A new kind of leader is emerging in organizations that transcends the preferred boxes we currently have for leadership; The Healing Leader. And we need more to help bring the world into balance.
What makes a great leader?
The simple definition of a leader is someone who rules, guides or inspires others. It sounds easy enough, but in an evolving world that moves fast and diversifies just as fast, and to many people feels chaotic, what it means to rule, guide and inspire has become more complex. Consequently, as the world evolves, the answer to what makes a great leader evolves with it.
I’d like to propose a new answer to this age-old question. In the work I do with leaders around the world, I see a new type of leader emerging, which I strongly hope, but I also believe, will become the most sought-after leaders in the years to come; The Healing Leader.
Traditionally, I think many will think of a healer as someone who laid their hands on other people to cure them from illness, or had tinctures ready for remedy. If you look up the word healer, it is someone who mends and repairs, alleviate, cure and restores. And it is mostly associated with someone who dabbles in the spiritual realm and engages in unconventional treatments and methods.
It is not something we traditionally have associated with the business world and its focus on how to get people to deliver results supporting the bottom-line. So, what do the two have to do with each other?
The current system is at its best sick, and at its worst broken, and it leaves a trail of suffering in its wake. The system needs healing, and what the world needs today is healing leaders that are able to bring about that change.
We can all become a healing presence, but in a position of power, we have a unique opportunity to influence many people directly. Consequently, Healing Leaders hold one of the keys to restoring our world. These leaders have the opportunity to repair, cure and restore the ills of consciousness, and heal systems that makes people sick and perpetuate the disconnection from our true nature. We need leaders that dare use unconventional methods to bring systems into balance, and provide the right remedies for people to heal and restore into their natural creative greatness. The current path upholds a distorted image of what it means to be successful and what it requires to create success, which just makes us sicker as a collective.
What we need are new systems built on healthy principles. We need people in inner and outer balance that are able to bring their creative genius to work in service to the whole. And I’ll make a bold statement that Healing Leaders are the ones that can access the right wisdom and create the right circumstances for this to happen.
These leaders can work in any field, and have any kind of job. Their job is not the work they happen to do, their title is not what defines their job description. Their job, if we call it that, is to be in alignment with their true purpose to restore life into a higher balance in ways that are unique to them. And the company they happen to work at is just the vehicle for their healing work.
There is a lot to be said about what differentiates these kinds of leaders from the pack that currently paints the picture of the world’s organizations, which despite widely used words such as ‘trust’, ‘care’ ‘thriving’, ‘balance’ and ‘purpose’ still run on fear and create more imbalance than balance.
Foremost, a healing leader is a leader that emerges from the deep inner work of unravelling layers of conditioning that they have had to shed. They rise from the awakening of truth in their heart, and they develop the courage to bring their heart wisdom to the forefront of their leadership. They carry the knowing that who they are and what they can do is not defined by their title, bottom line or the personality profile they have received at the point of entrance. This set them free to do their true work.
For the purpose of this article, I’ll point to 5 ways in which a Healing Leader differentiates itself from the norm.
1. It is not what I do, that is important, but my state of being.
A healing leader will do and take plenty of actions, but they know that their state of being is what defines the outcome of their actions. Their doing is informed by their state of being. Keeping their inner balance, taking care of their energy and whole being is key to their leadership.
2. Work is the mean to restore creative greatness
Healing leaders use organizations as a platform to do their healing work. In that way, all work becomes a vehicle for restoration and growth, whether it is for the individual or the larger stakeholder chain, creating results that are in service to the whole.
3. The external world is an effect, inner world is a cause.
They know that inner world creates outer world. The most important source for decisions-making is the resources we are able to access within, and our inner state of being. Among others, they know that supporting people around them to cultivate inner connection and self-trust through their work is the most direct way to help bring out their greatness.
4. Energy is everything
Healing Leaders know that at the root of all matter – whether it is the chair they sit in or the belief-system they adhere to, is energy. The greatest tool at their disposal is their understanding of energy and innate connection to the creative source of life, and their ability to navigate from the truth and wisdom of their heart. This makes them less concerned with optics and more with the truth of the matter.
5. System intelligence
Healing Leaders know that there is no separation between the system they operate in and themselves. We are the system; the system is us. For as long as we are either in resistance to a system or a supporter of a system (whether knowingly or unknowingly), we cannot create new systems. Healing Leaders possess system intelligence that enable them to listen to, influence and create new systems.
There are many things that could be mentioned, discussed, and highlighted about Healing Leaders. And I hope this is a conversation that will grow in the years to come. For now, it is my greatest joy to be in service to these leaders, and support them in bringing their healing presence to the teams and organizations that they work in. And I know and see that even those these leaders might not physically lay their hands on your body, or give you tinctures to drink – they heal through their presence and the decisions they make in each of the many avenues and connection points that their organizational environment provide for them. They innately know that the work they do cannot help but support the bottom line, even if they cannot see that directly, because at the end of the day, love always wins over fear.