“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” — Lao Tzu
“What you do has far greater impact than what you say.” — Stephen Covey
Over the past few days, I’ve watched with shock and horror the events unfolding in Ukraine. The fact that one person could yield so much power to literally destroy people’s lives, is appalling. And the sense of powerlessness I felt, was causing a knot in my stomach and an intense and deep ache in my heart. Coincidentally, I attended a Co-Active Leadership Experience this past weekend.
The Co-Active leadership model turns traditional assumptions about and definitions of leadership on its head. It postulates that we are all leaders and that different situations call for us to take on different leadership positions. And frankly, it’s profound, because it cultivates a true sense of power. It teaches that in any moment you can take ownership of how you want to show up and as a leader. It’s your responsibility to take ownership of your impact on the world. And we are all having an impact.
Never underestimate the power of your presence in a room or in a relationship. You don’t need to be formally appointed to a leadership role to have an impact or to be a leader in your world.
At the core of the Co-Active leadership model is Leader Within, which is all about cultivating self-acceptance and self-authority. Loving yourself fully, WITH all your strengths and your weaknesses, and appreciating that you are human and therefore not perfect, is part of self-acceptance. Claiming your self-authority requires that you know what you personally long for in this world, and that you live to create that. It requires that you listen to your own inner wisdom and trust yourself more, that you are not afraid to speak up, or share your ideas, or say when something isn’t aligned for you. It requires the courage to stand up for what you believe or to lead what you believe.
One of the most powerful phrases I heard over this weekend was, “Never stop yearning. I believe that you can have what you yearn for and lead it”. What is particularly striking about that statement, is the invitation to lead with your yearning in the world, in other words, to create what you yearn for by showing up like that in your own work and life. It’s essentially what Gandhi meant when he said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
And your yearnings can be on a large scale, like world peace, or it could be on a smaller scale, like harmony in your family. It doesn’t matter what you are yearning for. What matters is that you choose to live as if it’s true. Or said another way, that you show up in the world and model what you are yearning for. So, if you are yearning for peace, then live in a peaceful way and model to others in our world what peace looks like. If you are yearning for more proactive action towards climate change, then demonstrate what that looks like by how you show up in the world.
One of the participants I met at the course runs a non-profit that turns cow manure into methane gas that can be used to generate electricity. She is so passionate about what she does that she cannot stop talking about it and she lives it too. She goes out into her world and has the tough conversations with people, because she knows it matters. She listens with compassion and care, and she speaks from her heart about what she believes. And she is changing hearts and minds, one person at a time. I think that is incredible. She demonstrates so beautifully what becomes possible when someone lives what they yearn for in the world.
We don’t change the world by wishing things would be different or by hoping someone else would step in and take charge. We don’t change the world by trying to force others to change. We change the world by changing ourselves. When we show up more fully, more impactfully, when we live what we ache and yearn for, we give others permission to do the same. And every time another person awakens to their own potential for loving and leadership, every time another person becomes aware of their impact on the world and chooses to change it, we all win. It advances the whole human race.
So, I cannot change who Putin is choosing to be in this world, but I can change who I am choosing to be in this world. I can choose to come from a place of love and compassion instead of from a place of hatred and judgement. And that makes all the difference, because it changes my relationships, my workplace, my community for the better. I can choose to counteract the destruction and chaos inflicted by those who are in the grip of their egos, by bringing more love, more compassion, more sincerity, more joy, more peace into my own life and the places I go.
The people of Ukraine are demonstrating true leadership in this moment. They are choosing to leave their homes, which is one of the hardest things any person could be asked to do. It takes tremendous courage to do that. They are teaching us what courage means in the face of real tragedy.
And even though few of us have the opportunity to be a leaders in front in the Ukraine right now, to guide them as they navigate this tragedy. All of us have the opportunity to be leaders in the field, by speaking up about what is happening and insisting that we all do better. All of us have the opportunity to be leaders behind by offering service and support to them. By encouraging them and sending them our love, prayers, and support. All of us have the opportunity to be leaders beside by choosing to meet each other with loving compassion instead of judgment, and by choosing to co-create a world that doesn’t permit these kinds of atrocities to be committed. We all have the opportunity to collaborate, to share, to appreciate what is good in another person, to suspend our judgements, and to bring more tolerance, more grace, more loving into our workspaces, our families, and our communities.
We have been conditioned to think that the purpose of leadership is to get people to complete tasks or projects. That is not leadership, that is execution or management. A leader’s most important job is to create other leaders. To unite and inspire people toward a common cause and then to step out of the way so that the people they have called upon can lead and create in the world.
True leadership is believing that people are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole and that they can and will deliver if they feel trusted and supported. True leadership is to plant the seed of transformation in someone’s heart, and then to patiently wait for them to come to the realisation of what they are capable of. It’s a gentle nurturing and nudging and holding firm on the belief that they can.
If you are someone that focuses too much on the task at hand at the cost of the people and relationships that are needed to complete the task, my encouragement would be to slow down, and think about how you can invite people to join you. A vision without a following is just an empty idea. You need to get people’s buy-in on the idea before they will follow you and give their hearts and souls to your cause.
I’m always reminded of what Stephen Covey used to say about this. He used to say that you can buy people’s hands and backs, but you cannot buy their hearts and minds. Their hearts and minds are offered voluntarily when they feel inspired and when they believe in your cause, when they feel seen and heard, and moved to support what you want to create in the world. When it’s a shared vision and they have ownership of their own output towards the vision, people become unstoppable. They will create far more than you could ever imagine possible.
If you try to control it, or to tell them what or how to do it, you will lose their hearts and minds and they will simply become automatons doing the bare minimum until they get to go home. People are not things or machines. Every person has a yearning. Every person is capable of passion and commitment. Every person can and will pour energy into something they care about, and they believe in, but ONLY if they are treated with respect and dignity, ONLY if they are truly seen and heard and acknowledged for their contribution.
When we shut people down, when we dismiss them, when we don’t acknowledge their ideas or contributions, we lose their hearts and minds. They check out mentally and emotionally.
So, if you find yourself in a leadership role and you need to get people to work together, slow it down and build the relationships first. What do you appreciate about every member of your team? Who is this person? What do they value? What do they care about? What inspires them? How do you need to get out of the way, and give them permission to show up more fully?
If you are always aiming to be the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room. True leadership is not about being the smartest or having all the answers. True leadership is about growing leaders all around you, people that are smarter, more capable, more inspiring than you are, and inviting them to share their hearts and minds with the team.
And, if you are reading this and you are not a manager or in a formal role of leadership, and you are saying to yourself, this doesn’t apply to me, I want to challenge you on that. You are an active participant in life. You are not a mere bystander. Your life is yours. And you get to create anything you want. When you reclaim your own self-acceptance and inner authority, and you choose to lead what you yearn for, you inspire those around you to do the same.
And you don’t need a formal role or title, to be a leader in the world. We are all leaders. We all need to be. Look around you. When people relinquish their own power, the world becomes more chaotic. You can’t change everything that is happening in the world, but you can change YOUR relationships, YOUR family, YOUR team at work, YOUR community. You can choose to have a positive impact in YOUR part of the world, and that has a ripple effect, because when you choose to lead where you are, others feel they have permission to do the same. When they then choose to show up and be more real in their lives, their families, their workplaces, the power of our leadership expands.
So, ask yourself not what needs to get done, but what do you yearn for? What do you want to see more of in this world? And who do you need to be to lead that?