Work Consciousness

First, let’s take a look at the core of both strong management and great leadership. Strong managers and great leaders both have a high level of consciousness or awareness about themselves, their relationships, and the enterprise.¹ This consciousness is not about knowing everything. Rather, consciousness is taking notice of what happens below the surface, which culminates in behaviors. It is looking beyond the events and reactions to the underlying emotional and spiritual underpinnings. We often say that a highly conscious person is one who is awake. Not just awake physically but awake mentally. Mentally awake means that a person is awake to see connections between effort and outcomes—awake to see the possibilities to make change happen whenever and wherever. We do not want to suggest that an awake person or a highly conscious person is superhuman or someone who is smarter than someone else. Often highly conscious people have more questions than they do answers. However, a highly conscious person realizes that it is his or her job to search for the answers.

Within the concept of self-mastery, a high degree of consciousness around life direction is seen. Such people know where they are going and why they are going there. Obviously, considering the dynamics between individuals and the organization, how can people be exceptional managers or leaders—challenging people to undertake the organizational mission, goals, standards, and vision—when they themselves do not know where they are going? Of course, strong managers and leaders have a sense of self-direction from which they draw energy to move the team or organization ahead. A rudderless individual in a position of authority is but a parrot, mimicking hierarchical behaviors.

Maybe you have spent time constructing a life plan—a plan for where you are going in life and the strategies, goals, and targets associated with your life’s purpose. If not, do so immediately. Not having a defined plan leaves you wandering through life and, more often than not, wandering through organizational life. This plan does not need to be perfect or an unchangeable blueprint. Just like a team or organizational plan, it is a work in process. Start by writing why you believe you exist. What is your purpose in life? What is your vision for yourself 5 years from now? What are the key elements of this vision? Visualize such areas as your vocation, education, family, finances, community, spirituality, and physical well-being. What will each of these areas look like in your life 5 years from now? Write it down. Next, think about key strategies you will take to achieve this vision. Also, consider the few values you hold dear. You are constructing a strategic plan for your life. Why would you focus on yourself less than your organization? Certainly you deserve a quality plan.

If you go back to our jail theory of leadership mentioned in chapter 4, you will notice another trait most great leaders have: During their time in jail, many of them wrote great books or other works. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,”² Nelson Mandela wrote Long Walk to Freedom, Adolph Hitler (not that we are suggesting you become like Hitler) wrote Mein Kampf, Paul the Apostle wrote many of his letters to different upstart Christian congregations while he was in prison, and Viktor Frankl wrote Man’s Search for Meaning about his experience in a concentration camp during World War II. All of these works share a common deep personal mastery and an effort to figure out who they are and why they are doing what they are doing.

Consciousness in the area of people mastery entails understanding the course of your relationships both in and out of the workplace. It is frustrating to see teams go through the most ridiculous team-building exercises when the basic investment of just knowing each other, that is, where individuals are heading in their lives, has not been accomplished. It’s as if they were rehearsing a wedding or trying to understand how to be a more loving couple prior to getting to know each other. Once more, the basic work of understanding the relationship and a deeper sense of the individuals involved has not been addressed.

The process is one we know. Seek to understand the people in your life by inquiring about their purpose, delights, goals, and visions. This is done with conversation. Having a genuine interest in others beyond the schools they attended or the gender of their children is required. If you are not interested in the people you encounter, ask yourself why. Interpersonal mastery is a requirement for both superior management and leadership. Sometimes, when the interest is not there, such deep conversations are seen in their true light: manipulation. Thus there will not be much growth in interpersonal skills. Friendships may arise, but what is sought is a profound understanding of the people who you spend time with.

Enterprise mastery is another place requiring a high level of consciousness. How do you align with the organization? How strong is the alignment between your values and your organization’s values? What is the depth of thinking done within the organization? Working for a military-weapons contractor as a pacifist is a hard road to follow. To simply say it is a job means settling for less than optimal performance. Discovering the organization where you feel your life energy is in sync is much easier, regardless of the pay and position. Knowing how the organization works, as well as its values, goals, and vision, provides a foundation for a meaningful relationship with the people within. In short, knowing the organization gives the information needed to determine fit. And with a good fit, your creative spirit can produce great results. Without a good fit, your efforts will be, at best, thrown away. At worst, your efforts will be counter to your very beliefs and direction.

Consciousness and mastery of self, relationships, and the enterprise form the core of performance (see Figure 5.1). Skills are a secondary consideration. Too many times a skills assessment and resulting employment placement are substituted for meaningful work. In whatever economy you find yourself, this is a bad deal.