Get Leadership Counselling For How to Foster Greater Meaning Within Your Self and the People You Influence (Even If Nihilism, Cynicism & Complacency Is the Norm) 

Meaningful Leadership, as our company counsels upon, is the idea that amidst a distracted, disengaged and disaffected world, the leader who leads with the fullest sense of meaning, wins.

That’s because the leader who is able to increase the sense of meaning in an organization, creates first of all a greater level of engagement within a team. A sense of meaninglessness by contrast, whether its felt in one’s work or one’s private life, inevitably translates into mediocre performance, where people merely go through the motions…

Peak states of creativity and flow only emerges when people are filled with a sense of meaning. Only when people perceive something as inherently meaningful, do they feel intensely alive, and give their genuine best.

Second, the meaningful leader increases enrollment, loyalty, and commitment to the cause for which the company stands. With meaningful leadership, staff turnover and absenteeism go down, while production goes up. Going the extra mile seems effortless. Moving to another company merely for better pay is of low concern.

Meaning most often trumps money. Beyond a certain monetary standard that ensures living needs are met, more money does not increase motivation, and it has a particularly negative effect on creativity… (This has already been confirmed by a number of replicated research studies.)

And third, it’s meaning that produces the courage and resilience needed to adhere to the core values and mission that the organization wants actualized when the going gets tough. It’s through the depth of internal meaning that people innately pursue excellence. Anything short of a meaningful conception of work, and all there is, is just words on paper.

So for these three reasons (and many others), we absolutely need to lead with meaning. Meaning increases engagement, enrollment and excellence. This is our counselling specialization.

It’s because words are important. And from our understanding, it is not our job to be a coach for you – because you, as the leader in your organization, or influencer amidst your tribe, are in a sense, their coach. As such, we’re not the coach. You are. (And it would be presumptuous for us to think otherwise.)

And neither are we consultants, because consultants typically engage in transactional relations or arrangements – whether to offer consultancy advice in marketing, IT, management, logistics, accountancy, and so on. Consultants offer advice, take their pay, and then leave.

But what we do is not transactional. It is transformational. It is built upon a special relationship of fundamental equality, truthfulness, and spirit-centered trust.

‘Counselling’ has been the word of choice throughout history for what we actually do. The word ‘counselling’ in relation to leadership, for instance, is stated in the Bible 137 times. Consulting or coaching is mentioned 0 times.

For great leaders throughout history, whenever they sought to calibrate their leadership actions, beliefs, attitudes, or how to find an optimally ethical solution – they’d call for ‘counselling’. King Solomon, (the archetypal man of wisdom), advised leaders to take on ‘counselling’ over a dozen times: i.e.

“Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many counsellors they succeed.”
Proverbs 15:22

“Plans succeed through good counsel; don’t go to war without wise advice.”
Proverbs 20:18

“Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.”
Proverbs 11:14

Thus, in the spirit of the same tradition, we offer our counselling for prudent leadership.

While leadership and management have often been contrasted through the axiom of ‘doing the right things’ versus, ‘doing things right’ – in reality, great leaders are well versed in both. Great leaders do the right things, in the right way.

Great leaders discern both the optimal goals to be pursued, as well as the most effective way to accomplish them. Great leaders uphold both ‘the what’ and ‘the how’.

And the reason they’re able to do this, is because they implicitly and explicitly communicate ‘The Why’.

‘The Why’ being our ability to discern the full meaning behind them all. ‘The Why’ being the question of meaning. ‘The Why’ being ‘the super-arching question’ of all inquiries, as countless philosophers noted.

The question of why reveals layers of ‘meaning’, which is the master key to all of our motivations. Or like Nietzsche put it, ‘“He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.”

The nexus between how to manage and lead well, begins with ‘The Why’ question – the question of meaning.

Unlike many other leadership programs, this is not about emulating someone else’s style or applying a “leadership hack” or practicing Machiavellian principles of power.

To truly connect with the depth of meaning inherent in our unique purpose and the specific context in which we find ourselves, we must be our authentic selves. We must lead with our individuality and our own unique style. Anything less than this would result in developing a leadership persona rather than being genuine.

After all, isn’t this what great leadership is all about? Doesn’t a great leader inspire others to find greater meaning within themselves? Don’t they encourage others to pursue a higher purpose, a set of values, or principles that go beyond the status quo?

Isn’t this how great leaders establish strong and loyal relationships that endure?

Every great leader has their own distinctive style. Researchers may identify some common characteristics across categories, but the more self-actualized a leader is, the more ‘one-of-a-kind’ they are.

The medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas once made the argument that angels, as the most perfect of beings, would not merely be of a certain kind of species, but that each single angel, would be their own individual species. (Each angel would be a one-of-a-kind species, as distinct as a cat is from a dog.)

We extend this same argument, that this applies to all great leaders. There is only one Mahatma Gandhi, only one David Packard, only one Martin Luther King, only one Steve Jobs… in the same way that we can also say this about a great artist – i.e. a Dali, a Rembrandt, a Michelangelo…

By contrast, consider what characterizes the ‘non-self-actualized person’. One observable characteristic is that they are very much like any other member of a group – they are a ‘stereotypical person’. The thinking on display is very much like a ‘predictable algorithm’.

You can often foretell what they will say or do next, based upon the group they identify with. While they believe they have unique ideas and ways of acting, these are in actuality, the very same ideas and actions that any member of the group would also have.

This is often what makes for comedy that writes itself – i.e. think of characters from shows like Little Britain (UK), Fat Pizza/ Housos (Australia), or The Simpsons/ Family Guy (US).

But great leaders, are not stereotypical. They don’t adopt leadership styles or personas from others. If they are, they are a joke . (Think of the film, Office Space.)

Great leaders are honest through and through about the meaning that drives and defines them. This is uniquely configured within their soul, at their deepest levels of being.

They don’t put on ‘style shows’… ‘Style’ simply emerges, because it’s congruently connected in their heart, body and soul. (You can’t fake this.)

Anyone else who then tries to copy this from the ‘outside-in’, they just end up being ‘play-actors’ at best, ‘phonies’ at worst.

Because like with great artists, leadership too is an art. It is cultivated with intentional learning, introspection, and counselling, so that the values, the vision, and the leader’s voice are embodied through and through.