Energy LeadershipTM is the process that develops a personally effective style of leadership that positively influences and changes not only yourself, but also those with whom you work and interact, as well as your organization as a whole.
Before we explore the rest of what Energy Leadership may have to offer you, let’s define the two key underlined terms above.
Leadership:
Leadership is how you interact with everyone, including yourself. Leaders are quite visible within small and large businesses. We tend to think of them as business owners and CEO’s and managers at various levels. Traditionally, leadership also extends into politics and other global affairs. However, parents, therapists and health care providers, solopreneurs, sports coaches, consultants, mentors, partners in relationship, teachers, authors, and others who interact with people on a regular basis are all leaders. EVERYONE is a leader either by choice or default.
If you don’t think of yourself as a leader, then you are limited in your thinking. Leading is the way we help move people, including ourselves, into action. The question is not whether or not we are leaders, but how well we lead.
Organization:
Organizations are not limited to business. All of the groups, teams, and people around you are organizations, too. It’s the colleagues you work with and the family you go home to. Your organization includes all those who are grouped within your many circles of influence. Each of us is a part of many organizations.
There are 2 Streams. Which One Do You Swim In?
A relentlessly damaging stream is flowing through America. This stream is not created by water, but by fear. It is the Stream of Unconsciousness.
Its constructive counterpart, the Stream of Consciousness, flows through only a few of the world’s homes and organizations and is fed by creative and positive thinking that produces questions like “What’s right,” “What’s the opportunity here,” and “How can we make this work?” In contrast, the Stream of Unconsciousness is based on only one question: “What’s wrong?” This stream is the one most of us have been trained to see, listen to, drink from, and bathe in since birth.
During any typical workday, most people spend a great deal of time focusing on what’s wrong — with their family, their jobs, their projects, their colleagues, their relationships, and their lives. At work, it’s not surprising that studies show that more than 50 percent of the people in our nation’s workforce would choose, if they could, to quit their jobs.
What will it take to shift the pressure and negativity that surrounds not only corporate America but our personal lives and the state of our communities? What will help employees to be productive, content, and have a positive view of both the organizations they work for and the people they work with? It will take a powerful leader who is skilled, highly sophisticated, and versatile, and one who understands the power of energy.
Catabolic and Anabolic Energy: The 2 Forces That Create Your World–Every Minute of Every Day
More than a hundred years ago, Albert Einstein addressed the scientific community, passionately presenting the idea that everything we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell is not matter, but energy. Everything that “matters” is energy.
On an energetic and cellular level, catabolism usually refers to a breakdown of complex molecules, while anabolism is the opposite. When you hear about a person’s catabolic or anabolic energy, however, it’s a broader statement about destructive and constructive forces in an entire person, who is made up not only of individual cells but also of anabolic and catabolic thoughts and beliefs.
Anabolic and Catabolic energy are predominant in organizations as well as people. Many organizations experience catabolic energy by constantly reacting to their circumstances with worry, fear, doubt, anger, and guilt. And thoughts are indeed contagious. When even a few people in an organization have negative feelings, it can spread like a virus. “Group think” sets in, and their thoughts become group “fact.” Once that occurs, the company can implode energetically in a swirl of gossip, negativity, conflict and contempt.
Remember that “group think” begins with “leader think”. At its core, an organization strongly reflects how its leader thinks, feels, and acts.
Anabolic leaders have the ability to motivate and inspire themselves and others to do extraordinary things. They have the ability to make energetic shifts in all levels of the organization. The most successful organizations are those that are filled with powerful, positive, anabolic leaders, and that means everyone in the organization, not just the “ones at the top.” No matter how effective or ineffective you currently are in your role, you can transform yourself and others, as well as your organization, into a thriving, inspired, positive, productive, and successful entity. And, thus begins your journey to become the Ideal Leader.
Web copy used by permission. No reproduction or retransmission is permitted without expressed written consent of Bruce D Schneider and the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC).
© 2006 – 2011 Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC)