It is relatively easy to be a great leader when all is going well. Where a true leader appears is when the going gets a little tougher.
They stand up in order to be seen and lead others through the ambiguity, the unknown, the challenges and, against all odds, into a place they wouldn’t of normally gone.
They make the most of the opportunity that now presents itself. They see the blocks, the barriers, the walls as challenges, as opportunities, as new possibilities and new beginnings.
They shine a light into the darkness so they can see the way and others can follow.
How do they do this?
When, on the outside, is all going pear shaped. They don’t run around shouting at people, creating loads of activity, causing chaos or running around asking for more, more and even more. This type of false action and bravado just ends up with stress pounding through their veins, keeping them and others up all night.
A wise leader just stops. They pause they breath and they go within and allow their Quiet Power to come through. They know that when they they stop, reflect and go within, a breakthrough can and will emerge and new opportunities and new beginnings show themselves.
Going within allows feelings, emotions and thoughts to come up, with no expectations, no pushing, no trying to work it all out or trying to make things happen. Experience tells them to surrender, just allow, let go and be present with whatever shows itself.
The Moment of Surrender
While vulnerability, humility, worries, fears and anxieties will reverberate through their whole system, they breathe and go deeper.
At first, they may feel lost, they may feel they won’t cope. Uncertainty and the unknown bubbles to the surface.
Yet a true leader stays with it, allowing all these feelings and thoughts to come up. Then, in that moment of complete surrender, when they least expect it, a feeling of calmness and peace flows through them as a wave, a turning point.
This is the birthing of a breakthrough.
The Duality
Phenomenal leaders know the world of duality, two sides of a coin, the sun and the shadow. For us to know black, we need to know white. There is yin and yang, the outside world and the inside world, male energies and female energies, head and heart, logic and emotion, breakdowns and breakthroughs. Two sides moving in harmony, doing the dance of life, the seen forces and the unseen. Everything happens for a reason even if they don’t currently know what that reason is.
Going within to experience all of this and get to this calmness, the peace, the moment when a knowing, a gut feeling makes its present felt. The phenomenal leader is now present. From here the male and female energies appear. The focus, the certainty, the compelling force to move, the total commitment to now move and in a direction to make the impossible possible.
The male energies play their part, whilst also leaving the space for the female energies to work their magic – the love, the nurturing, the harmony, the co-creating, the holding, embracing unity, collaborating and connecting.
Finding Harmony
These qualities appear in a harmonious rhythm that create the new and allow us to walk the new path, to make things happen, to talk with purpose, truth and passion.
The presence of their very being, the gravitas that shines through with grace, with no effort or trying. It just happens. It flows with such a natural inspiring force and compelling energy that others follow. Their teams all line up, step up and follow, going to places they wouldn’t have gone on their own. They bring their strengths, their value, their contribution and the wave builds and builds and with this the possible is now a reality and the results, outcomes and desired impacts are now all there to be seen and celebrated.
It’s the phenomenal leader that leads through adversity, the unknown, the ambiguity, the seemingly impossible. This phenomenal leader is within us all, we have to do the internal work, get to know ourselves, warts and all, It’s our Big Ü showing up.
The Big Ü that leads from the inside out, heart and soul. It’s this that moves us, That gives us the ‘why’s and the what’s, our head then supports us in the ‘how’ we do things. We don’t act, make up, tell half truths or say what we think people want to hear, The Big Ü’s in us, live inside our heart. We know living our truth is easy and is the reward of all of the internal work we have done.
Our Big Ü is the phenomenal leader that is waiting to be stirred within us all.
Author : Laurence Udell, April 2020 – in lock down while opening up