As a conscious leader, your job isn't to run around trying to save the world.
n a world where motivating others is just one inspirational Instagram meme away, it can be easy to skirt the surface of what it really takes to embody true leadership, or conscious leadership.
Conscious leadership is about more than being seen by others; it's about seeing yourself. When an entrepreneur sets out to make a difference in the world through leadership, the motivation often stems from a desire to be of service to others, which is an undeniably powerful intention to have. But, in order to embody conscious leadership, you must start by looking at how you can be of service to your own growth, your own expansion, and your own willingness to step outside of your comfort zone over and over again.

​ As a conscious leader, your job isn't to run around trying to save the world. Your job is to go within, do the inner work that allows you to show up as your most powerful, authentic self — which will in turn inspire others to do the same. Conscious leadership requires you to identify, plan for, and move through the patterns that come up every time you're about to step out of your comfort zone. These patterns can be self-sabotage, procrastination, fear of success, fear of failure, ego trips, comparison overload, and any other number of ways that you've learned to "play it safe" throughout your life.

Here are four steps for developing your conscious leadership skills:
​
Step 1: Know Where You Stand, Right Now
It's tempting to skip over the "stuff" in your personal life or career that you'd rather not look at so you can hurry up and grow already. You know that you've picked up some patterns over the years that don't serve you (procrastination, worry, planning for the worst, self-deprecating thoughts, self-sabotage, etc.), but what's the point of spending time with the stuff that holds you back?
Think about it this way: The most detailed roadmap in the world is useless if it's not marked with a "YOU ARE HERE."
So, if you want to be able to draw out your roadmap for success, you've got to be willing to start right where you are.
Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?

Step 2: Gather Your Tools And Create Safety
Once you've identified where you are, it's important to give yourself the tools that can support the kind of growth you want to experience. So often we pick up tools throughout our lives that are designed to numb out the "bad stuff" and eliminate fear or pain. Drinking, gossiping, avoiding responsibilities, and playing it safe are a few ways we do this that come to mind. But your fear and your pain aren't the enemy. They are shining a light on the parts of yourself that are genuinely scared of growth. It's called a "comfort zone" for a reason, and your fear will do everything it can to keep you there.
Safety actually plays a significant role in how quickly and consistently you will experience growth. The problem is, somewhere along the way you learned that "playing it safe" also means "playing it small," but that doesn't have to be your only option.
Implementing the kinds of tools that allow you to be with the "stuff" you'd rather not look at is where the rubber hits the road for the conscious leader.
Instead of using tools that numb your fear and pain, begin gathering the tools that help you get to know more about yourself and the patterns that continue to emerge in your life and career. Working with a coach, finding a good therapist and surrounding yourself with other people who practice this type of radical responsibility are all wonderful places to start.
When you've got the right tools in your tool belt, you're unstoppable.

Step 3: Stay In Your Own Lane
Authenticity is your x-factor — that thing that no one can recreate or even put their finger on. It's that thing that makes people say, "I don't know what it is, but I like her."
This is the kind of energy, the kind of permission, that is embodied by someone who fully accepts themselves for everything they are. All sides. The "good" and the "bad." The person who has danced with their shadows and still knows how unconditionally worthy she is. This is what attracts people to you, your self-proclaimed permission.
Everyone is running around asking for permission to dream, to build, to start —and yet, we're the only ones who hold the power to give it to ourselves.
So, as a conscious leader, while it's impossible for you to grant someone else permission to be themselves, it's your duty to show someone what that looks like, that it's safe to shine, that being different is something worth celebrating. To be a walking invitation for others to grant themselves permission to step into their own version of greatness.
​
Step 4: It's Not What You Do, It's How You Do It
Your audience, followers, fans and clients are inspired by how you show up in the world. When you commit to being seen, when you commit to showing up for yourself, when you commit to self-care and inner growth, you become the embodiment of conscious leadership. You become a mirror of what's possible for others.
Every time you grow, you invite your audience to do the same.
Throughout each transformation that you experience in your life and career (and there will be many), you will be confronted with uncertainty, doubt, fear, ego-trips, and thoughts that are overwhelming enough to make you never want to get out of bed. And yet, with your tools in hand, you will get up.
You will move through each step once more, inviting even more growth and evolution into your life, because it's not what you're doing, it's how you're doing it. With trust. With conviction. With purpose. With intuition.
• Own it.
• Train it.
• Be it.
• Share it.
Rinse, repeat.
That is how you develop conscious leadership.

From Jenn LedererLeadership and impact coach, motivational speaker, and creator and host of the infamous web series, Weekly Alignment™.
​
In a world where motivating others is just one inspirational Instagram meme away, it can be easy to skirt the surface of what it really takes to embody true leadership, or conscious leadership.
Conscious leadership is about more than being seen by others; it's about seeing yourself. When an entrepreneur sets out to make a difference in the world through leadership, the motivation often stems from a desire to be of service to others, which is an undeniably powerful intention to have. 

