Developing Business Leadership With Spirited Leadership NZ

Good Leaders are often valued for their left brain qualities; hierarchical, focused, purposeful, inspirational, productive. But does this style of leadership tap all of the growth and potential in our business and political arenas?

From a Jungian perspective this left brain style aligns with the archetype of Animus, a doing state, focused on productivity, with a mode of being at work that is time bound, order seeking, planning, articulating and action focused. Sound familiar? What this means is that in time, if this is our only mode of leadership, we and our people start to become more rigid, defensive, over intellectual and reactive in our view of things. Over time, driving performance from this place ends up not being that effective. You get less creativity and innovation, not more.

Tapping the Jungian archetype of Anima, a non-ego state, aligned with the reflective capacities of the right brain, gives us the ability to address this challenge. Anima is present when we give ourselves the time to turn inward – stopping, listening and connecting to our inner world, giving room for feeling, a sense of wholeness, community, relationship and spaciousness. It is the experience of being informed by our own inner wisdom, being open, noticing what we feel in our bodies, our environment, and our relationships, and being aware of our existence on this planet. When this isn’t given a place at all, there is always a feeling that something is missing.

When the Anima archetype is welcomed, we have room for process, exploration and connection not only with ourselves but also with others. Time expands, and slowing down actually pays forward the energy needed to speed things up. Too often choices being made from the driving powers of Animus and ego and the desire for certainty, satisfaction and reward, compel us to respond to people and situations too quickly and without a real sense of having connected and related during the process.

Hence walking away from meetings wondering “what the heck was that all about”, or experiencing disappointing performance reviews or feeling that a boss, colleague, direct report, team “just doesn’t get it” or worse still “doesn’t get you” or is not seeing the bigger picture. Imagine leaving meetings with a sense of having achieved a lot and at the same time feeling calmer, more connected and with more perspective than before.

It is not that we need more of one than the other, but we do need to recognise which archetype is dominating our thinking, behaviour and conversations and how this affects outcome. Too much Anima, right brain activity can lead to over relatedness, low energy, even stuckness because of lack of agency, too much talking around in circles and not enough direction or Animus to bring about action. The dominance of the Animus archetype, more a left brain state, leads to language and conversation being heady, results oriented, over rational and judgemental and instead of performance and innovation taking off, people become limited by fear of performing to the expectations of others and unable to express themselves freely and authentically.

Embedding a more balanced culture can happen by using language, leadership models and approaches that help people recognise and connect with their own and each other’s wisdom, so that space is created to see things with new eyes, and with all of our senses and capabilities. By operating in ways that use all our functions and talents as humans, not just one archetypal energy or one part of our brain, we have the potential to be far more integrated, grounded and conscious about the decisions we make and the ways we foster growth.

Spirited Leadership® helps people shift consciousness around these themes, using a core model of Holistic Intelligence® and offering tools for communication to help leaders find ways to connect themselves and others with their own deep wisdom and authenticity. A way of leading from both Anima and Animus to help bring heart, wellbeing, creativity and abundance to our businesses, relationships, communities, families and world.

Author: Nicola Campbell

For more information on leadership development and business coaching, please visit the website at http://www.spiritedleadership.co.nz.