Conscious Leadership

Conscious leadership is a philosophy embracing expansiveness and growth mindsets as opposed to closure and scarcity mindsets. Expansiveness is the ability to be the leader you wish you had by taking full responsibility for the impact you have in the world, and following through it every day, always keeping in mind the key principles of a conscious leader as outlined in the Conscious Leadership Group’s website.

You expand your persona by accepting the uncertainty of the world and phenomena around you and focusing on your own behaviors and actions, as opposed to blaming external factors. You switch your mindset from “this happens to me” to “this happens by me”.

Conscious leadership is founded on 15 commitments:

1. Responsibility. By taking full responsibility for what is under your control (your thoughts and actions), you free yourself up from taking part in the drama triangle and commit to exploring your inner inadequacies instead.
2. Curiosity. You focus on “becoming a person” by introspecting and cultivating a genuine willingness to learn and grow as an individual.
3. Feelings. They come and go faster than clouds in the sky. A conscious leader understands the role of emotions in humans, accepts them, and sits with them listening closely when necessary (it’s not always necessary, but most of the time it is).
4. Candor. It is the ability to open up and lead conversations from a place of radical and gentle honesty. As a conscious leader, deploying candor fosters authentic human connections and enables the world around you to open up to you through your candor.
5. Gossip. It is on the opposite end of the spectrum of candor. If you wouldn’t say that directly to whom it may concern, you are partaking in gossip and rowing against commitment #4. A conscious leader practices the habit of terminating gossip and opening up by inquiring within.
6. Integrity. It is the ability to maintain all your agreements and commitments and follow through with them as necessary. A conscious leader pays attention to integrity and cultivates it all the way through.
7. Appreciation. It is the expansive habit of showing and being open to receiving appreciation. Such a practice can increase your level of life satisfaction and create more meaningful connections.
8. Genius. It is the ability to recognize your “zone of genius” and empower the people around you to do the same and live within it.
9. Play and rest. As a conscious leader, you are aware of how slightly insignificant and ironic life is. To that end, you understand the value of taking things easy, playing, and laughing as needed.
10. Opposite of my story. It is reality and you recognize its value. As a conscious leader, you commit to listening closely to contrarian arguments and you internalize the truth that many times your side of the story may not be the correct (or unique) side of the story.
11. Approval. It is the commitment to being self-sufficient and your own source of strength and security. A conscious leader is someone who draws energy from themselves instead of being shackled by their insecurities and relying on others for approval.
12. Enough. It is a growth mindset; the inconsequential belief that what you have is enough and that you can only be happy, not become happy. A conscious leader believes they have enough of everything to live an examined life—because that is very likely the case if you are reading this.
13. Allies. The people and circumstances around you are allies; helpful companions of the mysterious journey of existence. A conscious leader accepts the people around them as allies, not enemies or obstacles.
14. Win for all. A conscious leader commits to putting everyone and everything around them “one up” by believing in win-win scenarios as opposed to zero-sum games.
15. Being the resolution. A conscious leader is proactively becoming the solution as opposed to choosing to be resentful to the world and deploy reactive behaviors.

These fifteen points come from this official article from The Conscious Leadership Group.