How many of us enter our workplace as our whole selves? How many of us leave part of ourselves right at the door?
"These are my weaknesses; I can’t let anyone see them."
"These are my deepest values, but this one doesn’t seem to fit in with my organization, so I’ll just leave it right here."
"This is a future aspiration of mine; I don’t think anyone would appreciate that it has nothing to do with my current role, so I’ll just leave it here as well."
"I have some ideas for how I could grow here, and I see some potential for my colleague. I’d probably be fired or excluded from the team if I spoke up about either of those, as no one likes conflict here. I’ll just leave it at the door as well."
Pretty soon, we walk in with half of ourselves, thinking that it's what we need to do to be our best at work and that it's what our organization, team or group wants from us. Of course, hiding all of this takes work. As Frederick Laloux said in his book, Reinventing Organizations, “Every time we leave a part of us behind, we cut ourselves off from part of our potential, of our creativity and energy.”
Is this really what our workplaces, our customers and our clients want from us? Part of our potential? Part of our creativity? And just a slice of our energy? I think not, but all too often, leaders and workplaces reinforce practices of separation and fear rather than purpose and wholeness.
Psychologist Robert Kegan of Harvard calls hiding all of this our "second job" and has studied the underlying anxiety caused by this approach to work as well as the real bottom line cost it has for organizations.
Kegan has found, along with his colleagues, that adults have the ability to develop heightened levels of mental complexity (or wholeness) but it is adaptive work (not technical) and it is about continuously examining our ego and shedding self-protecting beliefs and assumptions.
Our whole self uses not only our rational mind (our head) but our emotions (our heart) and our intuition (our gut). Our whole self is made up of both masculine and feminine energies. Masculine energies are things like rational, logical and goal-directed thinking whereas feminine energies are more emotional, passionate and creative. Balancing these energies allows our whole self to expand the awareness through which we look at the world and ourselves.
Most people believe that rational thought and masculine energies are most acceptable and valued in the workplace today, yet current data and centuries-old wisdom tell us differently. Wisdom says our deepest calling in life is to overcome fear and recognize the oneness all around us, to reclaim the wholeness within ourselves and the world. As one scholar says, “Humans are created for transcendence as birds are for flight and fish are for swimming.”
In the book Mastering Leadership, authored by the leaders behind The Leadership Circle, a 360 multirater development tool that helps assess leaders' level of consciousness and wholeness, found that leading with the whole self (or what they call a creative capacity) has a positive correlation of .93 to leadership effectiveness. Meaning we are 93% more likely to be effective leaders when leading with our whole selves.
Further, it has a positive correlation of .61 to business performance. Whereas leading from a place of separation and self-protection and what they call "reactive" has a negative correlation of .68 to leadership effectiveness. Their research, along with Kegan's, found that only about 30% of adults make these transformational leaps to wholeness in a lifetime. When we live and lead with wholeness, we hold a more expanded awareness and are able to hold multiple perspectives, be curious about the positive and dark aspects of ourselves and others, think and feel, live with courage, judge less and be more inclusive. In these complex times, we need more adults making this leap.
Leading with your whole self requires you to be courageous and look at the darker parts of yourself (often called your shadow) and bring them to the surface. Leading with your whole self requires you to respectfully confront the tensions you have with others to grow individually and collectively, rather than to please or control others or ignore the tension -- as so many do. Leading with your whole self asks you to speak up about things that really matter, and that may be hard for others to hear. The best ideas don’t come from conformity or people staying quiet and avoiding conflict.
As leaders begin to shift their mindset to one of wholeness, organizations can shift. When organizations shift, society can shift. There is a different way, and you can also lead from wholeness. Are you ready to make the leap?
