by: Steven Bowman
Copyright 2008 by Conscious Governance.
All rights reserved. You may forward this in its entirety to anyone you wish.

Do you perceive yourself as a good leader or a great leader or an outstanding leader? Would you like to truly become an outstanding leader who generates a real impact on others and on the world? By “outstanding”, we are referring to nonprofit leaders who possess a keen sense of strategic awareness, who are masters of change and transformation and who have the ability to inspire and influence others to choose to change and transform. Conscious CEOs possesses such qualities.

Cultivating the beingness of a Conscious CEO is not just a set of skills and learned behaviors. It is a state of beingness that you have to cultivate within yourself. What you do as a nonprofit CEO will depend on this state of beingness which will manifest through your behaviour and actions. Everything you do is a direct connection with this state of beingness, whatever it is, from hiring staff, conducting a meeting to even firing someone. When you do everything from this place of conscious awareness and the space of beingness, you invite the whole world to function with you, not against you.

Cultivating the beingness of a Conscious CEO is not about some random and haphazard decision. “Okay now, let me become conscious, then I can be an outstanding leader.” Cultivating the beingness of a Conscious CEO is not a deception or a pretense. This is not a performance. It is not even a course of action. It is a conscious choice about how you choose to live and about how you choose to be a leader at work and at home.

The Conscious CEO lives in the world as the greatness that invites everybody else to be the greatness of them. Below are the five ways of being that, if you choose them, will assure your evolution and progress as a conscious leader.

1. Being open to all possibilities: Conscious CEOs function from infinite choice and infinite possibilities at all times. They are unconstrained by the concern for survival, are free from the generalized assumptions of scarcity and function from a place of abundance. They recognize that the universe is an infinite place that has no boundaries or limitations. They are able to trust in the flow of the universe, and perceive ‘abundance in all things’ within the universe.

2. Intensity of Awareness: Conscious CEOs are able to perceive, know, be and receive everything and include everything without judgment. It is the ability to be totally present in life without any judgment of anything that goes on and the willingness to receive the abundance and exuberance of life. With intensity of awareness, they are able to function from their knowing without having to take on any persona or pretences. Intensity of awareness allows nonprofit CEOs to function from a completely new level of power and renewal by actualizing empowerment and consciousness.

3. Being the question and functioning from curiosity: When nonprofit CEOs live in the question rather than being besieged by the problems or become vested in finding answers and solutions, they are able to create their life more consciously. By being the question, they are able to be totally present, able to function in the simultaneity of past, present and future and thus not be influenced unconsciously by past events or future concerns.

4. Functioning from total allowance: Being in total allowance is to be present to the way things are, without aligning and agreeing or resisting and reacting to what is happening…….to have no fixed requirements or conditions. This means that nonprofit CEOs have to let go of the notions of control and to be willing to wipe out the illusion that they can be in control. Allowance is “everything is just an interesting point of view, even our own point of view”. Indeed, the capacity to be in total allowance of everyone and everything that is happening without resistance creates infinite possibility.

5. Generosity of spirit: Conscious CEOs function from the simultaneity of gifting and receiving. They are joyful in the expansion of other people’s lives, joyful when other people are successful or when they are doing well. They have no resentment for anyone and are always excited for other people. At a deeper level, CEOs who embody generosity of spirit take a genuine interest in the unique gifts of others. They are willing to be generous with people and give them more than they ask for. They have the willingness to treat others as they know they can, not as it is expected.

About the author: Steven Bowman is an international speaker, best-selling author and global leader in providing practical frameworks and comprehensive approaches to assist Boards and Senior Executive Teams to reach higher levels of conscious awareness in governance, leadership, strategy and risk. Authors of Conscious Leadership-the Key to Success, and Leading Yourself to Money with Consciousness.

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