I have always been curious about leadership and the role it has in effectively supporting organisations and employees to achieve excellent and strategic outcomes.
In an effort to hone my own leadership style, and to support other leaders to develop their own approaches, I have spent my career observing, learning, researching, and doing! My understanding of how I lead has evolved over time, and I actively encourage others to take time to invest in their own leadership learning.
I started my MBA in 2020 with leadership as my first subject. I spent 8 weeks analysing leadership within the academic arena from a style, trait, and theory perspective. After subjecting my peers, managers, and team members to a survey on their views of my leadership tendencies followed by a self-assessment exercise, I was initially surprised that my most 'go-to' leadership style was servant leadership.
Robert K Greenleaf was a passionate believer in this unusual concept and first wrote about it in 1970. Greenleaf's determination of servant leadership was based on trust, service and kindness characterised through listening, awareness, persuasion, commitment to the growth of people, building community, awareness, and foresight.
Since then, I have invested in understanding heart-based leadership and the opportunities it creates for organisations to deliver work grounded in values and authenticity. It can easily be dismissed as being soft or new-age, yet having watched, received, trailed, and embedded many leadership styles in my 30+ years across five industries, I whole-heartedly believe heart-based leadership is the most effective way to get the best out of yourself, and your people.
The servant leadership characteristics described by Greenleaf are also embedded in heart-based leadership. Perhaps it is not as nuanced or new age as it sounds?
I continue my own journey in heart-based leadership, through the Wellness Breakthrough Academy, with a deeply introspective leadership program designed to find your purpose, connect with emotions, develop monitoring skills, understand subconscious patterns and more. Believing that vulnerability through heart-based leadership creates connection, which opens the pathway for authenticity in the workplace, Academy founder Jason Irving has embedded heart-based leadership into the program. Jason says, "it's about connection and inclusiveness to build a safe and secure workplace where people want to belong, and having deep care for the people you are leading, not just the work they are producing".
They cultivate self-awareness and engage in self-reflection, constantly striving to understand their "why" and align their actions with their values. It drives decision-making in line with societal expectations.
More than ever before, corporates need to make heart-based values led commitments to address issues such as reconciliation and modern slavery across our global supply chain, if they want to continue to be successful and competitive in business.
