We are all wired with the same desires – to feel safe, to be loved. These needs put us on paths to seek connection and offer opportunities for our purest expressions of our humanity. There are many things that impede our attempts at getting these needs met. When leaders strive to create cultures of safety, connection, and belonging, we are meeting those core human needs. This is no easy feat.
Ladders. Jungle Gyms. Plateaus. Mountain tops. All of these nouns are used to describe the things we can climb in our professional and personal journeys. The dots from here to there connect our choices and create our stories, both for ourselves and the organizations we steward. Like small children on a playground, we find ourselves wondering where, when, and what to climb...
Does your inner voice ever say things to yourself that you would never say to others? Do you find it hard to forgive yourself for mistakes or bounce back after a setback? We can all strengthen our capacity for self-kindness by recognizing its gifts, understanding our resistance to it, and practicing to become the leader that creates a culture of safety and caring.
Compassionate leaders understand the importance of emotional intelligence and body intelligence, in addition to that of head-based intelligence. In recognizing these other forms of knowing, we simultaneously broaden our powers of understanding and responding to the world, and we deepen our capacity to use our miraculous thinking brain.
