Lance Secretan
CoachVille?s Higher Ground Community Visionary
The Keys to the CASTLE Coaching the wisdom and greatness of the Higher Ground Leader
The greatest leaders of history have all been Higher Ground Leaders - inspiring others in their endeavors and enlisting them in their dreams. Whether we are appraising an employee, recruiting a new colleague, looking for a new supplier ? or even when we are considering working for another organization - our criteria should be the same: Is this a Higher Ground Leader? Is this a leader who is awake? Who honors the sacredness in all of life?
Organizations, teams, families, churches, countries who are coached and led by such leaders are crucibles of energy that ignite the passions of everyone within. They are filled with an indescribable, but beautiful force that propels them past all others. No one can quite explain it, but, deep down in our hearts there is a knowing ? we know it when we see and feel it. This is the team to which everyone wants to belong - an organization without a recruitment problem; that replaces marketing and selling with being and therefore inviting new business, new markets, new ideas and new horizons. These are the leaders who see the sacredness in all relationships. These are people who can put hundreds of millions of dollars on the bottom line by inspiring, telling the truth and becoming a magnet for passion.
CASTLE: The Manifesto of Higher Ground Leadership
Every great manifesto asserts the inverse of an intolerable situation. The US, Declaration of Independence, Britain?s Magna Carta, Czechoslovakia?s Charter 77, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for instance, all came about in response to grievances experienced.
Similarly, today?s followers don?t want leaders who tell them, ?I know what leadership is about, and I don?t care what you, as a follower, have to say about this, because the success of this organization depends on my vision and my strategy.? Followers have heard so much of this; they?re tired of it, and they want a new model of leadership?they want a leader who knows that he or she doesn?t have exclusivity to vision, but that vision is not only shared by many people, but is also the product of the synergy that comes from listening and building on each other?s ideas. They want a leader who recognizes that if all the people in organizations sit together as a community, sharing their ideas for achieving common goals, they could envision and then manifest a much bigger dream together. Followers want a leader who can be vulnerable and mature enough to engage this dynamic.
CASTLE is an acronym formed of the first letters of six concepts?Courage, Authenticity, Service, Truthtelling, Love and Effectiveness. These six very obvious concepts distinguish the Higher Ground Leader from the old story leader and, when fully lived, are profoundly inspiring to others. These are concepts that are within us already, but yearn to be recalled. It is through the CASTLE principles that we guide the contribution of brilliance from followers.
I discovered these concepts by first asking people what they disliked about their uninspiring leaders. Our research showed that these followers typically were turned off by leaders who lacked courage, were inauthentic, self-serving, untruthful, disdained others and were ineffective. So like all good researchers and consultants, we reasoned that inverting these deficiencies might reveal the proficiencies?and so the CASTLE Principles were born!
The Higher Ground Leader is guided, in life and work, by these six principles:
Courage - The journey toward Higher Ground Leadership? requires great courage, the willingness to reinvent ourselves and reframe what we know about leadership. We must resolve to be different, regardless of the inevitable criticism, the possibility of reduced performance early in the journey, and the other apparent dangers. The soul understands the need to do the right thing, but the ego often stands in the way. Courage gives us the strength to follow our soul.
Authenticity - When we are being authentic, we align our minds, our mouths, our hearts and our feet: we think, say, feel and do the same thing with complete congruence. Authenticity in leaders gives those around them the permission to be open, too. The authentic leader opens the work environment to truth, love and grace in ways that show up in personal performance and the bottom line.
Service ? Higher Ground Leadership is servant-leadership. The old-story, warrior model, based on fear and competition, leaves us exhausted and undermines profitability. The servant leader embodies sharing, cooperation, consideration and consciousness and asks, How may I serve you?
Truthfulness - The Higher Ground Leader tells?and lives?the truth. Her passion for and commitment to the Truth, the refusal to compromise integrity or to deny universal truths, builds strong teams, nurtures real community, enhances performance and customer service, and transforms persons and organizations.
Love - Love is the source of a Higher Ground Leader?s ability to inspire others because the experience of love is inspiring. It releases the body?s natural "uppers"; it literally transforms those it touches, physically and psychically.
Effectiveness - All of these modes of "being" work together to make a leader more effective in all aspects of life. Higher Ground leaders are effective because they treat others as sacred and inspire them with their courage, authenticity, service, truthfulness and love.
The CASTLE Principles are principles for life ? not just work. When we are Courageous, Authentic, Serving, Truthful, Loving and Effective human beings, we become better spouses, children, parents, friends, teachers, leaders and coaches. These principles guide our whole life and therefore make us more inspiring to others and therefore more inspired ourselves.
Take the CASTLE Survey
Please feel free to log on to www.secretan.com/castle_survey.html and complete your own CASTLE profile. With it, you?ll be able to determine the level to which you are following these principles, and use it as a framework for guiding yourself and others to integrate these Higher Ground Leadership keys.
