Leading With Ease – What is motivating you? Do you feel inspired and clear about your direction? Or do you feel stress and pressure? Motivations reflect your current thoughts and emotions. They stimulate your actions and movements.
The question is how can you lead most effectively?
Obviously, stress can cause dissonance with yourself and others. It typically reflects an underlying fear or a desire to grasp. On the other hand, inspiration reflects a sense of purpose and enthusiasm for your direction. From this motivation, you can lead with more ease.
Ballroom dance demonstrates these differences quite beautifully. The fact is the “dance” does not happen when it is forced or constricted. Dance moves more fluidly from an inspired flow. It requires both the leader and follow to integrate their heads, hearts and hands and move in alignment with their whole body.
As an example, a couple who loves to dance had lost their ease of movement together. As I observed them dance, I could see the leader was forcing his partner from his upper body. After more exploration, I understood he was in pain because of recent knee problems. In fact, he was feeling a lot of anxiety and was not able to fully “embody”. After he realized his disconnect, he relaxed into his feet, knees and his center and once again became an effective dance leader.
As a business leader, we can learn from this. Being mindful of your whole body energy engages more of your power. From this perspective, caring for your energy and moving with your natural rhythm becomes a primary and desired mode of operation. It improves your leadership effectiveness.
How do you do this? Knowing that your energy includes a combination of your thoughts, emotions and body vitality, take time to pause and ground within. As stress is noticed, slow down your mind by breathing into your body. Observe your thoughts and listen with an open heart.
Or walk in nature and align with the larger eco-system. Then as you integrate your body, breath and environment, ask yourself some questions:
What is my purpose? What impact do I want to make?
Who do I currently influence? What would serve them best?
By connecting your head and heart, purposeful insights will arise and motivate your actions.
David Hawkins wrote the book, Power vs Force – the hidden determinants of human behavior. Excellent book! The message is quite simple.
You have an internal system that can provide you with the means by which you may detect if you’re being misled… In fact, you have the ability to connect with the giant database of human consciousness. When you do, you have access to unlimited information.
This information is readily available to anyone. It is your opportunity to understand how to access it.
The skillful are not obvious
They appear to be simple-minded
Those who know this knows the patterns of the Absolute
To know the patterns is the Subtle Power
The Subtle Power moves all things and has no name
David Hawkins, Power vs Force
From this motivation, you can lead with more ease.