The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership
4 Years ago, I found myself in a room at Kripalu, a yoga teaching center in Western Massachusetts, sharing with a group of curious, like-minded meditation students from all walks of life that I was interested in melding the mindfulness skills I was cultivating in my personal life and the leadership skills I was leveraging in my professional life. A participant spoke up, “Have you heard of The Conscious Leadership Group? It sounds like that’s what you are looking for.”
Having not heard of The Conscious Leadership group my curiosity was sparked and my energy went through the roof. I quickly ordered their book, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership and dug in. “Yes,” my inner voice confirmed, “this is what I am looking for.”
What is Conscious Leadership?
As Diana Chapman, co-founder of The Conscious Leadership Group and co-author of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, shared on The Humans Strike Back podcast, a conscious person is someone that asks themselves, “Can I be here now as best as I can (not in the future, not in the past, but right here) in a non-triggered, non-reactive way?” According to Diana, this is challenging for most people because our minds are wired for survival.
Leadership refers to, “anybody who wants to take responsibility for their influence in the world.” Being present can be difficult. We are hardwired to constantly scan for threats, only in our lifetime the threat isn’t a tiger that’s trying to eat us, it’s about protecting our ego. It is easy to be caught up with whatever our mind is fixating on.
For me, Diana’s definition and the exploration of conscious leadership as outlined in The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership led to an ah-ha moment. It offered me an opportunity to examine how much of the time I am functioning on autopilot, repeating habitual patterns and not conscious of what or why I’m doing what I’m doing not only in the workplace, but in my personal life.
How to Become a Conscious Leader
The first step to becoming a more conscious leader is to develop awareness of what is happening in the present moment. The Conscious Leadership Group uses a simple black line as a tool to help you practice locating yourself, meaning, how you are being with whatever is happening in your life. At any given moment you can stop and ask yourself, “Where am I?” Notice, are you “below the line” (meaning you are closed, defensive, and committed to being right about the situation at hand) or “above the line” (meaning you are open, curious, and committed to learning)? Check out this great video on Locating Yourself to learn more.
Locating where you are and how you are being with any situation you are in is the first step to gaining self-awareness. When we are constantly below the line, which many of us are most of the time, we get some payoff that keeps us repeating our behavior (for example, gossiping about a co-worker might make us feel more connected to those we are gossiping with and superior to the person we are gossiping about in the moment).
Once we cultivate self-awareness we can begin to explore self-acceptance. Only through acceptance of what is can we create the space and the possibility to shift away from old patterns that aren’t serving us and embrace lasting change.
In order to shift from below the line to above the line, you must be willing (not just wanting) to change. The 15 commitments offer a roadmap to test your willingness.
How to Evolve as a Conscious Leader
I was immediately attracted to the model because The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership offered me a seemingly simple roadmap for how I could evolve as a leader and support my co-workers to do the same. I say seemingly simple because I believe the book’s authors: Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman & Kaley Warner Klemp did a masterful job writing a digestible and engaging leadership book (because let’s be honest, many leadership books can be quite the tool for instigating an impromptu nap) and making deep practices sound simple. It is easy to kid yourself that you naturally practice the commitments often and well.
For example, taking radical responsibility for your own actions? Sure, I do that! Staying curious and looking at all situations as an opportunity to learn? Yup, that’s me. It is easy to say you do these things but only through truly committing to practicing conscious leadership in all its simplicity and complexity that you realize the depth of its transformative power. Imagine ending recycling work issues and no longer making decisions based out of fear and instead creating space for you and your team to be more innovative and have fun solving challenges together. This is possible.
To do this, The Conscious Leadership Group focuses leaders on context, meaning, how they are being with any situation, versus their content, the details of the situation itself. Most leaders want to focus on content. For example, how will we resolve the attrition issue at the company, or why are we not on plan to achieve our revenue goals this quarter? This is content. Unless you face and shift context, your content will continue to recycle. To learn more, watch this video on content vs. context.
What are the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership?
According to Jim Dethmer, co-founder of The Conscious Leadership Group and co-author of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, there is great intention behind the choosing of the 15 Commitments and their order. They can be grouped into 4 phases.
