Karen Wilhelm Buckley
Wisdom, mindful presence, clarity and skill for our world
The realization is beginning to take hold that what regenerates the planet also generates profit and long-term health for business. While this is no small task, rapidly evolving the impacts and innovating contributions of business is essential to put us on the path to a thriving, not dying, biosphere. Wise leaders are rethinking, reshaping, and reinventing business. The fashion industry, both apparel and footwear, is one place where innovative leadership is both needed and possible.
Unconscious mindsets shape the narrative of our lives. Conscious leadership starts from the inside out: the mindsets we reinforce drive the way we behave and give rise to the results we experience. Whether innovating policy, designing solutions to the climate crisis, building resilient communities, or living a beautiful life, more empowered and resourceful ways of thinking, relating, living, and leading are part of becoming a conscious leader.
Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision, and a skill to develop.
Courage is often outside of our conscious awareness. The awareness of courage, when you or others are courageous, is a crucial skill for skillfully responding, intentionally appreciating others, and consciously leading.
A narrow definition of courage means we miss the ways our daily lives invite different kinds of courage—the courage to put aside hesitation and lean into a challenge, the courage to stand your ground, the courage to reach out when survival brain commands us to retreat, the courage to respond with care instead of a bitter retort.
The equation is consistent and logical. These three roles narrow our thinking, shut off listening, limit collaboration, destroy empathy, and drive inauthentic communication. They close our hearts to love. Research shows that caught in the drama we don’t or can’t use our personal power to creatively address critical issues or launch inspiring initiatives. With conscious awareness we step out of our blind spots and into more confidence, innovative thinking, and the possibility of making the difference we really want to make.
Do you want to be more courageous, but not from forced aggression or relentless tenacity? When we kindle the courage of our hearts we are naturally propelled into positive and sustainable actions.
Join me, along with Dianne Morrison (Effective Action Consulting) and Suki Munsell, Ph.D. (body transformation expert, Dynamic Vitality) in our upcoming program.
How precious breath has become. The wildfires in California fill the air with particles of ash from burning buildings, trees, and toxic dumps. Shallow breaths feel protective but exacerbate rising tension and anxiety. Now we cherish the breath that fills our lungs and quiets our nerves.
Moments of silence open us to a more expansive calm, to connection and shared purpose, to the unusual insight of the provocative idea. It may seem paradoxical but starting a meeting with a pause…..
Today, even with my years of intense training and practice, I regularly get trapped in less productive mindsets. When I hold onto fixed, often unexamined beliefs about myself and the world, they interfere with accomplishing and expressing what really matters to me.
I see the leaders and teams I work with do the same. Frustrated by their results, they don’t understand what holds them back. They struggle to understand how their inner frameworks direct the way they behave.
When the world has changed, and life asks something more from us, it’s time to update mindsets whose usefulness has expired and consciously strengthen mindsets that support our active participation in the emerging future.
A fundamental axiom of change is that we are constantly faced with the unknown. Sometimes we need to do the best we can while we don’t know what to do.
When we invite dialogue, we expand the frame of what and where we pay attention. We can apprehend what we do know and put our attention on what we don’t yet know. Approaching the not knowing directly through good conversations, we can shift from reactive to proactive, gain critical insight, and exchange feeling alone for working together to act with care, compassion, and courage.
In this time of physical distancing it’s easy to disconnect, isolate, hunker down, and wait for this to be over. While that is a viable choice, we could also use this time to lay the groundwork for a more fulfilling future.
It may seem like a contrary idea, but this is a great time to discover what we haven’t seen, heard, or experienced in the vast world of love and connection.
Our lives are different, and we may very well be facing an evolving new normal. The crisis is affecting our daily lives, instilling anxiety and uncertainty as personal and company plans are upended.
What if we choose love instead of fear? The way we work and live changes.
As leaders respond to the impact of immense disruptions, steady those around them, and look for new opportunities for service, the skills that always mattered like listening, empathy, and love become even more critical.
Change starts with an ending. Change doesn’t start like we wish it would, neatly packaged, presented on a silver platter, with a card letting us know, “Here is your new beginning prepared just for you.”
Since we are not yet sure what all is ending, we are also not sure what it will cost us, making it hard to craft our way through the uncertainty, let alone find a clear, steady center so we can stand strong.
What if I told you that 64 percent of employees trust robots more than they do their managers? That half of employees have turned to a robot for advice rather than their manager.
Artificial intelligence is augmenting the workplace in many ways, but these findings indicate that managers have work to do in order to earn the trust of their people. Trust is a critical link to all good relationships, both professional and personal. Here are 7 good reasons to work on trust.
A flowering tree opens, expands and grows with simple encouragement – water, light, mulch. Keep it in the dark, or expect it to grow without attention and we get a weak spindly tree, bearing little fruit.
Like the tree, without mindful awareness, our wisdom languishes until it is nothing we can count on in tough times. What’s your on-ramp to cultivating wisdom?
Prana. Qi. Élan vital. Throughout human history we have been on a quest to nourish the life force: the energy within that gives us vitality and strength and urges us to create, achieve, connect, and restore.
Life force is not just something to cultivate in the yoga studio or Chinese herbalist’s office, however. It underlies every good effort by conscious leaders.
My Wise Self seemed to be out to lunch. I walked my dog, seeking a new point of view. With no idea of my angst, he was bounded up the trail. As he frolicked. I stewed. Irritated with the way I handled a difficult client communication, I wanted to clean up the relationship mess I’d made, but I couldn’t stop thinking how I was right and she was wrong. I knew this was a trap.
This morning I reflected on how differently our days go when we start centered in our commitments. Living a full life and making contributions that we feel really good about, usually means we make dozens of agreements and promises at work and home that we strive to complete. Too often, competing priorities pull in different directions.
I’ve discovered the power of centering all those priorities around a few overarching core commitments that orient our days, months, and years.
While listening to colleagues at a recent business conference, I was actually holding a robust internal conversation of fault-finding and grumbling. I certainly wasn’t getting the results I wanted.
After this experience, I wanted to understand why complaining thoughts possess us, what they cost us, why they are useful and how to shift cycles of complaints into powerful and exciting commitments.
Many years ago, I had the honor of helping a partnership through a tough time. Conversations were difficult, almost impossible.
They were ready to split and lose over a decade of hard work building a successful company. Why? They spent 99.99% of their time noticing when they and their partner were not wise, not OK, under par, inadequate. Language is powerful. Like these two partners, we can choose the conversation we are in to change our results.
