Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In my Conscious Leadership in Action conversation with Karen Wilhelm Buckley, we explored how leaders can cultivate commitment with wise leadership. During our conversation, Karen said that unless we are grounded and centered in what matters most, our leadership is not employed with as much veracity, as much strength, or as much power.
Aligning with the title of the book, The Inner Journey to Conscious Leadership, Karen suggested that it’s constantly an inner journey, and then it’s constantly an outer journey as well. If we’re only inward, then we’re probably up in a cave, being a monk. If we’re only outward, then we’re always interacting with the world and there is not the maturity that comes from the inner work. The capacity to integrate our experience and our knowledge with our conscious awareness is really key to the capacity to be consciously a leader and to be conscious in our leadership.
When commitment is paired with wisdom, there’s an awareness of the limits of the reliability of our own knowledge. The second part is the wisdom that comes when we’re aware of the inherent dilemmas that come within acting on any commitment. So there’s always polarities. There’s two choices to make that don’t necessarily seem to go together. And an ability to be aware of those dilemmas and the fact that we have ill structured problems and messes that we’re dealing with, that are much more complex than we can possibly come to understand. That awareness is wisdom.
We cultivate commitment from the inside out. Yet commitment in itself is not enough. We have bring in wisdom before we take action. Cultivate the commitment paired with wisdom, and then take the responsible action that delivers the results.
To view the Conscious Leadership in Action video conversation with Karen Wilhelm Buckley, go to my YouTube Channel https://youtu.be/48MhOFDrm6M