But, in order to embody conscious leadership, you must start by looking at how you can be of service to your own growth, your own expansion, and your own willingness to step outside of your comfort zone over and over again.
As a conscious leader, your job isn't to run around trying to save the world. Your job is to go within, do the inner work that allows you to show up as your most powerful, authentic self — which will in turn inspire others to do the same. Conscious leadership requires you to identify, plan for, and move through the patterns that come up every time you're about to step out of your comfort zone. These patterns can be self-sabotage, procrastination, fear of success, fear of failure, ego trips, comparison overload, and any other number of ways that you've learned to "play it safe" throughout your life.
​
Here are four steps for developing your conscious leadership skills:​

Mother Teresa - Acceptance SpeechTranscript of Mother Teresa's Acceptance Speech, held on 10 December 1979 in the Aula of the University of Oslo, Norway.

Let us all together thank God for this beautiful occasion where we can all together proclaim the joy of spreading peace, the joy of loving one another and the joy acknowledging that the poorest of the poor are our brothers and sisters.
As we have gathered here to thank God for this gift of peace, I have given you all the prayer for peace that St Francis of Assisi prayed many years ago, and I wonder he must have felt the need what we feel today to pray for. I think you have all got that paper? We'll say it together.
Lord, make me a channel of your peace, that where there is hatred, I may bring love; that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness; that where there is discord, I may bring harmony; that where there is error, I may bring truth; that where there is doubt, I may bring faith; that where there is despair, I may bring hope; that where there are shadows, I may bring light; that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted; to understand, than to be understood; to love, than to be loved. For it is by forgetting self, that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying, that one awakens to eternal life. Amen.
God loved the world so much that he gave his son and he gave him to a virgin, the blessed virgin Mary, and she, the moment he came in her life, went in haste to give him to others. And what did she do then? She did the work of the handmaid, just so. Just spread that joy of loving to service. And Jesus Christ loved you and loved me and he gave his life for us, and as if that was not enough for him, he kept on saying: Love as I have loved you, as I love you now, and how do we have to love, to love in the giving. For he gave his life for us. And he keeps on giving, and he keeps on giving right here everywhere in our own lives and in the lives of others.
It was not enough for him to die for us, he wanted that we loved one another, that we see him in each other, that's why he said: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.
And to make sure that we understand what he means, he said that at the hour of death we are going to be judged on what we have been to the poor, to the hungry, naked, the homeless, and he makes himself that hungry one, that naked one, that homeless one, not only hungry for bread, but hungry for love, not only naked for a piece of cloth, but naked of that human dignity, not only homeless for a room to live, but homeless for that being forgotten, been unloved, uncared, being nobody to nobody, having forgotten what is human love, what is human touch, what is to be loved by somebody, and he says: Whatever you did to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.
It is so beautiful for us  to become holy to this love, for holiness is not a luxury of the few, it is a simple duty for each one of us, and through this love we can become holy. To this love for one another and today when I have received this reward, I personally am most unworthy, and I having avowed poverty to be able to understand the poor, I choose the poverty of our people. But I am grateful and I am very happy to receive it in the name of the hungry, of the naked, of the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the leprous, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared, thrown away of the society, people who have become a burden to the society, and are ashamed by everybody.
In their name I accept the award. And I am sure this award is going to bring an understanding love between the rich and the poor. And this is what Jesus has insisted so much, that is why Jesus came to earth, to proclaim the good news to the poor.  And through this award and through all of us gathered here together, we are wanting to proclaim the good news to the poor that God loves them, that we love them, that they are somebody to us, that they too have been created by the same loving hand of God, to love and to be loved. Our poor people are great people, are very lovable people, they don't need our pity and sympathy, they need our understanding love. They need our respect; they need that we treat them with dignity. And I think this is the greatest poverty that we experience, that we have in front of them who may be dying for a piece of bread, but they die to such dignity. I never forget when I brought a man from the street. He was covered with maggots; his face was the only place that was clean. And yet that man, when we brought him to our home for the dying, he said just one sentence: I have lived like an animal in the street, but I am going to die like an angel, love and care, and he died beautifully. He went home to God, for dead is nothing but going home to God. And he having enjoyed that love, that being wanted, that being loved, that being somebody to somebody at the last moment, brought that joy in his life.
And I feel one thing I want to share with you all, the greatest destroyer of peace today is the cry of the innocent unborn child. For if a mother can murder her own child in her womb, what is left for you and for me to kill each other? Even in the scripture it is written: Even if mother could forget her child - I will not forget you - I have carved you in the palm of my hand. Even if mother could forget, but today millions of unborn children are being killed. And we say nothing. In the newspapers you read numbers of this one and that one being killed, this being destroyed, but nobody speaks of the millions of little ones who have been conceived to the same life as you and I, to the life of God, and we say nothing, we allow it. To me the nations who have legalized abortion, they are the poorest nations. They are afraid of the little one, they are afraid of the unborn child, and the child must die because they don't want to feed one more child, to educate one more child, the child must die.
And here I ask you, in the name of these little ones, for it was that unborn child that recognized the presence of Jesus when Mary came to visit Elizabeth, her cousin. As we read in the gospel, the moment Mary came into the house, the little one in the womb of his mother, lift with joy, recognized the Prince of Peace. And so today, let us here make a strong resolution, we are going to save every little child, every unborn child, give them a chance to be born. And what we  are doing, we are fighting abortion by adoption, and the good God has blessed the work so beautifully that we have saved thousands of children, and thousands of children have found a home where they are loved, they are wanted, they are cared. We have brought so much joy in the homes that there was not a child, and so today, I ask His Majesties here before you all who come from different countries, let us all pray that we have the courage to stand by the unborn child, and give the child an opportunity to love and to be loved, and I think with God's grace we will be able to bring peace in the world. We have an opportunity here in Norway, you are with God's blessing, you are well to do. But I am sure in the families and many of our homes, maybe we are not hungry for a piece of bread, but maybe there is somebody there in the family who is unwanted, unloved, uncared, forgotten, there isn't love. Love begins at home. And love to be true has to hurt. I never forget a little child who taught me a very beautiful lesson. They heard in Calcutta, the children, that Mother Teresa had no sugar for her children, and this little one, Hindu boy four years old, he went home and he told his parents: I will not eat sugar for three days, I will give my sugar to Mother Teresa. How much a little child can give. After three days they brought into our house, and there was this little one who could scarcely pronounce my name, he loved with great love, he loved until it hurt. And this is what I bring before you, to love one another until it hurts, but don't forget that there are many children, many children, many men and women who haven't got what you have. And remember to love them until it hurts. Sometime ago, this to you will sound very strange, but I brought a God child from the street, and I could see in the face of the child that the child was hungry. God knows how many days that not eaten. So I give her a piece of bread. And then the little one started eating the bread crumb by crumb. And I said to the child, eat the bread, eat the bread. And she looked at me and said: I am afraid to eat the bread because I'm afraid when it is finished I will be hungry again. This is a reality, and yet there is a greatness of the poor. One evening a gentleman came to our house and said, there is a Hindu family and the eight children have not eaten for a long time. Do something for them. And I took rice and I went immediately, and there was this mother, those little one's faces, shining eyes from shear hunger. She took the rice from my hand, she divided into two and she went out. When she came back, I asked her, where did you go? What did you do? And one answer she gave me: They are hungry also. She knew that the next door neighbor, a Muslim family, was hungry.
What surprised me most, not that she gave the rice, but what surprised me most, that in her suffering, in her hunger, she knew that somebody else was hungry, and she had the courage to share, share the love. And this is what I mean, I want you to love the poor, and never turn your back to the poor, for in turning your back to the poor, you are turning it to Christ. For he had made himself the hungry one, the naked one, the homeless one, so that you and I have an opportunity to love him, because where is God? How can we love God? It is not enough to say to my God I love you, but my God, I love you here. I can enjoy this, but I give up. I could eat that sugar, but I give that sugar. If I stay here the whole day and the whole night, you would be surprised of the beautiful things that people do, to share the joy of giving. And so, my prayer for you is that truth will bring prayer in our homes, and from the foot of prayer will be that we believe that in the poor it is Christ. And we will really believe, we will begin to love. And we will love naturally, we will try to do something. First in our own home, next door neighbor in the country we live, in the whole world. And let us all join in that one prayer, God give us courage to protect the unborn child, for the child is the greatest gift of God to a family, to a nation and to the whole world. God bless you!

