How conscious leadership coaching could change your life and your business
When setting out to achieve a personal goal, or create purpose-driven strategy for your business do you ever stop and ask: “Is this the best approach to achieve?” “Is this even the right goal or path for me and the company?”
Julianna Bootsman of White Box Leadership & Coaching helps to guide leaders from a state of knowing and knowledge into owning and discovering the truth of their actions. Her clients move into deeper values-aligned actions in their businesses, as well as personally.
In the following interview, Julianna reveals some of the common themes and roadblocks she sees leaders face, and how to go about putting what we actually know into action.
1. What do you do as a “conscious leadership coach”?
Greatness, or being “at our best,” is often synonymous with crushing goals and achieving big things. As a conscious leadership coach, I work with clients to be sure that what they are working to achieve is coming from deep alignment with who they are in their soul and spirit.
When a person knows who they are, and they can own and align their actions with that truth, they are able to transform the world around them and create a deeper experience of connection, belonging and aligned action.
I help connect people to the spirit of who they are with the spirit of what they do.
2. Who do you work with ? (What does a client profile look like?)
I work with owners, CEOs and leaders who are seeking to live and operate from a higher place of wisdom. These leaders are looking for ways to further integrate spiritual principals, such as empathy, compassion, humility, and love into the systems in which they ask their people to operate. They want their company to transform into a community that makes a difference in the lives of all that it touches.
3. What are some of the common and familiar themes you see happening in business and the lives of business owners and entrepreneurs? What are they in search of?
I often see that who a leader desires to be, or who they “say” they are, is not echoed or mirrored by the people in the company. They speak the values, but lack a common language or consistent method for how to use their values as the tool that guides and supports their growth.
People tend not to know how to truly connect, or may even avoid connection, on a human-to-human level. If we are building a business to contribute to a better world, then we must learn how to be with our emotions and use them as allies in our leadership. The leaders I work with know that the more aware they are of their whole-self (mental, emotional, physical , spiritual), the more equipped they are to respond, support and lead in any situation.
4. In your experience, what does a Chief Spiritual Officer (CSO) provide for a company/business?
A CSO provides a company with consistency and connection to the heart and soul of its people and purpose. A CSO creates unity among diversity and guides a company to a common voice and aligned actions.
In a more pragmatic or practical sense, the CSO creates, develops and nurtures a system of connection and communication throughout the company. The purpose is to keep peoples’ lights on, to ensure they are shining as bright at the end of the day as they did at the start.
And this isn’t about people needing to leave work with a skip in their step. It’s about people knowing that they are seen and heard, cared for and supported. As humans, when we are in this type of environment, we thrive. A company who has a CSO is not just hoping their people feel cared for, they are making sure it is so.
5. When is a CSO a best fit for a company?
A CSO is a good fit for a company that declares that their people are their priority. This communicates that the way they connect to and support the spirit and well-being of their people must be built into the operating system of the company.
CSO is also a good fit if a company is committed to be a purpose-driven organization. And one who strives to positively contribute to humanity.
6. What are some of the business-related questions you help entrepreneurs and business owners answer?
· How do I support the people who I lead to feel fulfilled and have meaning in their work and lives?
· How do we create purpose-driven strategies?
· What is our purpose as a company? How do we stay relevant?
· How do I create less turn over?
· How do I better support my people to be at their best?
· How do I approach conflict?
7. What are some of the personal-related questions you help them answer?
· Who am I?
· What is my purpose?
· What is my guiding philosophy in life?
· How do I develop a deeper connection and relationship with my spirit or spirituality?
· What are my blind spots? (the things I cannot see that are holding me back from being my best)
· What are the things I consciously or subconsciously keep hidden from others? (doubts, insecurities, failures, hidden agendas, etc.)
· How do I move through guilt, fear, worry or shame?
8. Can you talk a bit about the philosophy around integration and why knowing something—having knowledge about something—isn’t the only thing we need to make change?
Leaders are smart. But rarely do we own what is really going on, who we are, or how to shift our actions to come into alignment with all that knowledge.
Wise leaders know and do the work to be in full truth and full reality of what is really going on. This space of honesty, truth and awareness is what informs right and aligned action. If we are not owning and doing the work to be present to our reality, our actions will never have the impact that is possible.
9. When is the right time to reach out for a conscious leadership coach or hire a CSO?
The moment your awareness peaks and you feel the nudge of curiosity or inspiration. The moment you know there is more you can be doing to live into your purpose or become more clear about what it is. Our spirit and our soul is our guiding compass.
This is the same for a company. When the soul or spirit of a company starts to diminish, you end up with an organization that, if you peel back just one layer, you get a good idea of the health and longevity of a business.