Creating an Agile and High Performance Team

Summary

Source: Bill Shirley, https://www.managementexchange.com/story/power-of-authentic-leadership
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Context

In Search of Eagles, Inc is a Consulting & Coaching practice organized in 1995.  We work exclusively with an organization's key leaders and their leadership teams.

We are early adopters of Executive Coaching theory and practice.  We've completed advanced work in Organizational Relationship Systems Coaching concepts that focus on the executive team dynamics as compared to the individual executives.

In 2006, the International Coach Federation awarded Bill the Master Certified Coach (MCC) credential.  (There are fewer than 750 coaches in the world that hold that credential).  Susan has a Master's Degree in International Management from the University of Bristol Graduate School of International Business and 20 years experience as an executive in the non-profit arena.

In our earlier careers, we both were executives and consultants in the for-profit, non-profit and government arenas.  We have consciously and intentionally merged the life experiences of our two careers into the Authentic Leadership Model.

In our practice as Executive Leadership Coaches, we consistently encounter a common organizational distress that transcends the size of the organization or its markets or its industry.  This distress appears to be universal in response to three imperatives imposed by the 21st Century Global Economy:

• To prosper, a business must excel in three areas: 1) Evolve at the velocity of change, which is continuing to accelerate, 2) Consistently exceed the client's expectations for off-the-shelf delivery of customized products or services, and 3) Create enduring relationships across companies, countries and cultures.
• The executives leading these teams want more creativity, innovation and productivity for the team and less chaos, stress and overwhelm among the team's members.  Each leadership team desires their version of the same goal:
  

"An Agile, High Performance Team flourishing in a low-stress environment where everyone enjoys a fulfilling live adventure of their own design".

Guiding leadership teams in realizing their version of this goal is our life work.  As Coaches, our role is "Seasoned Elders".  Our philosophy and methods run so contrary to Conventional Wisdom that most leaders still see these ideas as being somewhere between "experimental" and "unrealistic".  We consider this response a "high praise" because our clients keep us around for years!

Triggers

I've attempted many "dumb" things in my life that did not turn out well, some business and personal decisions were monumental disasters.  However, the only thing I ever attempted that was a total failure was "retirement".  It nearly made me deathly ill.  Thankfully, my "failed" retirement led to discovering my true vocation.  The year was 1989.

For 20 years previous to this failure, I owned a small consulting company focused on saving floundering business operations.  The core issues, the "real" problems, were never the technical or financial symptoms everyone focused on.  They were issues that would not yield to traditional Command & Control management practices.  They were "organizational system" issues where the Culture limited creativity, innovation, risk-taking and Great Work.  The organization's Working Environments were very high stress characterized by distrust, dissonance and disengagement.

In 1967, as a fast-track executive in my early 30's, I developed some health issues that were largely stress related.  The drug-based medical model for "managing stress" made no sense to me.  It considered stress to be external, something the environment did to me, and thus I was a helpless Victim!  My research concluded that stress is an "inside job".  From that perspective, I began developing personal methodologies for transforming stress so I could live "a low-stress, fulfilling life adventure of our own design".

I also believed that so-called "high stress jobs" did NOT require a high stress Working Environment.  From that perspective, I discovered organizational systems that lowered stress within the organization actually increased initiative, creativity, innovation and productivity!  The relationship between the organization's Working Environment and its Culture became a life-long area of observation and study.

As I moved into Consulting (1969), I developed a number of leadership concepts that were very successful in creating organizational systems where the Culture supported creativity, innovation, risk-taking and Great Work.  At the time, what we were doing did not seem to me to be "special".  We just did what was logical and sensible to create a working environment where everyone was enthusiastically committed to the organization's vision, value, purpose and priorities.

Year by year, my leadership concepts evolved.  I did well enough to provide six kids with all of the college education they wanted.  When the last kid was launched in 1989, I sold the business and moved to Colorado.  I was tired and ready to play, so I thought.

I retired to Basalt, CO, near Aspen, with the intention of skiing all winter and horseback trail riding all summer.  In the very first year, I became irritable, depressed and bored.  Boredom is lethal!  For me, life within the Aspen environment had no meaning!  Within months I realized I had to create a new "fulfilling life adventure of my own design".  I had to restore meaning to my life.

