What is an Integrated Whole-Self Leader™?
Leadership is no joke! Leaders are what drive change, results, and revenue.
It could be argued that one of the essential catalysts to personal and organizational success is leadership development.
The Leaders of this world need to model the behavior they seek, help build their people, design work that taps into potential and leads through influence, not authority.
In the 2019 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends Report, only 30 percent of organizations say they are effectively developing leaders to meet evolving challenges. The changing society is demanding human-focused leadership.
Peter Drucker once said: “The leader of the past was a person who knew how to tell. The leader of the future will be a person who knows how to ask”.
I'm in the process of writing my senior study (thesis); The Leader of the 21st Century: How to become an Integrated Whole-Self Leader™. It is an exploration of how to lead and live authentically while facilitating inclusive, resilient, and coherent teams (or communities). This type of leader has the ability to go within to access their own generative wisdom and actions, evoking creativity, compassion, courage, and connectivity in themselves and others.
A whole-person approach to creating the right conditions internally for leaders to drive change and make a meaningful contribution to the world is the goal. These types of leaders are the ones that invite others to bring whole-self to work and collaborative achieve.
Looking into the future, the primary role of a leader is to create more leaders. There will be an increased need for managing “knowledge workers”, not for leaders that have all the answers or expertise.
I believe the leader that takes us through the 21st century and creates a better world for the next generation will be an "integrated whole-self- leader."
According to Deloitte’s Millennial 2017 Survey, leadership training remains a high priority for millennials globally. When asked what they look for in their leaders, it was clear that they want openness, inclusion and diversity.
According to KPMG Disrupt and Grow 2017 Global CEO Outlook, 74 percent of CEOs are placing greater importance on trust, values, and culture.
Leadership is changing. In a good way.
So, what exactly is an Integrated Whole-Self Leader™?
An Integrated Whole-Self Leader™ understands that the issues in their organizations, their communities, in their culture, and even globally, are a mirror of the issues within our own human experience.
The Attributes of an Integrated Whole-Self Leader™
An Integrated Whole-Self Leader…
I. Practices embodying authenticity and leads via their unique strengths with confidence and courageous vulnerability. They are adaptive, grounded in awareness and engaged in reality, while courageously leading authentically.
“Authentic leadership is built on your character, not your style.” Bill George
Whole-Self Leaders inspires and facilitates authentic human interaction.
Deloitte’s research also exposed that more than half of employees cover up some part of their identity at work to try to “fit in.” Not surprisingly, underrepresented groups reported feeling the most pressure of all to “cover” aspects of themselves.
And Mike Robbins’ new book, Bring Your Whole Self to Work, has invited the conversation of what it means to bring one's whole self to work.
How does leadership inspire and facilitate whole-self humans to collaborate, innovate, and achieve? In my opinion, it starts with leadership taking the lead.
According to Bill George’s book, Authentic Leadership, these are the five qualities authentic leaders demonstrate:
Understanding their purpose
Practicing solid values
Leading with heart
Establishing connected relationships
Demonstrating self-discipline
I couldn’t agree more.
II. Actively engages in their self-awareness journey.
Based on the understanding that we are mostly functioning from a 95 percent unconscious place, it’s easy to say; this is a journey, not a destination. You can’t be a good leader without continuous growth. If you think you know yourself “enough,” you have fallen for the ego’s trap. No worries. There is a trap door you can escape through.
A whole-self leader wants to engage authentically with their work and relationships. By practicing doing so, they inspire and permit others to do the same.
III. Self regulates with compassion for self and others.
In doing so, they grow Emotional Intelligence (EI), which is their capacity to exercise awareness and control over emotions while interacting with others empathetically. Self-knowledge is at the core of developing and practicing EI.
“If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.” ... Daniel Goleman
IV. Intentionally integrates head-heart-gut wisdom.
There’s a lot of talk about integrating head and heart to lead. Yes!! This is a great start. However, the Gut-Brain is a crucial component of generative wisdom and gutsy courage and action. I write about the Neuroscience of Leadership and why connecting to all three brains to lead authentically is the most effective way to innovate and create change collaboratively.
An Integrated Whole-Self Leader™ relies on all three centers of intelligence to inform their decision making and understands how to integrate them to lead with the heart.
V. Practices generative listening via active listening. We hear it over and over again, Listening is important. What I have found is that humans don’t naturally listen. Some do it better than others, but we are all listening from the egocentric self.
Learning and understanding the four different types of listening is an essential component of practicing effective listening. Which, of course, is foundational to creating strengths-based coherent teams.
And finally, an Integrated Whole-Self Leader™…
VI. Uses holistic self-care practices to biohack mind and body, connect with whole-self and build resilience
Achieving human potential and self-actualizing is about learning to hack your Psychology and Biology. A Whole-Self Leader understands the importance of self-care and adopts regular routines to keep mind and body healthy.
Some of the practices Whole-Self Leaders use to enable health, wellbeing, and next-level performance are:
Mindfulness
By rotating observation to self, a mindfulness practice can set you free of self-sabotaging habits and beliefs that hinder the effective leadership of self and others.
Uses Food Strategically
Tailored nutrition for an individual’s body and holistic wellness.
Sleep
Regular, restorative sleep is a critical part of performing at peak levels. If you want to feel your best, you need good, deep rest.
Productivity Hacks
Understanding the circumstances in which you perform your best work enables you to “hack” ways to increase productivity. Like only checking/responding to email once a day.
Movement
A tailored movement plan for their body, stage of life, and health conditions is essential to performance and fully living.
Becoming a strengths-based Integrated Whole-Self Leader™ is THE way to build high-functioning, inclusive, strengths-based teams that operate in coherence to achieve a shared goal. Not only does this produce positive results for your bottom line - it also creates a culture of authenticity, appreciation, and harmony where all feel they belong.
We specialize in helping teams and organizations understand and implement practices that cultivate the power of interdependence.
The Wellsiliency™ Institute has developed a series of interdependent courses to comprehensively address the knowledge and skills leaders and teams need to build strengths-based values-driven performance cultures where all experience belonging.
Is cultivating a deliberate culture that leaves a lasting legacy of positive impact in the lives of others important to your organization?
Our institute has designed five program pillars to help leaders be well and lead well through a skill progression from Whole-self Intelligence™ integration to boost resilience and confidence, strengths-based wellbeing, strengths-based team building, strengths-based leadership, and psychological safety to unleash collaboration.
We don't believe in providing superficial programs; instead, we strive to become your collaborative partner by equipping your leaders with the skills they need to create meaningful, enduring outcomes. Our ultimate goal is to help you build a legacy of leadership excellence that will make a real difference in your organization's success.
Contact us to request our 4 page FACT SHEET to learn how our comprehensive 5 PILLAR PROGRAM helps leaders create interdependent teams and organizations.
Let’s partner to create a more harmonious and sustainable future, where cooperation and mutual support lead to thriving.