Conscious Leadership
As part of HiveWise’s ongoing support for the conscious business movement, we thought it might be helpful to define what it actually means to be a conscious business leader.
For this, we turned to our friend and advisor Tara Jenkins.
HW: In your own words, what does it mean to be a conscious business leader?
Tara: It means you have identified your values, you are using your values for decision-making each day and living them each day. You are listening more deeply to your inner voice about the path forward for you and your company, while applying generative practices, whatever they may be for you, to stay grounded, settled and clear. You also seek to keep things light and joyful and share a vibration with others that is alluring because people can feel it's different. You call people in with your energy and presence because of your ongoing inner work. You are fully present and facilitate others feeling special and cared for. This is all because you have done the inner work to know you are special and cared for as well.
HW: Who are some good examples?
Tara: The only way I can share examples are people I know personally because people in the public eye who claim consciousness can be smoke and mirrors and inauthentic. Real examples are Rob Tod, CEO of Allagash, Helen Andreoli, President of Great Diamond Partners, Kevin Hancock, CEO of Hancock Lumber
HW: What roles do transparency and trust play in conscious leadership?
Tara: Extremely important roles. Transparency is essential to building trust. However, transparency is not just about information. The inner work a conscious leader has to do is to understand where they are, how they are feeling, what's happening for them so they can demonstrate and share that transparently with others in an authentic way. That's real transparency that builds trust. The process and information is another element. But if people feel someone is withholding elements of themselves in a protectionist way, there can't be trust.
HW: According the UK Institute for Employment Studies, half of all employee engagement is tied to the way managers handle decision making. Does that resonate with you, and what do you think it means for conscious leadership?
Tara: We know employee experience is based on the relationship they have with their manager and trust is based on credibility of the decision-making process. Conscious leaders are operating with a set of principles (guided by their values) that would motivate them to be thoughtful and intentional about everything they do, including decision making. They know their role is to ask the important questions, not have the answers. Decision making is often a lot about ego. And because conscious leaders are not prioritizing ego, the process of decision making becomes about finding the best solution for all stakeholders. Employees know and feel a difference in the way decisions are made.
HW: Are there any other best practices that you would recommend to leaders wanting to become more conscious in how they look ahead into next year?
Tara: Yes, start with asking yourself these questions, which are about consciousness and intentionality and link to leadership in business:
Why am I here in this time and place? Why have I chosen to be here?
What is my holistic definition of success? What do I need to do to fulfill that definition for myself?
What gives me energy and fulfillment and how can I deepen that in my life?
What are my values and how am I doing with practicing them?
What practices do I regularly use to keep myself aligned internally and grounded? What might I need to do more of/less of for internal alignment?
Where am I reacting in my life versus responding and how can I work towards minimizing reacting?
How often do I hear myself, my inner voice, speaking wisdom to me and how often do I listen? How could I increase this frequency?
Do I really care about others deeply as people or do I care about them to the extent they provide an outcome I value? If the latter is the case, where does that come from? Is that natural to me as a human or has that been conditioned into me?
Do I have a reason to want to shift how I think about people?
About Tara
Tara Jenkins has 25 years of HR and DEI Leadership experience, including as an expatriate executive leading HR for Europe, Asia and South America for a multi-billion dollar global public company.
Tara founded Conscious Revolution five years ago. Conscious Revolution is a public benefit corporation that provides organizational development services to conscious leaders aspiring to lead conscious organizations. As a part of this work, Tara and her team are on a mission to build and share Soul-Full HR practices that embed trust, mutuality and an abundance mindset into organizational culture.