In the fall of 1990, at the age of 56, I persuaded the Aspen Skiing Company to hire me as a Ski Instructor, not because I was a good skier (which I definitely was not!) but because I could relate to the guest.  Clients had fun skiing with me.  My business card said "A little learning happens when you are having fun".

Within four years, I had a large, regular following of clients who returned every year.  I did not provide just ski instructions; I provided "vacation insurance".  They knew every day we were together on the mountain would be a memorable adventure.  They wanted a "fun experience," not a ski lesson.

On the ski slopes, my job was to guide the guests in transcending their fears by creating a new belief about themselves and their abilities.  While fear is understandable, it is not logical, it is experientially emotional.  So it does not yield to logical, but experiential emotions.  What I learned about coaching fears has been extremely valuable in our Coaching practice.

When I was not skiing, I was training.  By the end of my second season I passed the Professional Ski Instructors Association (PSIA) certification exam that finally gained me acceptance among my younger, more athletic peers.  This peer acceptance really paid off the next year.  (I was over 60 before I could ski the "steep and deep, the crud and the bumps").

In 1993, the older and more senior ski instructor tried to organize a union.  (The Ski Petrol employees organized a union many years earlier).  I openly worked with management to create a conversation between management and ALL ski instructors.  If the neglected wounds of many years were to be healed, management would have to become curious and really (learn to) listen.

The Ski School had over 1200 ski instructors working on four different mountains.  The anger and resentment  was pandemic!  It appeared the union organizers would have no difficulty winning an organizing election.  I worked with the Aspen Ski Company management for several months.  We organized committees representing the instructors from each mountain who meet weekly for ten weeks.  They completely restructured the organization from the bottom, up!  When the employees returned in November for the new ski season, there was a new beginning. The anger and resentment were melting.  By the end of the season, they were largely history.

In this engagement, I used the various concepts I'd developed over my consulting career and are part of the Authentic Leadership model.  I realized how much I missed the excitement and importance of that work.

However, for the first three summers, I put on a hard hat and "Carhartts" and worked as a road construction foreman or a maintenance supervisor.  It was enlightening, rewarding and humbling to again work with skilled tradesmen.  These "salt-of-the-earth" workers have much to teach us "executive types".  This is another experience that has influenced the Authentic Leadership model.

In the early 1990's, I discovered the emerging profession of Executive Coaching.  I was an early student of Thomas Leonard and completed the Coaches Training Institute Co-Active Coach Certification requirements.  I was one of the first to complete the advanced Organizational Relationship Systems Coaching concepts where the focus is on the executive team dynamics.

To my great surprise, much of what I had been doing before "retirement" was embedded in the Core Competencies of Executive Coaching!  If I was half as smart as I think I am, I'd have written the book: "The Manager as a Coach" in the early 1980's.

I became acquainted with my first Executive Coaching Clients as their Ski Instructor.  Some of those clients are still with me today!  One day I realized the "ordinary" leadership concepts I'd developed in the 70's and 80's were "extraordinary!"   

As my Executive Leadership Coaching practice grew, I organized these leadership concepts in to a model I now call "Authentic Leadership".  (It has had several incarnations).  These early clients enjoyed being part of this evolving, research and development experience.

Being a Ski Instructor is the best job I ever had!  By 2000, my Executive Leadership Coaching ideas were gaining traction.  I had to choose between sharing an exciting mountain experience with a wide variety of interesting clients or sharing an exciting leadership development experience with an equally wide variety of interesting leaders.  It was a difficult choice.

There is a season for everything.  While I enjoyed my life as a Skiing Professional, at 66 it was not as much fun as it used to be, especially on sub-zero days!  However, I have kept my Instructor's License and currently teach a few days each winter to keep my "addiction" for the sport under control.

For the next eight years, I refined and expanded the Authentic Leadership model to where it is quite robust.  I studied advanced Organizational Relationship Systems coaching methods.  I'm one of 700 Master Certified Coaches (MCC) in the world, as recognized by the International Coach Federation, the profession's credentialing body.

