5. Leading From Within
Capacity Five: Leading From Within
Key Question: “What is possible?”
Mindfulness Work:
We commit to deepening our personal transformation at our growth edges, identifying our unique purpose, cultivating authentic relationships, reflecting on what it means to embody inner leadership as a personal ethos, and discovering what is possible from that perspective.
Social Change Work:
We leverage the unique offerings, assets and passions of each party to form the optimal solution, build a conscious endeavor to carry out the collective vision, and lead from within as an example of what is possible.
Mindfulness Work
Following is an excerpt from Gretchen’s Book, Leading from Within: Conscious Social Change and Mindfulness for Social Innovation.
Mindfulness opens us to our unique calling, and inspires innovation through an ever-deepening awareness…There are distinct qualities that conscious change leaders exhibit in their pursuit of justice. Inner-driven, they make a commitment to their personal evolution through regular practice and the non-stop lessons for growth offered by the external environment. This requires discipline and prioritizing. It is not only reserved for moments when one can get away from the daily routine, and go on retreat. It is an integral part of their lifestyle and allows for both constant learning and intentional renewal. They are also guided by a mission and vision of what is possible, which takes priority over individual gain.
Conscious change leaders embody and regularly employ conscious awareness to understand and respond to, rather than react from, an emotional charge. This is not to suggest that the ultimate goal is no emotion. The aim is to feel the entirety of one’s experience – whether that is anger, grief, shame or another such emotion, and use the experience as an opportunity for deeper clarity around what is needed in terms of one’s self-care or in response to another.
Conscious change agents also attempt to bring their complete attention to their relationships. They work to balance their capacity for self-awareness and attunement to others. They know that the inner landscape affects the quality of their relationships, and that their complete presence with the world around them is critical for contributing meaningfully to a better society. Cultivating this perspective of open acceptance, conscious change agents tend to consider circumstances that happen in relation to others as a chance to learn. When they are shown their blind spots, they inspire others with their self-compassion and humility rather than defensive reactivity.
Instead of sacrificing themselves beyond their capacities, conscious change leaders know when to attend to their own needs and also when to recognize they must let go of fixing others. They are committed to self-care so that their own needs do not detract from their ability to show up fully in their service. They model this commitment, not as an indulgence, but with acknowledgement that our true needs are intelligence that can guide us towards greater capacities. This in turn involves supporting the same in others, but with the recognition that if we intervene unconsciously and compulsively to fix, we may disempower another from learning a critical life lesson or from having the opportunity to grow from their own experiences. In essence, the drive to act comes not from a rule of thumb or formula, but from an attunement to the response needed in each moment, which is cultivated through mindfulness.
…Through compassion and attunement, conscious change leaders are capable of recognizing the essential goodness in people, can discern their underlying needs and intentions, and can thus act to support their highest potential. ... Conscious change agents commit to live with integrity and to attempt to do no harm. Though there will be times when it is necessary to act decisively with power, conscious change leaders are present enough to know when to take time to respond with wisdom and integrity, clear in their intentions and aware of their impact on others.
Conscious change agents not only support others, but they are also not afraid to seek support when needed. And they do not simply shift from learning to leading once they hit some arbitrary level of authority. They continue to reach outward in both directions. They are grateful for the evolution and accomplishments they have been allowed to make and give back to others through mentorship. They also recognize with gratitude that they have had many teachers that they can credit with having supported their growth, yet continue to bring a quality of beginner’s mind to each circumstance – a sense that there is always something new to learn. This openness fosters greater connection and collaboration with others, as well as continual self-improvement.
Conscious leaders understand that completely transforming a system requires that we start with ourselves. They are willing to look at their own role in the inefficiencies or malfunctions of a system, seeking to live from a place of integrity in alignment with the change they seek to initiate. …Change leaders operate from a place of direct experience with and deep personal understanding of change. From here they are able to bring greater compassion to the stakeholders engaged in the targeted system. While still holding individuals accountable, they hold space not for blame, but for personal growth.
Practices and Frameworks Supporting this Capacity for the Individual:
Following are typical characteristics and practices of a conscious social change leader, who embodies leading from within:
Cultivates Presence:
Commits to some practice (like meditation, breathing, reflection) that continues self-awareness
Brings complete attention to relationship, mindful listening
Becomes Whole:
Is aware of emotional charges for awareness, understanding and care
Looks at circumstances as a chance to learn with curiosity and non-judgment
Ensures Balance:
Remembers that it is not always up to them to fix things
Attends to one’s own balance, rest and self-care
Engages Mindfully:
Creates space to respond with wisdom
Commits to integrity and to do no harm
Recognizes the good intentions of others, supports the highest possibility in another
Embraces conscious social change values and treats others fairly
Leads from Within:
Mentors others, but is not afraid to seek guidance
Understands that transforming a system means we have to first transform ourselves
Is guided by a sense of their own purpose and works for the sake of the common good
Acts authentically with mission and vision
Social Change Work
Following is an excerpt from Gretchen’s Book, Leading from Within: Conscious Social Change and Mindfulness for Social Innovation.
