Conscious Leadership – Building Collaboration The Facilitative Way
For years, I studied and practiced group facilitation. What really turned me on to group facilitation was being able to give people a voice in the process of change. Over the years, I got to experience how important this step was for building commitment and leading successful change.
You are hearing it today, in the public arena of politics, during an election. The politicians emphasize the fact they are getting out and listening to the people. Being conscious and aware of the needs of their people to be happy, healthy and productive. Finding out what things are most important to them. This is the kind of leadership I am referring to.
I know how people feel when they are given an opportunity to think and share their valuable ideas. They love it! To feel heard! This is the kind of leadership we need in our organizations. A leader who will spend time with their people, building connection and trust-based relationships, actively listening to employees, understanding and showing compassion for their concerns.
I call this Conscious Leadership.
It’s the recognition that meeting your people’s needs is what is going to make their organization thrive and survive. This starts by building a collaborative organization with facilitative leadership.
Here are the eight elements are required to build a collaborative organization:
1. Leadership: Visionary, empathetic leadership, managers facilitate, encourage innovation;
2. Skills: Managing group conflict, balancing work and leisure, with a partnership style;
3. Values: Vision, accountability, risking collaboration, seeing parts of the whole, generativity;
4. Communication: up, down, and sideways, information shared freely with everyone;
5. The worker: creative self-actualizing, self-starting worker takes ownership and responsibility;
6. Mission: quality of impact by the organization on society and communities;
7. Preoccupation: enabling evolution of the organization, getting all the parts working together to increase creative solutions;
8. Structure: lattice organization, cross-functional teams and projects, great structural flexibility.
The values I’m specifically speaking about are C.A.R.E ing values of: Compassion, Authenticity, Relationship Building, Empathy.
Tell me, what do people feel and do, when you show them how much you care about them? They care about you, and maximizing your profits.
When you use your profits to take of the planet, this is what I call:
Conscious, sustainable, leadership that is good for the planet.
We are living in a time when good leadership is critical, because the planet and our way of life need it. But we can’t impact the planet until we start by making the right decisions, and doing the right things, for the right reasons.
This can take a mindset shift in values for many leaders, and encouraging what I like to call “Enlightened Self-Interest”. Leaders are attracted to transforming their workplace culture because they believe it will positively impact their bottom line. However, after doing the work, and bringing the organization together, creating a sense of “good for all”, they begin to see the positive impacts it is having throughout the organization.
People are more engaged, their demeanour is more positive, and morale is higher. All these elements increase the life force energy, productivity, and employee retention in the work environment. Which have a very uplifting impact on business results.