"Retirement," is not an option, I made that mistake once already.  About twelve years ago my wife became enthusiastic about coaching and completed all of the formal training I have.  We are a powerful "Elder Team".  For us, executive leadership development is a labor of love.  It is our life's passion and purpose.

Key Innovations & Timeline

Richard and Frank are owners of a fund-of-funds investment company for high net worth individuals.  Richard is the Managing Partner.  At the time he engaged us, 15 years ago, he was drowning in chaos, overwhelm and stress from "success".

Richard's goal was to have a long-term profitable company without the stress and have at least three months each year away from the office.  His partner, Frank, thought he was crazy to even think about such a goal.  Richard did not know of any peer who has such a "Life of Riley" but that is what he was determined to create.

About the same time, Dan, who owns a large Library Services company, specializing in managing libraries for law firms, was also drowning in chaos, overwhelm and stress from "success".  Dan had not slept soundly for many months.  His goal was more modest; he only wanted a long-term profitable company, his health and some relaxing time with his wife and two children.

They are very different people in very different businesses.  However, the both wanted their unique version of the same goal: "An Agile, High Performance Team flourishing in a low-stress environment where everyone enjoys a fulfilling life adventure of their own design".  Both held this goal for their employees, as well as themselves.  Both are very competent, highly regarded executives.  (It will soon become obvious that this methodology is not attractive to those who are "competency challenged").

I introduced both to Authentic Leadership in regularly scheduled Executive Leadership Coaching sessions.  We used phone coaching with only one or two onsite sessions each year.  Coaching is very different than either consulting or training.  The clients are in charge of their coaching agenda.  Each session only deals with whatever topics the clients want to address at that time.  If appropriate, a Coaching Handout describing the relevant aspect of Authentic Leadership is sent to the client after the session to deepen the learning and advance the action.  (This is "just-in-time" learning at its best).

Each Coaching Handout stands on its own.  They enter the coaching conversation in almost any sequence.  Thus, some repetition is essential.  Our library of Coaching Handouts is large and growing.  Whenever we encounter a new situation that is not covered, we use the experience of the moment to either revise an existing document or generate a new one.

Our coaching process is rambling, non-linear and very messy.  We only introduce a new concept when the client is in enough pain to consider a different perspective.  It is just part of our human nature for all of us to continue to do what we've been doing until we discover, for yourself, that what we are doing is NOT working!  (We frequently ask the "Dr. Phil" question: "And how is that working for you?")

We begin with whatever issues the clients want to address and dance with them each session.  Generally, within twelve coaching sessions, clients have "consumed and are digesting" most of the Conceptual Foundation Handouts and are experimenting with some of the Operational Guides.  Every client must test every concept; nothing is to be taken on faith!

None of the Coaching Handouts tell the client what to do.  Each is designed to challenge old beliefs and stimulate creative problem solving.  Frequently a concept will arise two or three months later within a very different context.  When the clients review a Coaching Handout, new ways of seeing old realities show up.  This messy Executive Leadership Coaching technique also requires that each client keep a coaching notebook where notes of each session are kept and, between sessions, ideas are thought through and also written down.  Along with my notes, this gives the process all of the structure it needs.  This is a proven process for developing Authentic Leaders.

Richard and Dan had distinctly different journeys in pursuit of their unique version of their "High Performance Team goal".  However their approach was similar and typical of most clients.  Once they grasped the big picture of the Authentic Leadership Conceptual Foundation, they focused on operational issues, using whatever Operational Guides were useful in their specific circumstances.  Their intent was to reduce the chaos, overwhelm and stress in their lives and the lives of their employees.

Within nine months, both Richard and Dan were off their psychotropic drugs!  By the end of their first year, both were beginning to grasp what might be possible, so their ideas of what a "low-stress, fulfilling life adventure of our own design" might look like began to have new dimensions and meaning.

Over the years, both have revised their individual definitions of "An Agile, High Performance Team," and a "low-stress environment".  They encourage all employees to take personal responsibility for creating a "fulfilling life adventure of their own design".

