexibility, strength and choice. When centered, you are powerfully connected to what you care about. Center is also where you access your greatest sense of self esteem which is essential for creativity and productivity. Moving from center allows you to navigate uncertainty and change with greater ease, trust and personal power. greater ease, trust and personal power.

Leading from center can be described in three steps. The first is to recognize and accept what is true in the moment. People have varying tolerances for ambiguity and uncertainty. What emotions and sensations do you feel? How are they impacting your mood? How is your mood coloring the lenses through which you interpret reality and interact with people? Ambiguity and uncertainty stir things up. Rather than "stuff it" you have to feel it in order to deal effectively with it.

The second step is to get centered. This is about clarifying what is important in the moment, standing firmly on your own ground and being able to move from choice rather than from automatic, defensive responses. To lead well you have to be able to rely on the appropriateness of your own responses in difficult situations. The odds are against you being perceived as compelling, trustworthy and powerful when you're defensive or "flying off the handle," "spinning out," "losing your cool." The most fundamental practice for centering is breathing with awareness. This may seem utterly obvious and trivial, but very few people are consciously aware of how they breathe and how their breathing affects their physiology. Another way to return to center is to focus on what you really care about. This is where you connect values to a felt sense of purpose and action. You are directing your energy to what you want rather than into confronting what is blocking you. You get your bearings, listen within and reorient for action.

The third step is to choose appropriate action. What are the viable options? What will be easy and what will require courage? By choosing to act from center, you can articulate clear commitments and promises, whether to yourself or to others. You can check for alignment between words and actions. How will your actions demonstrate that you are moving forward on a commitment and taking care of what is important? Trust is built and restored by choosing and taking appropriate action. There are many dimensions and nuances to address in each of these three steps. But the ancient maxim-"know thyself"-remains the most fruitful reminder for developing authentic, powerful leadership. Further, leadership is an experience of a whole person. It is not sufficient to approach change and its inherent conflicts primarily from an intellectual perspective. In a whole-person or integrated approach to leadership, you attend not only to the mind but also to the heart and gut. Long-held beliefs about how the mind works, how decisions are made and what truly generates creativity are being challenged and disproved by experience and science. For example, people who make decisions for a living are coming to realize that in complex or chaotic situations, intuition usually beats rational analysis. So, for example, how do you learn to listen to and trust your gut? Increasingly, leaders are seeking ways to cultivate their power of presence. This requires a certain vocabulary and set of skills and practices that must become embodied. Embodiment is key. How you move and how you experience your full self-and, importantly, how others experience you-must be congruent with what you know, say, and do. The skills for leading from center can be learned and forever refined. Because the things that take us off center are often in our "blind spots," it is important to have competent and committed support. That way you can practice new skills in situations and in ways that you might otherwise overlook.

Leading from Center is the title of a workshop I offering with my colleague Eric Biggs, Ph.D. It is designed for entrepreneurs, individuals in transition, and leaders in organizations. These individuals may be reorienting themselves or a team to move into something new. Or they may need to take a new approach with a project they are already working on. They are looking to step up to a new level and quality of leadership and self. Past participants reported that individual and interactive somatic practices were most effective for "landing" the personal relevance of what is elsewhere primarily presented as intellectual content about new requirements for leadership. They gained increased awareness about how they tend to interact with people in stress situations and possibilities for shifting to more fruitful responses. One business owner "left with a deepened sense of self, a commitment to a future I really care about and resources to help me get there."

Information about the workshop and related coaching services is available at www.bridginglives.com or by contacting Beata C. Lewis, J.D.(beata@igc.org) or R. Eric Biggs, Ph.D. (rebiggs@pacbell.net).