I’m currently taking part in an awesome leadership course – WorldBlu’s Freedom-Centered Leadership programme.
I’ve been a huge fan of WorldBlu’s work, ever since I first read about Traci and the spiritual basis on which she grounds her practice of organizational democracy and freedom-centered leadership. This is not about political democracy but about a better way to run our organisations, with a freedom-centered mindset, that empowers the best of each individual. World Blu says that fear at work manifests itself in many different ways, including low productivity, bad decisions, wastefulness, stress, micro-management and a lack of innovation. According to a Gallup survey, 80% of employees are disengaged at work. To me, the ideas of building companies where freedom is a core principle are intuitively right for any leader who desires to lead with a strong sense of purpose, vision and values-based leadership. Here’s Traci talking about the importance of Freedom-Centered Leadership.
One of the practices that the course demands of it’s participants is to consider the role fear plays in obstructing forward movement in following one’s purpose and vision and radically asks us as leaders to remove fear in our day to day practice as leaders. One of these activities involved a 30 day exploration of The Power Question™ which asks ‘What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?’. I found it fascinating and insightful, not to mention a little hard (!), to keep up this exploration for a full 30 days and, after a few false starts, got into the swing of it. Wow! Did it really open up my eyes to how much influence fear seems to have in our thoughts and actions. I started to see so many aspects of my life, my business and my interactions with others as fear-based and resolved to eliminate this fear from my life.
It can be hard. But readers of this blog will know that I believe the opposite of fear to be love. Therefore, the elimination of fear is paramount to my purpose in life and, as such, deserves all my efforts in mastering and conquering the power that fear would try to have.
It seems to me that one way to do this is to so focus on love that fear simply has no place in our experience. I’m also learning that the conscious elimination of fear has, as it’s by-product, a more quietly confident and humble compassion for ourselves and others that has a transformative effect. When we quieten our senses for long enough to ‘listen’ to our highest sense of right, we can confidently let go of whatever fear it is that seems to have sway.
The World Blu Freedom-Centered Leadership programme gives leaders the opportunity to work through the 10 principles of organizational democracy, as defined on the World Blu site. Principles include Transparency, Accountability, Choice and Dialogue and Listening, and Decentralization. It’s an amazing and life-changing programme and I highly recommend any leader committed to supporting the potential of others and unleashing the power for good of their organization, to take part in the programme. You can find out more on World Blu’s site at www.worldblu.com.
Love Not Fear 