During the industrial revolution 120 years ago, we asked people to come to work and to not talk during business hours – to show up and simply do what they were told. We told people to leave all of their personal feelings and issues at home as there was no place for this in the workplace. Essentially bring your left brain to work and leave everything else at home, unless we need your back, then you were allowed to bring that as well.
Eighty years later, writers like Daniel Pink wrote about how the right brain was going to take over the world and how we needed to heed the importance of innovation and creativity in the workplace. In fact, entire careers in consulting bloomed from this concept, teaching leaders how to access the right side of the brain and how to link it with the left side.
Today we teach leaders how to access their heart centre, how to tap into how they feel about a situation, person or issue. We practice accessing our intuition and monitoring intention and energy in everything we do. The expanded leader is one who accesses their intellect (LB), creativity (RB) and feelings (HC) at every opportunity. It is intentional and deliberate and is viewed as a necessary attribute of great leadership.
What a novel idea – allowing the leader to access all of the gifts and attributes they have as a human being. Encouraging the whole person to come to work is at the centre of great workplaces today. Working with leaders to tap into the incredible hidden capability of the Heart Centre is a joy and a passion and it changes the game for everyone involved. It creates a true space for authentic service.