In the second year, I began to coach two of Richard's key leaders who had no leadership training or experience.  Both of them have matured as leaders, accelerating the organization's growth and providing Richard with the free time he craves.  His investment company came through the current financial crisis quite well largely because the "low-stress environment" allowed an "agile response" to changing conditions.

At this time, Richard accumulates at least six months (in two week doses) away from the office each year.  While he makes efficient use of technology so he is easily in touch, he is quick to tell anyone, the secret is the Culture that evolved over the years.  Now everyone largely designs their own job and determines their own hours.  Anytime he sees signs of chaos, overwhelm or stress, we are looking into what is changing in the environment to elicit that response.

Dan's Library Services Company was hit hard in the recession.  However, the "HOT" Relationships within the staff enabled them to quickly revise their strategic plan to eliminate unprofitable, obsolete services and focus on profitable services.

The secret of their quick recovery is 1) their "agile response" to the rapidly shifting market and 2) the depth of trust within the Culture.  (A Culture infected with the 3D Virus: Distrust, Dissonance and Disengagement, will easily defeat the most brilliantly designed Strategic Plan).

The tempo of business continues to quicken.  The opportunities of new markets and the destruction of old markets continues to sweep over both Richard and Dan.  However, they have mastered the skills of Authentic Leadership.  Both are enjoying a "Low-Stress, Fulfilling Life Adventure of their own design".  Their story is typical of our other clients.

Challenges & Solutions

The Challenges

1) In today's uber-competitive, rapidly morphing markets, leaders have many and varied responsibilities, but there is one that trumps all the others: it is to protect the organization's "primary earning assets" that walk out of the building every night.  It is the leaders' job to have those people enthusiastically walk back in the next morning.

Research by Gallup shows that employees don't leave organizations, they leave bosses!  When the employees are counting down to Friday, they are disengaged.  Their research indicates that today over 60% of the employees are Disengaged and another 15% are totally Unengaged.

2)  In our practice as Executive Leadership Coaches, we consistently encounter a common organizational distress that transcends the size of the organization or its markets or its industry.  This distress appears to be universal in response to three imperatives imposed by the 21st Century Global Economy.  To prosper, a business must 1) Evolve at the velocity of change, which is continuing to accelerate, 2) Consistently exceed the client's expectations for off-the-shelf delivery of customized products or services, and 3) Create enduring relationships across companies, countries and cultures.

The executives leading these teams want more creativity, innovation and productivity for the team and less chaos, stress and overwhelm among the team's members.  Each leadership team desires their version of the same goal:

Our conventional wisdom regards high stress executive leadership as indigenous to a high performance organization.  This belief is understandable when witnessing the ever accelerating rate of change brought on by the game changing disruptive technologies arising throughout the world.  However, this is, literally, a destructive, unhealthy myth.

Stress is a large factor in all of the preventable, "lifestyle," diseases such as obesity, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and the more popular forms of cancer (breast, prostate and colon).  Economically and morally, it makes no sense to tolerate a high stress working environment.  Everyone deserves a "low stress, fulfilling life adventure of our own design".  It is a birthright for everyone to create a life that is truly their own and then own it.

The Solutions

Authentic Leadership is consciously and intentionally designed -- and evolving -- to meet these two specific challenges.  "An Agile, High Performance Team flourishing in a low-stress environment" is a proven concept; it exists!  The Authentic Leadership Principles making it possible evolved over the last 30 years.  It has been the focus of my life's work.

The Authentic Leadership Model is currently documented in a large collection of Coaching Handouts (one to three pages) used to deepen the learning and advance the action in relevant coaching conversations.  The coaching agenda is controlled by the client, so the sequence in which specific Coaching Handout becomes the focus of discussion depends on what is important to the client at that moment.

In practice, each Coaching Handout becomes the focus of intense, provocative coaching discussions.  The clients are at choice as to what part of each concept to embrace or discard.  The "Authentic" in Authentic Leadership refers to the fact that all Authentic Leaders have their own unique style and are guided by their unique constellation of values, vision, purpose and priorities. 

