Changeworksblog.com

If you’re striving to be the kind of leader people willingly follow, you’ll soon discover a purely intellectual approach to leadership won’t get you the results you desire.

In my experience successful leaders know how to influence the emotional experience of their counterparts in a generative manner, and there’s no better way to do this than by communicating with your whole self. Having your body and your intellect, communicating the same message, so that what you say matches what you do.

Becoming an embodied leader can be developed and trained for, in the same way a pianist runs through scales in preparation for a concert and a ballplayer spends time in the batting cage before a game. Through practice you’ll discover wisdom is manifested through your body and movement, as well as through your verbal communication.
 
My colleague Charlie Badenhop* recently shared his concept of embodied leadership with me, and I believe you’ll find value is what he has to say-

You exude ‘embodied leadership’ when–

1. You are in touch with your body and your emotions, and gently but freely express what you feel and believe to be so.
2. You do your best to stay in touch with the emotional experience of your counterparts.
3. You realize your model of the world is not “the truth” and your opinions are not to be impulsively acted upon.
4. You regularly solicit the opinions of others and ask them to correct you whenever they think it would be helpful.
5. You are comfortable being at the center, more so than being at the top.
6. You are comfortable accessing your intuition, as an alternative source of wisdom, and invite others to do the same.
7. You desire to collaborate rather than being in command.
8. What you think and feel matches your actions.
9. You bring your “whole self” with you to work every day, and recognize that emotional expression is crucial for everyone’s health and well-being.
10. You recognize the onset of seeming conflict, as a positive signal, alerting you to the need for a shift in relationship.
11. You’re able to transcend logic and verbal language, to get to the heart of the matter.
12. You understand that in a healthy system, emotion and logic tend to balance each other.

 ”Here is the very heart and soul of the matter of leadership:
If you seek to lead, invest 50% of your time (attention) leading yourself- your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct.
Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers – Use the remainder to induce those you “work for” to understand and practice the theory – If you don’t understand that you should be working for your mislabeled “subordinates,” then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny -  Lead yourself, lead your superiors, lead your peers, and free your people to do the same.
All else is trivial.”
Dee Hock, founder and CEO Emeritus Visa International

* Charlie Badenhop is an Aikido sensei, composer, consultant and coach. He’s an American who has lived and worked in Japan for more than 20 years. To find out more about his work, I urge you to look at http://www.seishindo.org