The shift from authentic leadership to integral leadership - embracing our shadows
What if I told you that becoming an authentic leader is not the end game? What if there is more? Would you want to hear about it?
If so, this is what this article is focused on. It’s called integral leadership
Today I want to focus on a topic that is at the heart of my power reclamation work. Actually, it’s the work that lives within the heart of my entire being.
What is integral leadership?
What is integral leadership and why is it so important to a collective movement of power reclamation?
There is nothing I wish for more than creating a world of integrative leadership, love and care for the whole.
Months ago, I re-read Charles Eisenstein’s book, The Most Beautiful World, our heart knows is possible. Once again, it rocked me. The invitation to explore shifting from a world of separation into one of unification – in a grounded and less idealistic depiction, had the power to shoot the arrow of hope and despair through my heart.
At a time when I was on a solo retreat at a hot springs here in Colorado – a time I set aside to catch my breath, integrate some big challenges I had been navigating – a time to simply float in the water and gaze at the stars.
And, yet, I found myself back on my knees.
Pools of tears – waves of fear – unresolvable longing for a new world.
A world where we no longer collectively run by our primal fear and reactivity – forced into poverty, sex trafficking, or standing by as the innocent are irresponsibly imprisoned b/c of the color of their skin.
A world where we could step back together and find a way through the polarizing wars over covid mask mandates, vaccinations, gender orientation, the color of one’s skin. And, the list goes on.
But, what I returned to, after two days of deep heart-wrenching despair, is that I am here to learn how to Love. And, it’s a practice.
I’m talking about the love that comes through acceptance, allowing and welcoming everything. Especially those aspects of life that break my heart – that which I don’t understand. That which have no control over. That which threatens the innocent.
Not from a place of spiritual bypassing but from first seeing what it’s like to sit with all the emotions that it stirs as a form of allowing. And, from here to listen for aligned action that is most true and authentic for me.
A key practice of love is my devotion to embracing the shadows. This is how I access inner peace, integration and states of clarity and right action.
This space I’m speaking about is so beautifully articulated by Thich Nhat Han, the peacemaker and Buddhist monk who recently passed away in his 90’s. He says it best in his poem, call me by my true name:
Please Call Me by My True Names
by Thich Nhat Hanh
Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo, (Pol it buro)
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
If I can’t meet my own shadows and see myself as all of those parts of humanity then I continue the world of polarization within myself.
This brings me to the topic of shadow work and integral leadership.
Modern-day leadership
Most leaders and change agents that I've worked with for the last few decades have apprenticed themselves to the art of leading with authenticity and vulnerability.
Each one has been examining the principles of power-with (inclusivity, curiosity and empathy towards the whole) while also befriending their personal blind spots responsible for when they operate through the principles of power-over (domination and fear-based reactive leadership).
In other words, each one is leading with care for the whole system by interrupting their reactive operating systems through befriending their protective behaviors.
Until we understand the link between the behaviors that we employ to ensure power, safety, connection, belonging and approval, it's harder to befriend them.
To welcome these messy behaviors is to embrace our wholeness and integration.
Interrupting our fear-based expressions of control, people-pleasing, and critical judgment -- towards ourselves and others -- is a radical redefinition of powerful leadership.
The shift from authentic leadership to integral leadership
Leaders who remain blind to their reactivity tend to innocently operate from a limited capacity of innovation, collaboration and creativity.
Reactive defense patterns will cause us to habitually, and unconsciously, blame others, or defend our position when we feel threatened or challenged. This form of protection becomes a scaffolding of stone walls that become responsible for relationship conflict, anger, depression, and anxiety.
The barricades caused by defending and protecting have the power to push away the people and experiences that we most desire -- contrary to our deeper wishes.
It's a real paradox to seek both connection and protection.
Through the expansion of one's consciousness and embodiment, it's not surprising that a reactive leadership style, no matter how well disguised, is no longer compelling enough for us to follow.
This means that people are seeing through the construction of reactive leadership styles that are hidden in the form of enchanting charisma, generosity or status and positions of power.
People seek to follow someone who is paving an equitable and sustainable way of being human together. Someone who is willing to own their reactivity and extend compassion towards others when they do the same.
Integral Leadership- befriending our shadows
Integral leadership is a synthesis of two evolutionary movements:
The authentic leadership movement
One way to define the transformational leadership journey of authentic leadership is through the acquired skills of:
Self-Awareness: expand your self-awareness and ability to own impact (both gifts and impacts that cause conflict)
Manage reactivity: take responsibility for states of activation -- what conditions cause reactivity in you?
Nervous system regulation: learning how to regulate your nervous system with self-care and compassion
Own your direct experience: take ownership for your direct experience rather than blame others for disowned feelings
Communication skills: seek to communicate honestly, directly and respectfully.
Develop mindfulness: develop a mindfulness practice to manage the complexity of living and operating in a chaotic world
Empathy and compassion: practice compassion for self and empathy for others
Reflective Listening: Cultivate the art of reflective listening
Befriend uncertainty: Learn how to traverse the unknown with greater resiliency, curiosity and trust
2. Shadow befriending & integration
Shadow work refers to the hero's journey of befriending our shadows to reclaim our wholeness.
Shadows are parts of ourselves that we can't see -- they are our blindspots. They might be our sacred gifts that we disown for various reasons. Or, the parts of us that we protect against anyone seeing.
You know, those places of shame that you hope no ever knows exists within you? How do you keep these part of you at bay? Even from yourself? What’s the benefit and what’s the cost?
What does this movement from Authentic leadership to integral leadership look like?
First, through the various cycles of transformation and leadership development, we naturally integrate and transcend to the next level of learning and growth – which means we are taking all we’ve learned with us.
Integral leadership is a model of inclusivity and expansion. It’s not a hierarchy or end-game. We spiral through stages of development over and over again – collecting new parts and wisdom along the way.
As integral leaders, we include everything we learned in the authentic leadership movement -- and then we further raise our consciousness, and expand our heart’s compassion, through the integration of our shadows.
How do we do this?
To learn more on shadow and integral leadership, you can explore my article on, The Evolutionary Arc Through Five Phases of Conscious Leadership, here.
In this article, I also share about the hallmark of shifting from creative (authentic leadership) to Integral leadership through shadow work.