This is the fifth and final week of our exploration of vulnerability, cultivating our relationship with being vulnerable and improving our ability to engage and open up in a positive way, maybe for the first time.
Now if this is the first video that you're seeing in this series, make sure that you hit pause, go back on my blog at VictoriaWhitfield.com and start from part one, so that you are grounded in this process. Without further ado, this week in particular for the fifth and final week of our discussion on vulnerability, my spirit guides have asked us to discuss vulnerable leadership.
Last week, we talked about the power of opening up as an empath to being vulnerable, so that we can better relate to and interact with the people and things that we care about in this lifetime. We talked about respecting our energy as empaths, but also not letting our sensitivity dominate us in this lifetime – claiming that as a power, rather than a disability – or be something that you're constantly afraid of or overly protecting yourself from. This week, however, we're going even farther into vulnerability as a power and applying it to leadership.
A wonderful role model of vulnerable leadership and someone who's a thought leader in this area, two people actually, I would have to say one is Simon Sinek and the other is Brene Brown. If you have not checked out their work, I highly recommend it. They have amazing, inspiring, empowering things to share with you around vulnerable leadership and how healing it is especially in the professional world.
The most painful thing that I've seen is how insensitive leadership destroys powerful teams that have become like family and overcome the most incredible odds together. These things that come from the top-down in corporate – restructuring, or layoffs, or whatever hot word they use to explain being insensitive to the needs and the preciousness of the relationships of the people that are working under them – it's incredible how destructive they can be.
I grew up watching my mother re-enter the workforce after 17 years as a homemaker to work for a certain corporation as a technical writer, and then a web developer, and coder for over 20 years. I remember as a kid going to their picnics and things and seeing all of these people that she worked with like my extended family, and feeling part of something bigger; seeing them laughing, and supporting one another. ...Then I also lived through, as a young woman, watching them be torn apart, seeing the stress, and the pain of those wonderful relationships being just torn apart, torn apart by restructuring or “re-orgs” as the company would say. I'm not going to say what company because I want to respect privacy here.
Maybe you've seen this happen in your family – your work family – or your corporation as well, this being torn apart by insensitive leadership, putting numbers before people, or putting self-protection first, which is something that we hinted at last week. Let's go into it this time for our final discussion: the toxic effects of putting self-protection before serving their community around us.
We can get protection-obsessed especially in the professional world because for some reason we allow money and numbers to make us paranoid and prioritize dollars and quotas, and metrics above people, relationships, health and mutual human respect. Be kind to yourself if this is something that you've witnessed happening and that you don't want to be a part of any longer. If only just for today, commit to being open as a leader. Commit to developing your ability to be vulnerable along with the people who you are leading.
Simon Sinek gives us a wonderful example of how to measure how open-hearted you are as a leader. Leaders, he says, are people who watch out for the people to the right and to the left of them. That is it. It has nothing to do with titles, what's on your business card, or what your website says, or how big your office is, or how big your bank account is, or not. It's who are you being on a moment-to-moment basis. In order to look out for, to take care of, the people to the left and to the right of you, you've got to be open to what's going on with them, rather than just what's going on with “Me” and making sure that I'm getting x, y, z done, and so on.
It is a mental acrobatic that you do at first to decide, “I'm going to be concerned, and open, and curious, and communicative with the people that are to the left and to the right of me. The people that are supporting me, I am going to support them. I'm going to be open to how do they feel right now. I'm going to ask them, ‘how are you feeling? Are you all right?’ and loving and supporting them in that.”
Coming from a space of your own center of love and support and not forgetting that you as a leader have needs and have feelings is also important, which is something that we also discussed last week, opening to the fact that I have feelings, too, as an Empath. As someone who supports others, I have feelings. I have needs, and they have got to be honored and respected by me first and then also the people that I'm sharing this life experience with.
Be kind to yourself if in trying to be a vulnerable leader, meaning someone who is present to and caring for the people who are in your care, you've sacrificed your own self-care. That is negative vulnerable leadership because it leaves you open to health problems, relationship problems, spiritual and emotion oppression, depression. Be kind to yourself. That leaves you negatively vulnerable.
