The first EAN Special Skills session (for members only), given by Mrs Windhausen, took part on Sunday, 20 June at 8:00.
On the way from management to become a heartful, holistic leader, the first thing you have to consider is to lead yourself, manage your own emotions.
When looking at children, they are very close to their emotions, to their hearts. The older we are, the more our minds get bigger than our hearts.
But to be a holistic leader, it is important that the heart is bigger, more clear and stronger. Holistic leaders are systems-thinkers. They see themselves in relation to others and their world. Leadership for them is all about leading people and relations, starting with leading yourself.
The six rules for holistic leaders:
- Personal Mastery – Manage your emotions. Make friends with your body. Develop a compassionate mindset
- Power Talk – Leading by Listening. Become a Wizard of Voice
- Listen to Soma! – Whole-body Intelligence. Listen with all your senses. Leading by atmosphere
- Relational Wisdom – Dancing with Conflicts. Become a Magnet! Embodied Leadership.
- Dare to Care – Empathy – The Power of Vulnerability. The Power of Vulnerability Follow your Values
- Trust Your Magic – Become a Magnet. Dancing with conflicts and resistance. Invite others to participate
“Listening is the most underrated of all leadership skills”
(Otto Scharmer)
The Four Levels of Listening by Otto Scharmer:
# 1 Downloading – Reconfirming old opinions + judgements
# 2 Factual Listening – Looking for new Data
# 3 Empathic Listening – Seeing through another person’s eyes
# 4 Generative Listening – Connecting to an emerging potential; holding the space
Embodied Leadership
To increase greater leadership capacity: feel more than just your emotions. Increase your conscious awareness of sensations, moods, emotions. Feeling more, become more responsive and less reactive. Skillful internal feelings lead to skillful external actions.
Handle a wider range of emotions and sensations. Align your entire psychobiology around a central care of concern – so that your body is holding the least amount of contraction possible. How you organise yourself physically changes your state of mind, your hormone levels and your behaviour.
Presence and trustworthiness is mostly read through non-verbal cues (80%). Presence is an essential component of building trust. Your inner stillness and attentiveness can bring others into the game, silently inviting them to sit up, take notice and take action. Your presence creates the atmosphere for fruitful dialogues and collaboration.
Empathy – We are made to feel what we can‘t see.
The ability to read people’s emotional expressions. Listening, observing and taking yourself out of the equation. Listen 90% more than you talk. Feel what the other person is feeling. Try to stay open emotionally, even if don’t fully understand the other person. Recognise what triggers you to shut down, identify it and try not to do shut down. Listen to others, reiterate what they are saying. Be a friendly mirror. Talk and listen in a way that they can recognise the best in themselves.
Developing your personal leadership potential is a choice. The impulse may be triggered by external events or motivated by the wish to make a successful career. Leadership gets really powerful when you turn it into a conscious process of:
• transformation,
• personal growth
• contribution
• facilitating leadership in others
This is an excerpt from the session which was recorded and will be made available to EAN members shortly. We hope this will be of interest to members as there were many valuable take-home messages presented.
Best wishes from the EAN Membership Department and do not forget to “trust your magic”.