Phase 1 includes commitments 1-6 and is about a leader identifying and reducing drama in the leader and her team. Drama can show up in several ways, such as recycling and repeating issues or dysfunctional relationships. Commitments 1-6 explore that not only is drama natural and normal, it is also optional. You can choose to have drama in your professional and personal life, and you can choose to reduce it.
Commitments 1-6:
I commit to taking full responsibility for the circumstances of my life, and my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well being. I commit to support others to take full responsibility for their lives.
I commit to growing in self-awareness. I commit to regarding every interaction as an opportunity to learn. I commit to curiosity as a path to rapid learning.
I commit to feeling my feelings all the way through to completion. They come, and I locate them in my body then move, breathe and vocalize them so they release all the way through.
I commit to saying what is true for me. I commit to being a person to whom others can express themselves with candor.
I commit to ending gossip, talking directly to people with whom I have an issue or concern, and encouraging others to talk directly to people with whom they have an issue or concern.
I commit to the masterful practice of integrity, including acknowledging all authentic feelings, expressing the unarguable truth and keeping my agreements.
Practicing phase 1 and reducing drama opens the possibility for phase 2: investing energy reclaimed from drama. One of the things I love about The 15 Commitments is that it isn’t presented as dogma. The 15 Commitments aren’t a set of moral issues for you to take as true and follow religiously. Instead, they are presented as suggestions – the invitation is for you to practice them and notice how the practice of conscious leadership influences the results you see in your life. It isn’t about doing the “right thing” by following the list, but to wake up to where you are placing your energy.
For me it was quite clear. When I started to realize how much energy I was giving to areas of my life that didn’t feel useful to me I was primed to commit to changing my behaviors to ones that would lead to more favorable results. This is what phase 2 (commitments 7-9) is all about. Once you begin eliminating drama and reducing the amount of energy you are leaking as a result you get to have fun being intentional about where you are going to focus all this newfound energy! This includes practicing commitments focused on sharing appreciation, discovering and living in your zone of genius and inviting more play and rest into your life. This phase led to me building a business and welcoming more ease into my life.
Commitments 7-9:
7. I commit to living in appreciation, fully opening to both receiving and giving appreciation.
8. I commit to expressing my full magnificence, and to supporting and inspiring others to fully express their creativity and live in their zone of genius.
9. I commit to creating a life of play, improvisation, and laughter. I commit to seeing all of life unfold easefully and effortlessly. I commit to maximizing my energy by honoring rest, renewal and rhythm.
Conscious leaders can spend years exploring phases 1 and 2 and their time would be well spent. Should you be ready and willing, phase 3 (commitments 10-12) offers the invitation to explore the truth of who we really are (complete, whole and worthy). This phase is a practice toward freedom.
Commitments 10-12:
10. I commit to seeing that the opposite of my story is as true or truer than my original story. I recognize that I interpret the world around me and give my stories meaning.
11. I commit to being the source of my security, control and approval.
12. I commit to experiencing that I have enough of everything… including time, money, love, energy, space, resources, etc.
Phase 3 opens the possibility for Phase 4 (commitments 13-15): a new level of enhanced energy and creativity in our professional and personal relationships. Co-creativity is a concept Gay Hendricks, PH.D. and Katie Hendricks, PH.D., mentors to The Conscious Leadership Group, explore in their book Conscious Loving, a book I also highly recommend. According to Gay and Katie, “A co-creative relationship is one in which two people access more of their creativity as a result of their loving interaction. Out of the harmony of a co-committed relationship springs an enhanced energy that enables both partners to make a greater contribution than either one could have made alone.”
Commitments 13-15:
13. I commit to seeing all people and circumstances as allies that are perfectly suited to help me learn the most important things for my growth.
14. I commit to creating win for all solutions (win for me, win for the other person, win for the organization, and win for the whole) for whatever issues, problems, concerns, or opportunities life gives me.
15. I commit to being the resolution or solution that is needed: seeing what is missing in the world as an invitation to become that which is required.
Jim put it best when he said, “these last three commitments offer us individually and collectively a sustainable way to play the game of life, to impact and be impacted, as we create the world we most want to live in and pass on.”