Conscious social change represents the intersection between mindful leadership and social entrepreneurship. In addition to the integration of mindfulness as a quality of their leadership approach, conscious change agents also drive innovation.
…Conscious social change is a mindset as much as a process. As we mentioned previously, conscious change agents look at each circumstance as an opportunity to learn, but this extends beyond the personal domain to their work too, especially in circumstances others might consider failure. They are open and curious. They do not get stuck in one method or program, but are continually driven to deepen their understanding and figure out what works best.
The following are questions that a conscious change agent might ask in the process of applying mindfulness in their leadership and social change work:
How can my own experience with change help me understand how others might experience the issue or deal with change?
How am I part of the issue in ways that are unconscious?
Am I leveraging my own assets for meaning?
Do I have limiting beliefs / fears/ shadows that might interfere?
Can I incorporate a commitment to wellbeing and personal practice?
Is this inner-driven and other-focused (vs. outer-driven & self-focused)?
Are we working to understand our opposition and ensuring we don’t create division?
Are we committing to learning and sharing our insights?
Do I know where my power comes from so that I don’t abuse it?
Am I aware of my own agenda vs. staying attuned to the needs of others?
Am I inclusive of the wisdom of others?
Conscious change agents find patterns in the way the world operates and determine their own theory of change – in other words, what dynamics and key components are necessary to create change, and what gaps in the system need to be filled for a better solution? Conscious change agents think about what we all assume to be true, and then turn those assumptions sideways and question if that is necessarily so. They dig deeply, identify patterns, and build an informed understanding of what is needed and helpful, so that they may set an inspiring vision for what is possible. They may start with a single intervention, but they will likely evolve their work over time. Taking into account the political, social, economic, and environmental dimensions of the system, their solutions ultimately strive to transform the entire system in order to alleviate the issue effectively.
Conscious change agents are also creative in the way they obtain the financial and human resources they need, and they use strategic collaboration to maximize their impact…They also may be looking at long term human transformation, which is not always easy to measure in concrete, annual outputs….Given this, conscious change agents often invent creative methods to obtain the resources they need from the community they are serving….But this in turn, actually helps them design approaches that are more sustainable long-term because they are supported by an interested base of stakeholders instead of outside funding sources. This is valuable because the growth in funding for social change is always surpassed by the growth in the seekers of that same funding. Ingenuity and resourcefulness become survival tactics in this work.
Finally, conscious change agents demonstrate the most remarkable compassion and commitment to the people and causes they serve – they often simply won’t stop until they know they have made a difference, despite the odds they face. Social change, at its heart, is born of compassion. And compassion is fostered through mindfulness. With mindfulness, conscious change leaders listen better, learn better, intentionally seek compromise and collaboration, and thus inspire the most creative and effective ideas.They use mindfulness to understand themselves and they find their deepest calling and passion. They come to understand their own capabilities and gifts they can leverage in pursuit of their ideas, and they understand what drives (or frustrates) change from a deep personal level. Mindfulness supports their capacity to deconstruct an issue, surface, and integrate the needs, assets, and ideas of the collective. It helps them find insight and build partnerships. Conscious change leaders are thus more capable of diffusing conflict, letting go of the unconscious material that obstructs clear thinking, and experimenting for change with curiosity, non-judgment, and a willingness to learn. From this orientation…we too can inspire the impossible.
When entrepreneurs invest in self-awareness and integrate the tools of mindfulness into the way they build relationships, diagnose issues and drive innovation, they transform the paradigm of social change from one that relies upon division, punitive measures, and incentives to force compliance to one that is fueled by human understanding and compassion for transformative impact. This is leading from within. This is Conscious Social Change.
Practices and Frameworks Supporting this Capacity in Social Change:
The following frameworks support inner leadership:
Understanding the Conventional vs. Conscious Social Change Model
Examining our role in a system
Exploring issue-driven vs. activity-driven models
Assets analysis – engaging the unique talents and passions of the collective towards social innovation
Mindful visioning – identifying a shared vision of what may be possible
Determining interventions and maximizing social value creation and applied mindfulness
Creative resourcing - leveraging waste and other creative strategies for meeting resource needs
Deep listening and conscious communications strategies that support transformation
Conscious organizations - building a culture of mindfulness and wellbeing
Values embodiment audits
Click here for a framework on leveraging creative assets (PDF).
