The Zen Leader Blog

I come from a family of high-achievers, so driving for results is a very familiar pattern. We reward leaders who are good at this "push" strategy. But often times, their teams suffer and collapse under the constant pressure. People feel like they are "always playing catch-up"  with these high-powered individuals, and the result is burn-out, or the loss of valuable talent as they move elsewhere to relieve the strain. So, what's the alternative?

Like any marketing expert will tell you, a "pull" strategy, or one where the customer is drawn in rather than being pushed upon, is equally and often more effective than its counterpart. Lets think about this in terms of leadership. If we envision a future, can a leader attract the people and conditions to bring it about? Does the Law of Attraction apply here? The Zen Leader will tell you YES.

Slow down
The first step to attracting the future is to slow down and stop. This may seem contrary to your way of doing things, but by slowing down you have a greater sense of your market, your customer, your world - not just what's happening but what's missing, too. Stopping, if even for a moment, allows the mind to change gears and sense the opportunities.

In connection with a webinar we hosted last week around The Zen Leader, a premier coach in Singapore contacted me, wondering how a Zen perspective would address issues he typically hears from clients.  Here was his list:

Ginny Whitelaw is interviewed on the Stu Taylor radio show (www.stutaylor.com) about her new book, The Zen Leader: 10 Ways to go From Barely Managing to Leading Fearlessly.  Listen to the full interview below.

Most of us are pretty familiar with Maslow's hierarchy as it relates to life - physical needs at the bottom... self-actualization at the top. But it can also be applied to leadership development. Leaders, for the most part, really care about their people and company. But seeking our own needs is deeply human and does not disappear when we start caring about others. Instead, it goes underground and appears in many disguised forms. Such as:

- Only I can do this (fast enough, correct enough, etc.)
- I'm right
- I want credit for this (or my team to get credit)
- I need to market myself better
- I'm worried about money
- If our groups get merged, I may be out of a job
- I don't care what you think (or just not listening)
- How does this affect my bonus?
- It bothers me that my peers don't like me
- I'm burning out; I work too hard
- I don't care what our lofty mission says, the only thing that matters is winning
- I need to be heard (respected, promoted, etc.)

Let's start by mapping these thoughts to where they fall on Maslow's hierarchy. For example:
- Only I can do this (fast enough, correct enough, etc.) - self actualization
- How does this affect my bonus? - personal power
- It bothers me that my peers don't like me - affiliation
- I'm worried about money - security
- I'm burning out; I work too hard - physical

Recognizing how our needs come into play and can color a situation, puts us on the verge of the flip that The Zen Leader calls "It's all about me" to "I'm all about it." This is where we go from using people and situations to meet our needs to using our needs to serve others.  When we flip it around, even our needs can be a positive force.

"Being selfish for our self-in-our-skin, we can get stuck in “high school,” feeding our insecurities, taking things personally, which is to make them all-about-us. Being selfish on the largest possible scale, we become all-about-it, whatever it we embrace as our world," writes Ginny Whitelaw.

This is servant leadership at its finest. Recognizing our own personal needs but not getting stuck there. Expanding our selfishness to this broader scale and becoming the champion and protector of its needs. To read more about how to make this flip, check out chapter 8 in The Zen Leader (here is a glimpse inside The Zen Leader, if you're interested).

In the final installment of our video series, Dr. Ginny Whitelaw, author of The Zen Leader, discusses what type of experience a participant can expect from one of her workshops or speaking engagements.

            I was recently at a networking event of a small group of local business consultants.  With my fresh copy of The Zen Leader on the table, the conversation quickly turned to the topic of the book.  Most of the consultants really ‘got it’ but one of my colleagues really didn’t.  Half joking, he said, “all I know about Zen is that it’s a flavor of tea.”  After a crash course on Zen, he asked the question, “What does this have to do with business leadership?”  I’m sure he is not alone, so what better place to explore this question than our blog.

I’ve heard these myths many times, but today I found all 3 of them in the same article.  So here goes…

In this video, Ginny Whitelaw, author of The Zen Leader, discusses the importance of spending the effort and energy to lead like a Zen Leader.