The stats are mind blowing.
1:5 experience mental illness or depression
​6 million workdays lost to depression
3000 suicides a year ....
thats 8 every day !

I just facilitated a new Mental Health in the Workplace program which shows managers
·        what mental illness is and the types
·        how to interpret the signs that indicate severe stress/mental illness
·        how to build pro-active workplaces
·        how to have the brave conversations
·        and how to build self care strategies and resilience

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld5PPeWY5G8

We can either welcome or resist change. Stigma and discrimination are still an issue in the area of mental health. When we can shift ‘stinking thinking” we open up the possibility of a shift in consciousness, building  awareness and the capacity for empathy and compassion. You see mental illness does not mean mental incompetence. 

​In this new program I am presenting we are removing barriers. Fear is one. 
People fear what they don’t know. My aim is to help shift the “change reluctance” in some business cultures through education and exposure to lived experience. 
Research links stress to depression and once people become overwhelmed they have the potential to suffer real illness such as heart disease . And as we are seeing many are just giving up.





​High trust environments and brave conversations pave the way to change that.




Leaders and managers have a duty of care and a shared responsiblity for workplace wellbeing!
​Discrimination, gossip and bullying in the workplace can be effectively transformed with skilled direction and training.
Please be in touch if your staff need support and training in this area.....