Our Journey to Corporate Sanity

The 21^st century leader believes they serve a greater purpose and that they are contributing to the greater good in business and life. They are moving away from the false belief that you are two separate people, your professional self (work), and your personal self (life). There is only one person, and one flow of life, which happens to include working. 21^st century leaders are clear on the purpose their life serves, and they are able to fuse it with business. They connect with people at a core level, and understand the importance of trust and relationships in every part of their life.

The Skills of Conscious Leaders

For the 21^st century leader, whatever we create in our business should have a meaningful impact and inspire others to share in our higher purpose. To truly be the leader the world needs today, we need to consider and discuss the importance of these elements as part of our journey to creating a more humane and saner world:

Becoming more conscious: A passion for building a business that achieves a greater good and living a life that matters, and contributing to the greater good of the world.

Purpose: A clear purpose that others can easily get behind because it is compelling and visionary in the impact it makes in people’s lives. Other people will want to join your efforts because of a higher purpose that resonates with their own.

Communication and empathy: A keen ability to be open, listen, and share ideas. This includes practicing ongoing two-way communication, where people easily understand what they need to do to be successful in their work. People are engaged with delivering the purpose of the organization, and sharing information openly with other team members, strategic partners, and customers. Communication flows openly when needed, and they take time to discover and listen to what’s happening around them.

 Opportunity makers: An ability to stay current with what is happening in the marketplace and develop a strong vision for what is possible. By transforming your vision into a powerful purpose, you bring people into your organization who know how to integrate new ways of working and how to implement innovative solutions seamlessly, so that innovation simply becomes part of how the business is run, instead of being fragmented into a separate department.

Trust: A strong ethical backbone that requires you to know yourself and trust yourself deeply, and trust others to do the work they were hired to do. By fostering open communication, people can focus on the work at hand, and leaders can trust in their own hiring ability. 21^st century leaders understand that their words need to match their actions, as this is foundational for building trust.

Connecting deeply: We can bring the right people in at the right time to create something bigger than ourselves when we are in trusted communities that have shared purpose and accountability. We also know how to connect deeply, so that people know how important their contributions are to the business, allowing them to bring that purpose to life.

Integrity: Our businesses provide products or services that make the lives of others on this planet better. We understand how to run 21^st century organizations that thrive, where people are at the center of business. Our purpose is at the heart of our businesses, and people can easily discern what our values represent and can join us on our mission.

Storytelling: By seeing the impact businesses can have in the world, the 21^st century leader shares stories about how the world looks as a result of our work. We can wake up in the morning knowing how to make others, both inside and outside the organization, care about how to bring our stories fully to life.

Fun: A passion for lightness and an understanding that there is room to play and have fun in the work we choose to be part of in the world. By bringing our whole selves to business, there is an ability to make business a fun and enjoyable part of life.

Measuring impact: The conscious leader is clear on actions and results. It is no longer sufficient simply to measure activity and call it a  day. We can track the impact of our activities by addressing the results we plan to achieve, why they are important, and how our organizations will achieve them. But we can also track our impact and creativity, even more than our transactions and activities. For example, we can track the relationships we have created and their impact on our business, instead of just the number of people who “liked” the latest post or viral campaign.