Five (Hard) Steps to turn yourself into an Integral Leader

What kind of leader are you? Have you ever asked yourself this question? Many may answer that they are not leaders yet because they have not reached managerial positions. Others will say they follow the leadership model of the company they work for. And still others will answer that they never stopped to wonder about it. Whatever your answer, if you believe the world is going through a moment of decisive change and that it will determine how sustainable (in every sense: economically, socially and environmentally) we will be in the coming decades, questioning your approach to leadership can be an interesting act. The Integral Approach, originally developed by US philosopher Ken Wilber, says that any movement towards a more sustainable and healthier world will only come about through changes in people’s consciousness, and not only through new laws, new regulatory mechanisms or the like. While all this can help, true evolution can only come about through changes within each other, that is, in people’s mental models. And when we apply the integral approach to the area of ​​leadership development in organizations, we reach the conclusion that the leader (by the very definition of the term “lead”) must be the major driver of this change. And it is a fact that all of us are at some point leaders, whether at home, as parents, on the school football team, in the classes taught or even at a party with friends. And in companies, of course!

An integral leader has two distinctive features, both very closely related to improved performance, personally and professionally. The first feature concerns the interrelationships between the various roles performed by him or her. Our lives can be divided into four dimensions according to Wharton’s Stewart Friedman: i) Work, ii) Family, iii) Community, and iv) Self. An integral leader has these dimensions integrated, synergistic and overlapping. This allows him or her to always be the same person, whether in the organization in which he or she works, with his or her family and friends, with the community at large, and especially with himself or herself. It is not a matter of having a “balanced” life, because balance presumes that in order to have more time to be with my family and friends, I have to reduce the time dedicated to work, the community and / or myself, for example. It is a matter of effectively integrating these four different dimensions so that they are increasingly overlapping. My day will still be 16 hours (assuming I’ll be sleeping for 8 hours), but it will be possible to devote, for example, 9 hours to work, 6 hours to family, 1 hour to community and 3 hours to myself. This happens when, for example, I go to do sports (Self), with my wife, my children and / or friends (Family), and doing this sport makes me more focused and at the same time relaxed, increasing my performance in my company (Work).

The second distinguishing feature of the integral leader is the so-called “second-tier thinking” or “second-order thinking,” as described by authors such as Graves, Beck and Cowan, Kegan, Piaget, Barrett, and Maslow, among others. This way of “reading” the environment and processing information enables the leader to more clearly identify the thinking of his superiors, peers, and leaders, taking advantage of the best way to communicate, engage, and enhance their performance by fitting the most appropriate stimuli to their characteristics. Integral leaders are also capable of solving the most complex problems in their field faster and better that their “first-tier thinking” peers. They are more creative and achieve mastery in a complete new skill on average half the time of leaders with first-tier thinking (5,000 hours versus Gladwell’s 10,000 hours for the average person). Integral leaders also have great self-awareness and, consequently, higher EQ (emotional intelligence). Finally, they are more flexible and more easily able to cope with the high volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) characteristic of our Era (and the years to come), achieving mental states of high concentration on what really matters, thus having a much higher productivity when compare with the average.

By now the dear reader must be wondering what to do to become an integral leader as soon as possible. However, it is important to know that being an integral leader is not an easy endeavor. It requires great self-knowledge and self-mastery throughout an arduous process of transformation. First of all, before leading others, the integral leader must be able to lead himself. Knowing your limits, strengths and weaknesses, and making changes in your behavior are the starting point for effectively leading others. The leader has to BE THE CHANGE he or she wants to see in his or her followers, as Mahatma Gandhi said. Over the last 20 years of research and practice in the business strategy, organization and leadership fields and manly over the last five years of work on developing integral leaders both at FAE Business School’s Integral Leadership Program (ILP) (www.fae.edu/ilp ) and Integral Works (www.integralworks.com ), my partners and I have identified 5 key steps for developing integral leaders. These steps, based on the works of Kofman, Covey, Kolp & Rhea among others, have proven necessary and enough, but far from easy. Although their initial understanding is quite simple, the practice of each of these steps constantly opens completely new perspectives and issues, subtle and complex at the same time, which must be addressed by the leader who wants to become integral. Far from being items of a cake recipe, these steps mean changes of attitudes towards we and others that must be achieved one by one through hard work, self-discipline and resilience.

Our attitudes precede our behaviors. Therefore, to develop new habits consistently, we must change them. Changes focused directly on behavior end up not sustaining, as our new actions are misaligned with our thoughts. Our attitudes derive from our values. So, somehow, we will have to work with these values ​​to change them. It is clear that “the war” to be fought to become a truly integral leader is an inner one, played in the field of our minds, demanding but at the same time bringing a permanent state of awareness of our thoughts and actions. In the end, being an integral leader is becoming more conscious!