We embrace the wisdom of R. Buckminster Fuller to shift management's obsolete models:

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete".

Today's successful organization is not the "well-oiled machine," of the past.  It is a "living, breathing evolving organism!"  Today's successful organization is a healthy organism with sensitive feedback circuits that make it aware of changes in its environment, or more precisely, its "Ecosystem".  The organizational organism must adapt to its changing Ecosystem or perish.

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change". – Charles Darwin

The Organization as a Living Organism

Every organization is nothing more than a mental construct.  Thirty years ago, it was a firm, if not rigid, construct.  However, in today's rapidly changing environment, it must be a "living, evolving construct".  While it may be very adaptable and resilient, it is vulnerable to disease when in an unhealthy environment.

An organizational organism is a fragile idea to which people are drawn - and their resources committed - in pursuit of their common Vision, Values, Purpose and Priorities.  An organization can be no more than the sum of the focused enthusiasm of the people drawn to it.  Without the conscious and intentional discretionary energy of the people, all their talents and other resources are, at best, underutilized if not steadily decaying to a quiescent state.

The success of any organization lies more in the culture derived from its shared Vision and Values then in its business strategy, more in its enthusiastic commitment to its Purpose and Priorities than its technical expertise and management competence, important as these may be.

When people believe what they are doing is important, they easily focus on their tasks with enthusiasm and persistence; they have the passion of ownership.  The operative idea is belief.  The Essence of Leadership is the ability to gain Buy-in to the leaders' Vision, Values, Purpose and Priorities.  Without gaining Buy-in, the leaders' only alternative is the blunt instrument of coercion.

When management fails to gain Buy-in and chooses to use coercion, resentment and revenge arise.  This condition is expressed as Distrust, Dissonance, and Disengagement – A virulent "3D Virus".  Once it gets started, it can be tenacious and difficult to eradicate.  It saps the focused enthusiasm and the discretionary energy of the organism.

Like all living organisms, the organizational organism must always be in harmony with its ever-evolving ecosystem if it is to flourish.  When in harmony, the organism receives vital nutrients such as new ideas, opportunities, etc.  All healthy organisms have feedback loops, sensitive circuits, which guide the organism's response to changes in the ecosystem.

However, when an organizational organism is infected with the "3D Virus," the feedback loops shut down, then atrophy, and eventually, die.  A 3D Virus infection makes the organism unresponsive to changes in its environment; it responds inadequately to change required to meet the expectations of its customers, suppliers, community and other stakeholders.  If the virus infection is not controlled, it will be fatal!

The 3D Virus is extremely virulent.  Even a modest 3D Virus infection will easily defeat management's best designed and most enthusiastically pursued Strategic Plan.

A company -- an organizational organism -- does not die from competition!  If you will look closely, you will discover that the corpse was ravaged by the 3D Virus.  It dies when the employees' experience so much distrust that they no longer believe in the leader's Vision, Values, Purpose and Priorities.  It dies when the employees become dissonant and disengaged.  (The Gallup Company reports that up 65% of a typical organization's employees are disengaged!)

The best employees "fire the boss" and move on.  This provides advancement opportunities for the less competent employees who willingly endure the negativity of distrust, dissonance and disengagement for a paycheck.  Often an organization dies many years before anyone recognizes it is dead and someone provides a proper burial.

The Leader vs. The Manager

The assumption is often made that those in management positions are (automatically) leaders.  There is a world of difference between being a manager and being a leader.  Many managers are not good leaders.  Many of the most effective leaders in an organization are not managers; they are not even in positions of formal authority.

Managers are "created" from above.  A manager is a manager by virtue of the authority vested in the manager's position from above.  The manager's authority is extrinsic to the manager.  The manager's power comes from outside the person.

Leaders are "created" from within and below.  A leader is a leader by virtue of the authority vested in that person by those who choose to follow.  The leader's authority is intrinsic to the leader; the leader's authority has more to do with "Being" than "Doing".  The leader's power comes from inside the person.  (Authority is external, Power is internal).

