Common Questions about Leadership
How is leadership defined on the path of The Clarion Way?
On The Clarion Way, the psychospiritual path of teachings and practices offered by the Institute, leadership is viewed as a classroom of the soul. The more we act from a place of self-responsibility and self-care as leaders, the more we learn to balance mind and heart, all-giving and discernment, idealism and practicality, sensitivity and creativity. The more we become aligned with our soul, the more our groups/organizations evolve and shine in the fulfillment of their destiny.
What are the primary soul lessons of leaders?
A True leader invites those she leads to use the gifts of the soul to guide them onto their next evolutionary step. To accomplish this, leaders themselves need support, nurturance, guidance, and knowledge, especially when challenged in their leadership role.
Learn more about leadership
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True leaders are honest and self-responsible for their thoughts and actions and supportive of those they lead. They recognize that, as the works of Peter Senge indicate, an authentic leader is a designer, teacher, and steward. When their group is distressed or challenged, leaders use self-inquiry questions such as: What is happening here? Why am I weary and leery? What mistake am I making? How can I support the potential of those I lead and view the situation from the perspective of showing those I lead another way to engage in their work and relationships with one another?
Such inner questions guide us in our leadership classroom––a classroom with a curriculum of five soul lessons. The first four lessons are vision, right relations, analysis, and synthesis. Once we’ve mastered these four we can attain the ultimate soul lesson of standing alone. Each soul lesson integrates experience with knowledge and has corresponding leadership challenges. Read more about the Soul Lessons of a Leader HERE.
Why is it critical for leaders to do their inner (shadow) work?
If we look at our leadership experiences through the eyes of our soul rather than through the lens of the world, we can see that each step in our leadership experience to date has been at the perfect stage of our soul’s learning. With this knowledge, leaders can use each leadership challenge as an impetus for their own healing.
Explore inner work practices on our Practices page
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Soul lessons in our leadership classroom involve the development of qualities and potentials and the dissolving of delusions and illusions that interfere with our becoming true leaders. What we as leaders do not resolve and develop within ourselves is acted out with adverse effects in our personal life and in our leadership. This produces hurtful consequences for those we lead and humble lessons for ourselves. To support and not harm those we lead is the impetus for us as leaders to engage in inner work.
Are there specific psychological-spiritual risks or dangers for leaders?
For all of its rewards and opportunities, leadership brings with it an element of personal risk and danger. As catalysts for change, leaders can challenge the long-held beliefs of those they serve. Their power threatens those who feel powerless, and when people feel threatened, they target the person in authority. As a result, leaders get hurt both professionally and personally.
Publications in the business and nonprofit worlds typically address how leaders impose psychological damage on those they lead through sexual harassment, embezzlement, favoritism, prejudice, and other practices. Far less has been written about the harm leaders experience from those they serve.
Read more about the psychological-spiritual dangers and beneficent protection of leaders in an essay excerpted from
Susan Trout's book, The Awakened Leader,
on THIS PAGE
In the 1940s, metaphysicians Alice Bailey and Torkom Saraydarian wrote about leadership as an opportunity for the soul to grow through the individual’s dedication and commitment. They also believed every leader to be susceptible to internal dangers and external attacks.
Among the internal dangers they identified were discouragement, isolation, and exhaustion. The authors viewed betrayal, manipulation, and psychic attacks as examples of external dangers.
Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky explored similar issues in their book Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading, published in 2002. They observed that employees seek divisive ways to undermine the authority of a leader they perceive as challenging the status quo.
What is the Piscean-Aquarian transition and why is it important for leaders to know about it?
Our planet is experiencing a unique cosmic transition as we move astrologically out of the Piscean Era and into the Aquarian Era. Subtle fifth-dimensional Aquarian energies first appeared on planet Earth around the year 1760. Predictions suggest that by the year 2260, Piscean energies will have yielded to Aquarian energies. The Aquarian Era, like all other astrological eras, will span 2,120 years. Although we know the basic nature of Aquarian energy and its possibilities of manifestation, much is unknown as to exactly what will emerge during the transition and throughout the Aquarian Era.
Leadership is inspiring and creative, challenging and dangerous, and at all times a path of service to our soul. It requires going to school––not in a university, but in the classroom of our daily experience as a leader.
What we do know is that we stand precariously at the midpoint of the transition from the Piscean Era to the Aquarian Era––between what was “the yesterday” and what will be “the tomorrow.” No longer having a foothold in the past, we step onto uncharted land. Old organizational structures and belief systems collapse around us as new ones emerge. Our beloved Planet Earth is in crisis and calls on humanity to rescue it from extreme ecological and spiritual distress.
Conflicts between the old and new and the known and unknown arise as we struggle to adjust to change and develop new models of living on our planet before we do it further harm. We know we are connected in a meaningful way to one another and to all Earth’s animate and inanimate reality. We are not isolated from one another in the world nor are we separated from the Divine. The more we align with our connectedness, the more we experience help from God, Goddess, All That Is––and the more we are mindful when we have an opportunity to show another way.
Learn more about the Piscean-Aquarian transition:
The Clarion Call: Leadership and Group Life
in the Aquarian Era Ride the Waves of Destiny into the Fifth Dimension The Years 2021-2025 ~ The Dark Gets Darker/The Light Shines Brighter ~ A Series of Three Teachings on the Destiny of Humanity and Planet Earth
