Trying to connect…
No matter how much they pride themselves on being data-driven, most CEOs are visionaries as well. Vision is about seeing what is not yet manifest. We can admire it in our mentors, witness it in case studies, eulogize it in popular culture, but the experience of actually having vision is transcendent. It comes from a different part of our being than our raw intelligence, passionate emotion or unstoppable strength. Not something we train. Rather something to which we awaken.
People who are conscious of these ranges have at least two significant advantages, which I will share in this piece.
Exploring the Sublime Parts of Our Nature
At some point in most of my coaching assignments, we will touch on higher awakening experiences. Sometimes this is akin to a religious experience, a sense of magnificence, or it may be some kind of intuition that they feel in the gut or bones. For example, a client mentioned he was on a walk, faced with a stop-in-your-tracks mountain view against a pink-colored sky complete with matching cotton candy clouds. It was one of those experiential moments where he said to himself, “That is the energy that I feel called to create in our company!” Others have actual dreams of the future, sometimes they simply have a strong sense of calling, or maybe–in the opposite direction–a visceral sense of what they do NOT want and how they need to change some things around. All these transcendent experiences bring more understanding of the unique gift in this person’s leadership.
I always find myself very interested in exploring such experiences more deeply. I make space for them to surface and ask questions to clarify exactly what is being perceived.
Here are the advantages I see:
1. Your Leadership Is Easier to Follow
When a leader invites her or his team to follow them, it is so much less effective if people think they are being asked to fall in line with a person, in a “do as I say” kind of way. People want to follow what the leader is following. They want to get switched on to the vision, the energy, and the meaning that their leaders are following. This allows them to start to trust the leader, to create a stronger culture, and a deeper sense of commitment. When you value the higher awakening experiences that happen to you, when you keep that vision, energy, and meaning with you, people feel it activated in you. You find the words and images to invoke a sense of a positive, compelling future, and they want to serve that higher calling with you.
2. You Feel Less Pressure
There is often pressure from success. Many leaders aren’t used to a great response. “Things are going well but I’m not used to being admired in this way”. Some avoid it. Leadership makes them nervous. Others feed off it in unhealthy ways. When you know–beyond lip service–why you are doing what you’re doing, you are more open. When you are intimate and confident with the energy that drives you, and that you are inviting others into, you feel good about asking for more and receiving more from others. In those day-to-day moments that are intense, you access inner calm, aware that what you’re doing is for something that is higher. It’s easier to let that pressure flow through you versus bottling it up inside you.
In the coming season, you may find ways to make space for people to share profound moments of higher awareness. I am sure you will find, like me, that exploring such experiences with someone will have you more deeply connecting with who this person truly is and what they are about.
All the best,
David Lesser