The Authentic Leader

Authentic Leaders are transparent, curious, and vulnerable.  They also possess a Beginner's Mind.  They have no facades; what you see is what you get.  ALL they can ever offer those they lead is who they authentically are, nothing more, nothing less.  They are neither superior nor inferior to their followers.

Authentic leaders show up with humility and quiet self confidence.  For example, when asked a question, they can easily say "I don't know.  What do you think?" when they don't know the answer.  Or, when reviewing one of their unsuccessful projects, they can say "That sure didn't work.  Can you help me?  What do you think we should try next?"

Three attributes define Authentic Leadership.  First, Mastering the Art of Authentic Leadership is a life-long journey, not a destination.  The effectiveness of all leaders dissolves the instant they think they have "arrived".

Second, Authentic Leadership emanates more from the heart and less from the head, more from intuition and feeling, and less from logic and thinking.  Yes, logical, analytical problem solving skills are necessary, but they are NOT sufficient if Authentic Leaders are to be successful at their most important Key Responsibility.

Third, Authentic Leaders must create "HOT" Relationships with those they wish to lead if they are to be successful fulfill their most important Key Responsibility.  ("HOT" Relationships are relationships grounded in Honesty, Openness and Trust.  This concept is developed in the "HOT" Relationships Coaching Handout).

The Core Essence of the Authentic Leader

Authentic Leadership is grounded in our relationship with ourselves.  We work in harmony with our Internal Team and learn from our self talk.  Our relationship with ourselves is the keystone of the arch that encompasses every relationship in our life.  It is the quality of our relationship with ourselves that determines the quality of ALL the relationships in our life.  It is this relationship on which we focus when we create a low stress, fulfilling life adventure of our own design.

In all circumstances, Authentic Leaders treat themselves with loving kindness and gentle good humor.  Criticism, especially self-criticism, never improved behavior or performance.  They look for lessons, not mistakes and they regard all failures as valuable research.

Authentic Leaders live by two self-evident truths: 1) all leadership is example, anything else is coercion and 2) moment-by moment, we are choosing to create either Resonance or Dissonance in all of our human encounters.  (This concept is expanded in the "A Simple Model" Coaching Handout).

People willingly follow a leader because they see their leader as an authentic, vulnerable human being; complete but not perfect, knowledgeable, but not all-knowing, and most importantly, caring without being weak or smothering.  ("I must know how much you care before I care about how much you know!")

The essence of leadership is the ability to gain Buy-in to the leader's values, vision, priorities and purpose.  Without gaining Buy-in, the leader's only alternative is the blunt instrument of coercion which is not an effective leadership tool.

Introduction

Many, many years ago, the Dean of American Management Theory and Practice, Peter Drucker stated:

"The Purpose of Business is to create and keep a Customer".

Peter Drucker goes on to make the case that a focus on profits is harmful.*  Of course, profits are essential.  However, they are the result of focusing on what is truly important.  With the exception of the rare monopoly situation, all sound businesses have adequate access to physical resources and financial capital.

The only thing that distinguishes the highly successful business from all the others is the leaders' ability to create and hold a customer.  That ability is directly proportional to the leaders' ability to attract and hold enthusiastically engaged, creative and innovative talent: highly productive "human capital".  (High quality human capital attracts high quality financial capital, not the other way around).  Success is proportional to the human capital competitive advantage!

Peter Drucker's simple, direct focus on what is truly important for business success is the Geneses of Authentic Leadership.  The simple elegance of this model is the marriage of two self-evident truths:

• All leadership is example, anything else is coercion.
  

All effective executives authentically "walk their talk".  This is the only way to create enthusiastic, emotionally loyal and engaged followers.  Competent people with a strong self-concept will not be coerced; they'll just leave.

• Moment-by-moment, we are choosing to create either Resonance or Dissonance in all of our human encounters, even if we disagree.
  

The reality of both our personal life and our professional life is this: our joy, success and happiness are limited only by the quality of our relationships.   Authentic Leaders choose to create Resonant Relationships, not Dissonant Relationships.  They disagree without being disagreeable.