How can we then as leaders, moreover as Healing Leaders (that's my term) on this planet, how can we open up to leading from the heart, leading with courage, and positive vulnerability? I’m curious, what does that look like? Positive, vulnerable leadership, is healing leadership. I would venture that it starts with healing self, first, and staying open to being present to those that are in our care, who are supporting us, who are following us, and share the same beliefs and vision that we have. We're all working together in one direction. At the same time, there's the person out in front who holds the vision, being the Visionary. --
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Know this: Be kind to yourself if in trying to be a vulnerable leader, meaning someone who is present to and caring for the people who are in your care, you've sacrificed your own self-care. #empath #entrepreneur #workaholic @SenseiWhitfield
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Are you healing? Are you present to yourself? Okay, if you are, you're doing your self-care, you're doing your spiritual nourishment, your physical nourishment and love. Good. And are you present to the people around you needing the same, just as much love, and approval, and support, and honor as you're showing yourself? Are they also learning how to do that for the people behind them as well?
Be a Healing Leader. It entails being open to being vulnerable, cultivating that ability to be vulnerable, but if only just for today, commit to being a healing leader by opening to being vulnerable in a positive and empowering way.
I'm hearing the Oracle cards like, "Hey, pick us!" It's Healing with the Angels oracle cards deck by Doreen Virtue, her very first oracle cards deck that she ever made in her career. Angels, what do we need to know right now about stepping into healing leadership by embodying being positive, vulnerable leaders? ...This is so good, like I could literally do an entire summit on this, “listening.” Listening! This is so perfect. I love that in the picture, she's listening to her angels, and her angels are listening to her. I'm going to read, I don't really have to, but before I read I just want to tell you what I'm hearing from my spirit guides around listening.
The most powerful leaders I've ever followed in my own life have been profound listeners, profound. Having the courage to listen to your people as a leader is essential. God, She gave us two ears and one mouth. We've got to listen twice as much as we give directions and directives. Anyway, let’s start listening. Let me read:
Listening. You are in communication with your angels and the messages that you are receiving are very real indeed. Trust them. This card is a validation from your angels that you really are hearing them. You have been receiving repetitive messages through your feelings, dreams, visions, inner voice, or knowingness. Are you listening and trusting these messages? Are you following them? If you get an inclination to call someone, go somewhere, or read something, it's important to follow this guidance. By drawing this card, your angels ask you to give all your doubts or worries about divine guidance to them. Know that you truly are communicating with heaven and enjoy the conversations.
This is so perfect. Here's where we'll leave off for this entire series: Cultivating your listening sense. Your active listening is also cultivating positive vulnerability. If you are not comfortable listening to others, or you feel impatient, it's just because you haven't cultivated listening as a skill. It's just a skill that you're a little bit deficient in. If you just dedicate time and mental space to it, it gets easier and more pleasurable with time.
If you need to work on your listening skills, I highly recommend my book Natural Intuition Now. I take you step by step exactly through how to listen with presence and also why it is so important. The more that we become intuitive, open, vulnerable, healing and empowered leaders, the better our world becomes, the better the legacy of love becomes that we leave behind us in all the work that we do and all the people, all the lives that we touch.
Send me an email back at team@victoriawhitfiled.com. What's coming up for you around this? Make sure you subscribe on YouTube, so that you get Love Letters first every single week. Tag someone who needs to hear this, and I will see you in the next one.
May you feel loved and safe to be your most brilliant self at work.
Please, enjoy the journey. Muah. See you soon. --
Just for today...
Challenge yourself to actively listen twice as much as you speak, when in conversations and meetings.
Listen to your body, your feelings, others’ bodies and feelings, and shine the light of your attention on the things left unsaid by all involved in the conversation (yourself included).
Notice how you feel in that moment - you're already healing!
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Hello there. I am Sensei Victoria Whitfield, your business reiki master. And it's my joy to get to support empathic entrepreneurs and business owners like you in getting and staying grounded and clear in mind, body and business. Welcome back to another installment of your weekly love letter from the dojo at naturalintuition.com and victoriawhitfield.com, my blog. These are your sources for channeled holistic stress management techniques and guidance for developing your natural intuition. Whether you're looking to improve the quality of your personal and professional life, let this love letter be your reminder that you are not alone and that together we can make that happen.