Natural leadership based on shamanic principles

The goal of leadership is the empowerment of others. If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader. But how does one go about empowering others? What skills does one need and how does one learn those skills? In his book The Shaman and the Manager (in Dutch), Sven Goedbloed offers us some interesting principles from the shamanic traditions to guide us towards empowering leadership.

Empowering leadership

Shamanic leadership principles are based on inner wisdom, personal freedom, and creating a safe space for yourself and others. The way I read the book, I come to this formula for empowering leadership:

inner wisdom + freedom + safe space = empowering guidance

The way to get to empowering guidance is paved with a couple of shamanic practices a leader should master:

• Letting go of illusions
• Embracing the dark side
• Surrender control
• Awareness of the workings of the ego
• Reflection on triggers
• Gratitude
• Laughter

These practices lead to the unlocking of inner wisdom, the increase of personal freedom and the creation of a safe space. All these practices are inner work practices, not studies of external ideas. A shaman doesn’t study the outside but the inside world. The name shaman is a container word that will trigger a lot of associations but Sven defines it very practical as a person that connects the invisible, magical reality with the visible, practical world.

“A shaman is a person that connects the invisible, magical reality with the visible, practical world.”

Spiritual practice and science have the same goal. Both want to learn about the world. They use completely opposite strategies. Science studies the world around us and spirituality studies our inner world. The scientific view of the world brought us Scientific Management, a way of leading that has brought us many good things in the previous century. But the world is always changing. In this century, a new way of leading is unfolding that is more based on the spiritual view of the world. If we are able to combine both worlds, we have a more holistic approach that will take leadership to a whole new level. A level that is not based on authority and power but on trust and empowerment.

Inner wisdom

One of the keys to the shamanic approach to leadership is inner wisdom. The premise is that we as humans have access to intuition, gut feeling, an inner knowing that goes beyond rational thought and knowledge. Rational thought only gets us so far. Its a great gift but it is also limited. The hypothesis is that if we have more access to the knowledge that exists inside of us, in our hearts, in our belly, in our soul, we can have access to more creativity, less limitations, more energy, we can find and do what is right. The rational world is only half of the human world. If we can access the energetic, inner world, we double our capacity to solve problems.

To access this inner knowledge, we don’t have to learn but rather to unlearn and to let go of what we know.

Letting go of illusions

One of the things we need to let go of is illusions. Disillusionment is a sign of growth. It is often painful but growth often is. We should celebrate the death of illusions. All of our lives we have been programmed with conventions and promises. Small and big illusions. In shamanism, dying is a skill: the ability to let go of old illusions without clinging to them. The more illusions you can let go of, the more access you get to your inner wisdom and the freer you become. One of the bigger illusions that we can let go of and will create a lot of freedom for instance is our identity.

Embrace the dark side

Another big one to let go is the judgement of good and bad. Without darkness there is no light. We all have dark sides. Most of the time we try to ignore that and pretend it doesn’t exist but that doesn’t make it go away. Ignoring the dark sides will only make them more powerful and they will come and bite you in the butt. If you are able to embrace the dark side, this will make things less tense, more real, and make you more free. This means not judging ourselves but also not others.

Surrender control

To let go means to let go of control. Things around us don’t disappear but we can loosen out attachment, to things, people, outcomes. We all have our ideas about how things should unfold. But these ideas are largely based on conventions, assumptions. Our imagination can be wild but it will always be limited. The wonderful things that can unfold are beyond our imagination. To get access to the magic, to the wonder of things that can unfold, one has to surrender control, trust. Trust in people, trust in circumstances, trust in the magic, trust that there is more to life than what we can imagine, trust that there is more magic if we surrender control.

Awareness of the workings of the ego

The ego is system inside everyone of us that want to protect us. The ego wants to preserve the status quo. This means every time you want to change something, the ego protests, even if it is a positive change in your eyes. Every step outside the comfort zone triggers the ego. And the ego is super powerful. The ego has access to both our thoughts and our feelings. So if you step outside your comfort zone, the ego starts to try to talk you out of it. It starts to make up excuses, it tells you all the reasons why you shouldn’t do it. If that doesn’t work, it throws in emotions. It turns up the fear. Strong emotions combined with excuses are an immensly powerful force. The ego also wants to be in control. So surrendering control means limiting the power of the ego. The trick to limit the power of the ego is to become aware of it, how it works, and what it wants. Once you start seeing the ego kick in, it is easier to go ahead despite its defense mechanisms. Every change will trigger the ego. In fact, when you see your ego (or the ego of an organization) kick in, you know you are onto something, an important change.

Reflections on triggers

Everything is a projection. We don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are. What people say to you is meant for themselves. Things in the outside world, people and what they say and do trigger us, awaken our inner dynamics. We react to things out of fear, trauma, ego, limiting beliefs, you name it. Leadership is about the courage to leave the comfort zone. Inner reflection is the way to solve these patterns in yourself. If you resolve your inner issues, you are less triggered and can look at the things that unfold from a neutral or loving view. This gives you access to inner knowing through intuition and allows the inner knowing of others to come out.

Gratitude

Gratitude is one of the most powerful practices to create inner peace and an open mind. Our constant striving for better makes us forget all that we have. Appreciation of the now, the situation you are in and the potential it holds is the path to creating a safe space for others because you create peace in yourself. Triggers from outside awaken us to our inner issues. We can also be greatful for the people who trigger us because they enable us to become aware of our issues and work on them. Happiness doesn’t lead to gratitude, gratitude leads to happiness. Endless pursuit of better will not make us happy and thus grateful. Practicing gratitude leads to happiness and thus to a situation from which one can empower others.

Laughter

A trap is to take things too seriously. In our minds, we can easily get into a state in which things are heavy, we see no way out, and our ego makes things important. But too much seriousness is highly ineffective. You become rigid. If things get too serious, you know something is missing. Not taking things too seriously and laugh about it is a super power when you want to create a safe empowering space. It creates space, it opens up new avenues of thought.

Remember inner wisdom

It all comes down to remembering your inner wisdom. We have accumulated a lot of knowledge and insights from studying the outside world. This is valuable but only half of the story. We have an inner knowing that developed over lifetimes and stood the test of time. This inner knowing can empower the willingness to do what is right. Accessing this inner knowing is what shamans do. And they apply it to the outside world. That is what we can learn from shamans.

This is my reading of the book De sjamaan en de manager by Sven Goedbloed. Make sure to check out the book (only in Dutch) and his organization In the heart of change (also in Englich). He also has a nice podcast (in Dutch) on Spotify.

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