Our prosperity, health and happiness require us to discover new ways of dealing with the rapidly changing 21st Century Global Economy, its mercurial markets, disruptive technologies and sudden economic threats.  Regardless of our business or profession, this unrelenting rapid change imposes varying degrees of anger, frustration, isolation and overwhelm upon our lives, both personal and professional.  Anxiety abounds!  Not only is the velocity of change accelerating, it has no known terminal velocity!

It is easy to understand how the ever-increasing chaos may cause us to grasp for control and security, abandoning our opportunity to create "a low-stress, fulfilling life adventure of our own design".  However, consider this alternative view:

"Security is mostly a superstition.  It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.  Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.  Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing".  ---  Helen Keller

In 1970, Alvin Toffler's book, Future Shock, was the first to point out that the velocity of change was accelerating and discuss the implications.  He accurately predicted what has transpired since then.  At that time, it became my life's work to assist people (and their organizations) in learning to use the energy of change to their benefit.  The Authentic Leadership model evolved from this clear purpose.  These concepts apply universally to both our personal and our professional lives.  They provide guidance in our pursuit of happiness and meaning in our life.

I know of no greater privilege and responsibility than for each of us to create a "low stress, fulfilling life adventure of our own design".  In our pursuit of this creation, we quickly crash into the fact: "We are all Leaders, all of the time!"  Our life is an example for everyone whose life we touch; "All leadership is example, anything else is coercion".  Our emotions are contagious; we create either Resonance or Dissonance in all relationships, personal and professional.  This includes family, friends, bosses, colleagues, other employees, suppliers, customers, and the general community.

Year by year, we are increasingly buried in information, choices and challenges, all demanding more time, energy and attention.  Our natural, intuitive response is to run faster, do more and eliminate anything that is not focused on an immediate task in order to get everything done that must be done NOW!  Yes, a "do more, faster" strategy may work for a while, but it ultimately ends in disaster!  At the best, the "human being" becomes only a "human doing," a carbon computer: a multi-tasking "Bot," sans awareness.  At worst, it destroys the individual's health and happiness.

"Nobody, as long as he moves among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble". -- Carl Jung

The wisdom of both Jung and Maslow suggests that the only way to deal with the ever-accelerating rate of change is to slow down!  We must slow down so we can focus on just two things: Clarity and Equilibrium.  Only from this solid foundation can we create a "low-stress, fulfilling, life adventure of our own design".  Let's examine each concept individually:

Clarity:

Clarity is knowing what is truly important to us; what it is we value.  Most simply stated: "it is knowing what makes our life worth living".  Clarity is also being decisive and courageous about whom and what to jettison from our life so we have room for the relationships and experiences that bring fulfillment to our life adventure.  This is a singular act of courage:

"To find in ourselves what makes life worth living is risky business, for it means that once we know, we must seek it.  It also means that without it, life is valueless".  ---   Marsha Sientar

To become clear as to our values requires a journey into our inner space.  To coin a phrase, "to boldly go where no man has gone before!"  It requires honesty in recognizing values we once adopted because of someone else's expectations, and replacing them with values we choose because they are integral to our Being and Purpose.  We don't just value one thing; we each have a vast array of values.  It is just as important to be clear about our priorities within our value array as it is to be clear about the values that populate it.  We evolve only to the extent we are clear about our values and their relative priorities in the life we wish to live!  Socrates figured it out 2400 years ago:

"An unexamined life is not worth living".

Nature is both relentless and unforgiving: Every organism must evolve as its environment changes or it will die.  Both individually and organizationally, we connect to our "ecosystem" through our Values – and the belief system our values support.  Our ecosystem is changing so rapidly, we must periodically check and update our Clarity.  Are those things we once valued, those things to which we once dedicated our life's energy still calling us forth, or is it time to replace them with new, more compelling values that are more in-tune with who we are now and desire to become?  Have our value priorities changed?  Both individually and organizationally, we have a responsibility to update our conscious values and their relative priorities as we evolve in response to the ecosystem in which we are evolving.