The starting point of Integral Leadership is Purpose, the step number one. Purpose means for us human beings what the Mission means for organizations. Just as an organizational Mission must be the reason for the company’s existence, our Purpose must be our reason for being. So, the fundamental question is “what is the main purpose of my life?” Or “what do I want to make of it?”. Of course, the second question is, “Why do I want what I want?” Putting these questions sequentially at least five times leads us to a meaningful mission that must transcend the most immediate needs and play a contributing role to the community, society or the world. However, don’t expect the first definition of your purpose to sound perfect. As Mark Twain said, the two most important days in a person’s life are the day he or she is born and the day he or she finds out what for. Just browse around in the internet and you find many books and workshops on defining your Purpose. Most of them are worth. Purpose will also be the theme for my next article here at Medium. Anyway, this discovery won’t happen the first couple of times you think about it! But it’s surely worth starting!

Once our purpose is clear, we need to follow it, which is done in two distinct but complementary ways. First, we must remember that many of the “boring” activities we perform are an essential part of the purpose. It is worth remembering the bricklayer who, when asked what he was doing, replied: “I am building a cathedral.” Purpose should give meaning to the most banal and repetitive activities in our daily lives, making them enjoyable and allowing us to do them with mastery. Second, purpose should serve as a guide for your improvement initiatives in all areas of your life. The changes I make in my personal life and work should facilitate the process of realizing my long-term purpose. The purpose must be the basis for our daily kaizen and it is important to remember to update it from time to time, for only then will we come to that day as important as our birth described by Twain!

When we move into action guided by our purpose, we need to develop an accountability attitude. This is the second step in becoming integral leaders. The attitude we need to develop is that of a full responsibility for our decisions, whether they were conscious or not. It is having a “don’t get off the hook” attitude, which means stopping “outsourcing” responsibility for our bad results. There is no such thing as “it was the economy,” “my team didn’t realize it,” etc. Leaders must delegate authority and never delegate responsibility. An integral leader has to know when he or she can really take responsibility for a particular outcome. Whenever the challenges outweigh our responsiveness (and that of our teams), we have to have the courage to say “no”! This is one of the key issues in ensuring the process of changing from a victim of the circumstances to a protagonist in your story.

What should be our limit on taking responsibility? Our values! An integral leader must be whole. The pursuit of Integrity is the third step to becoming an integral leader and is practically a consequence of the constant pursuit of the second step. Integrity implies acting in accordance with our values ​​and the values ​​of the organizations we work for. Here is a potential hurdle, as there may be conflict between a leader’s personal values ​​and those of the organization in which he operates. When they are irreconcilable, the integral leader must leave the leadership position, otherwise he will lose his authenticity, the behavior that results from an attitude of integrity. By the way, righteous leaders have as their main feature the so-called “walk the talk”: they act according to their values ​​and only demand from their team what they practice themselves. Acting with integrity shifts focus from results to process, turning our actions into a truly works of art. When we cultivate the attitudes of “Accountability” and “Integrity,” we create an environment conducive to mutual trust and this makes unnecessary the various control mechanisms that waste companies’ energy that could be channeled to better serve internal and external customers.

The fourth step or attitude is to develop an ontological Humility, which appears here in its Aristotelian and most visceral sense. As an attitude, humility is the middle ground between arrogance and submission. The integral leader must be humble in the sense that he does not own the truth. Opinions that differ from yours should be considered opportunities to appreciate problems from a different perspective and allow for innovative and surprising solutions. In short, the attitude of humility is to be permanently open to learning from the situations that arise in our personal and professional lives. When we cultivate humility as an attitude in our daily lives and within our teams, mutual learning can occur, leading to radical performance improvements with time. If Purpose, Accountability and Humility permeate the working environment, innovation will occur naturally.

Finally, the fifth step or attitude is undoubtedly the most difficult, and to master it, you probably must have attained mastery in the previous four steps: Veracity. Acting truthfully means being honest with yourself and others, accepting reality as it is. Many people question acceptance as the opposite of the pursuit of improvement and innovation. On the contrary. When we accept things as they are, we free up space in our minds and energy in our body and spirit to address the problems that plague us. We stop spending time and energy in creating self-deceiving stories (by means of constant “neuronal gossip”, as defined by Mingyur Rinpoche, the Buddhist Master who wrote “The Joy of Living” and “Joyful Wisdow”) and face the real problems by multiplying by many times the chances of being successful.

Finally, I invite you, who play the leading role in your company, family or friends: cultivate these attitudes progressively, starting with the Purpose and adding Accountability when you feel that the first step is over and at least partially consolidated, and so on. If you are at a later stage and feel that you have been failing in a previous step, return to it reflexively and questioningly. Cultivate these attitudes intentionally before acting on others and on yourself! At first it may seem that this will complicate your decision making. Over time you will realize just the opposite. Things go becoming simpler and simpler, significantly increasing your ability to make good decisions and implement them, producing amazing outcomes.