Leadership Notes -- Thoughts on Leading People and Making a Difference in Organizations

Word count this issue: 495

Estimated reading time:   2.20 minutes 

I’ve been thinking about the distinction between the outer life and the inner life. Riffing on Ken Wilbur’s distinction between stages and states http://www.kenwilber.com I think that the outer life (Wilbur’s stages) has to do with a person’s level of intellectual maturity. Most of us in our lifetimes have grown through a few stages, eventually seeing the limits of each previous stage and moving to the next.  So for example, I live in the 21st Century, as a straight white male in Canada, with a graduate degree. I am at getting to the top of my game as a facilitator, and well respected as a thinker and provocateur. I am a very different person compared to the person I was as teenager. That is my outer life.

My inner life (riffing on Wilbur’s state) is more about how much I live connected to self and others and the Whole? How much have I overcome my sense of separateness and superiority? How much do body, soul, and spirit work together as one? Have I moved beyond simply reacting? Can I act and think in pure inner freedom? Have I grown in my heart so that I can see beyond my own needs and desires, beyond simply making other people happy, or playing games, and towards a full and authentic sense of self and other. Not replacing my ego, but moving beyond simply ego.

Ideally outer and inner are balanced. The two will inform each other, but they are not always aligned. 

I believe inner life is about my leadership, outer life is about my management. You may have had a great boss who was a great leader; s/he walked the talk, had an authentic and deeply profound experience with other people, and seemed to be able to light up a room, simply by their presence. Or, you may have had a boss who was a great manager; s/he was smart, accurate, able to make decisions and problem solve very quickly and efficiently. They were well educated and had an authority based on their intellect. 

People who are adept in both state and stage are rare. The great leaders will often have great managers around them, and if not, soon whither on the vine as details (for example) start to get the better of them.  The great manager can be quick, smart and efficient but become stalled because the people around them soon realize it is all about them and their arrogance and self styled importance wears thin. 

In our journeys leading people, we need to be both good leaders and good managers. Check with yourself; where are you? Are you working on the outer work and leaving the inner work behind, or are you so thrilled with your inner learnings that the outer work is starting to stall? May this we start to find more balance.