Any necessary redirection of our Life Purpose flows naturally from the updated clarity of our values.  Our Purpose is simply our reason for Being.  Individually, it is expressed as our Vocation, our Calling in Service of a Life beyond our self-absorbed comforts.  Organizationally, it is expressed as our Purpose, our reason for existence that transcends power, profits, and personal aggrandizement.  A life lived "With Purpose" – individually or organizationally -- embodies Clarity and Equilibrium.

Equilibrium:

In this context, Equilibrium means "a dynamically stable system in which the forces balance each other; a harmonious arrangement of the elements within a design".  How we each balance all of the competing demands on our time and energy is a very individual exercise.  To do this successfully, we must have acute clarity; that is, we must be acutely aware of our values array and their relative priorities.  We also must be very comfortable with who we are, our life purpose, and dedicated to living beyond our self-absorbed comfort.

For example, all business owners, executives, and individual professionals have competing demands between their personal and professional lives.  The proper distribution of time and energy for every individual will be very different because we all have very different values arrays and relative priorities.

Regardless of the details of handling the chaos and frustrations in one's life, our life is in Equilibrium when it is a harmonious arrangement of Passion, Joy, Prosperity, and Ease:

Passion: we are passionately engaged in life; alive and curious about each ever-changing moment.  (The alternatives to passionate engagement are partially engaged numbness or disengaged boredom; both are lethal states of non-existence).

Joy: our compelling life purpose is the source of our Joy, a state of being quite different from pleasure or even happiness.  (Living "With Purpose" is the only source of lasting Joy in life!)

Prosperity: our Prosperity has nothing to do with money or possessions; its source is abundance, – not poverty – a state of mind created by the beauty of being fully alive.  It is the appreciation and awareness of our beauty within and from that space, seeing the beauty in the world.  It is grounded in our full appreciation of our intrinsic worth and our enthusiastic desire to share our unique talents with the universe.

Ease: It is not related to leisure.  Its source is humility, humor, intuition, vision and vulnerability.  We move through our day with Ease.  For example, tough decisions are made with Ease.  Though the decision may be tough, there is no self-doubt, agony, or anxiety surrounding the decision.

Conclusion

The above material is a sample of the concepts the clients are challenged to evaluate as they search for more successful ways to lead.

Benefits & Metrics

The Benefits:

The key benefit of embracing the Authentic Leadership model is a workforce of enthusiastic, emotionally loyal and engaged employees committed to the Vision, Values, Purpose and Priorities of the organization.  The principle benefits of shifting the primary focus from tasks to relationship dynamics are:

• Perpetually increasing productivity, creativity and innovation,
• Consistently high product quality, and
• An ever-expanding base of loyal customers.
  

These metrics are the real-time and leading indicators of performance.  These three, synergistically, are what create the more classical measures of performance, which are actually the secondary benefits, or the consequences, of this model:

• Increased profits,
• Increased sales,
• Increased market share, and
• Increased shareholder value.
  

An additional primary benefit of this model is the measurable reduction in employee turnover.  More precisely stated, Authentic Leadership significantly reduces the deterioration of your business's primary earning assets: a highly productive, loyal workforce.

The Metrics

We have no hard data from clients on the benefits.  They report these benefits qualitatively and continue to engage us to work with their rising, young leaders.  Most of our clients have been with us more than five years.

Lessons

1. While Authentic Leadership evolved in non-directional Executive Leadership Coaching relationships, there is nothing intrinsic about it to prevent it from being delivered in more traditional or conventional ways.

2. Authentic Leadership does not work unless there is enthusiastic Buy-in and full cooperation from Senior Management.  It requires leaders who embrace two self-evident truths: 1) all leadership is example, anything else is coercion and 2) moment-by moment, we are choosing to create either Resonance or Dissonance in all of our human encounters.  (This concept is expanded in the "A Very Simple Model" Coaching Handout).

3. Authentic Leadership requires leaders with higher Social Emotional Intelligence then is commonly found in most organizations.  When Senior Management commits the organization to living by Authentic Leadership Principles, it will discover some employees, typically middle managers, who are not capable of developing the required Social Emotional Intelligence skills and will have to be replaced.  Most often these "SEI Challenged" individuals stagnated in their positions long ago.