A Crucial Element Missing From Leadership Development Curriculum

There's a part of leadership development programs that isn't often being addressed adequately.

The older I get, the more life experience I possess, the more I'm realizing the significance of increasing personal consciousness and awareness of self. What does it take to bring more peace inside myself? Can I identify the elements in my internal world that feel at war with each other and why are they at war--parts like what my ego wants or what my soul wants; what my insecurities are and what am I doing to deal with those; and how are my insecurities manifesting themselves in my relationships with self, others, and my general attitude toward life; which parts of my inner world are most motivating my actions and behaviors; how can I bring myself to a higher level of contentment and joy about who I am and how I am with myself and others; what kind of leadership am I providing the people I serve.

Trust me, leaders deeply need to understand these personal issues if they want to be effective and transformational leaders with the people around them (including their families). If there is a war inside us between these varying inner elements (voices and needs) and we haven't learned how to manage those inner conflicts, as Thich Nhat Hahn reminds us, we will undoubtedly push the battle outside of ourselves (in order to mask our inner turmoil) into the relationships around us, including the people we love.

Having worked with people all my career, I have seen the trails of battle victims left by so many leaders (and I know this from my own personal experience). We can't afford not to address our inner conflicts and needs - to understand ourselves, our capacities for good and for not so good, to bring peace into our inner selves - so that we can be facilitators of loving, kind, compassionate, and unselfish yet confident and bold leadership.

Leadership development programs need to be sure to include the leader's internal world and sense of self. Only then can leaders become the transformational presence people are hungering to follow.