Disseminating the New Business Paradigm – Part 2

Disseminating the New Business Paradigm 

Part 2

This is the second in an 8-part series examining the new style of business leadership being championed by Uplift Consulting and shared by spiritual/professional thought-leaders worldwide.

Leadership is at the very core of any business. If the leadership is strong yet flexible to change, so the company will grow to reflect that ideology. Similarly, if the leadership is overly controlling or focused simply on the bottom line, the company may grow initially but will be unsustainable in the long-term.

The Uplift business model promotes conscious heart-centred leadership first. It’s a People Matter approach (as opposed to a Profit First attitude).

Many of my clients are from the corporate world. In fact, this is where I spent much of my career, learning how the system and the big giants work. I really understand this climate and the current attitude on how to ‘survive’.

It’s the core perspective on ‘survival’ that is at the heart of the issue. It seems that in order to be a ‘good leader’ (at least from a traditional standpoint), one needs to be in survival mode—something we equate with aggression, closed-mindedness, and ego. So the question that Uplift poses is, what if we changed the attitude from survival to revival?

Revitalizing, energizing, and uplifting each other so that our businesses will prosper.

Now I find myself re-entering the corporate world with a much wider perspective. The work we do at Uplift leads people to ‘wake up’, to experience life and work from a more grounded place, a place with a refreshed lens, a place where one feels connected and engaged, a place that is expansive, limitless, and supported by love, kindness, and compassion. Fear is no longer part of the equation. The trick is, this methodology requires that we get right with ourselves first, that we get grounded and ‘get to know thyself’.

I met with a small business owner this weekend and I feel compelled to share his words, simple, yet so powerful, “we help each other be successful in business”. In his voice, there was no concern about survival or competition. This business owner doesn’t advertise. He built a business on work he loves to do (and does exceptionally well) and he is booked months in advance and takes the summer months off for leisure. There is just so much Wisdom and Inspiration to glean from this entrepreneurial spirit.

More and more, we are seeing businesses embrace the importance of self- development, wellbeing, and transformation. Tony Swartz, from The Energy Project, highlighted this in a recent blogpost, How to Be Mindful in an ‘Unmanageable’ World:

 “Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, talked about how compassion has become a centrepiece of his management style. More specifically, he described how compassion requires slowing down and taking the time to truly listen to others. It means understanding where they’re coming from, caring about the struggles they’re facing, and the baggage they’re carrying.”

It’s good [for] business.

The 2012 Towers Watson Global Workforce Study (of 50 companies and 30,000 people) looked at how employee engagement was connected to overall productivity. What they found was low-engaged companies produced at a 10% operating margin, traditionally-engaged companies produced at a 14% operation margin while sustainable engaged companies produced at a 27% operating margin.

The financial case is proven: when organizations focus on their people, they see results. As the wise yogis say, ‘What We Focus on Grows’. Financials are important but more so is that we place even greater emphasis on People and Transformation, awakening to our greater heart-centred potential.

To increase sustainable engagement, leaders of organizations need to support ‘Wellbeing’ in ways that engage the whole person—Mental, Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual.

The Towers Watson study also looked at What Matters to People. Here’s what they found:

• Wellbeing
• Trust
• Honesty
• Integrity
• Balance across life and work
• Values
• Flexibility
• Enough people to do the work right

This is how we lead at Uplift and we’re here to teach you how to do the same, whether you are the head honcho at a large company or the CEO of a small one.

For further inspiration, I invite you to read Tony’s post and explore the Wisdom 2.0 videos for more on the new wave of leadership.

Over the next several posts, we’ll take a better look at this refreshed approach and how it might take shape. I’ll also share some resources I find inspiring and show you how Uplift is helping to lead the way.

Love & Light,

Paula