Take your time with this blog. It is a slow read. It is also a journey inside yourself as a leader. It may feel a little woo-woo for some readers. If your tolerance for woo is low, then skip this blog. If it is medium to high, then…

Pause for a minute.

Direct your attention inwards. Use your awareness and find your heartbeat. Attune your hearing until you can hear your heart. If that’s difficult, then take a deep breath as you count to 10. Then hold your breath at the top of the inhale. Count to 10. Slowly exhale as you count to 10. Repeat as many times until you find your heartbeat. 

Good.

Now you know for a fact that you are alive. You can also feel energy pulsating through your body. This energy is inherently yours. No person put it there. You are alive and you have energy, power, moving through you. 

Your attention is the key that unlocks your awareness and access to this energy. This same attention is what makes you a phenomenal leader. You might not feel that way, especially as you look at your list of things to get done before you close off the year. You can be and feel like a better leader.

I love supporting senior leaders in organizations. They hold responsibility for nurturing growth at multiple levels – self, team, organization, community, and even for the rest of the world. The role is demanding and requires lots of attention. One of the most important jobs for leaders is energy management. 

If you are a leader, you move stuff. Stuff like projects and resources. You shape things. Things like culture and perception. You influence people. And you influence people to move and shape stuff. The stuff you move, things you shape, and people you influence require a ton of attention. They require your energy. Where is the energy that you give to them? Let’s pretend that it’s in your heart. Your heart is what gives energy to things, including to yourself. We can even say that your love is what powers your work as a leader. Of course, there are other things and practices that give us energy. Sleeping well, time in the sun, physical exercise, meditating, time in nature, and being in good company. Or perhaps, like different materials conduct electricity, these practices help us channel our energy and ground us in, as opposed to being energy sources themselves. Either way, they are helpful energetic practices.

Love is one way of replenishing and directing our energy. Doing things we love, including being with people we love, fills our energy tank. Leading with love powers our energy to do more good – for the people we care about and challenges that impact them. 

You can test this out. How are you with the things that you love? How do you attend to those things? You give attention to them. And the things you give attention to grow. It is energy that grows things. Take your team for example. I spend a lot of time coaching and facilitating leadership development sessions for VPs. Whenever I ask these leaders about their biggest challenge, it almost always comes down to something to do with their teams. Looking out for their team. The organization might be demanding too much of their team and they feel the need to protect their people. Some do this fiercely. A member of the team might be making the whole team look bad, feel unsafe, or lose productivity. The leader isthen challenged by what to do with this member. Perhaps a team member doesn’t feel like they belong. In all of these situations, it is the leader’s love for their team that compels them to do something. They must put their energy into addressing any one of these challenges.

To address these things well, you need your energy. If you are facing a challenge, chances are that some of your energy has left its center and is outside of yourself. For some of us, it is far outside of ourselves. Scattered. Spread thin. If some, or too much, of our energy is outside of ourselves, we are likely to feel drained. We risk not addressing challenges well. We need as much energy within ourselves as we can in order to lead well. How do we energize ourselves?

See if this poem I wrote can help.

Recall

I am

Here, but

Not here.

There, but

Not there.

Now, but

Not now.

It is like

Parts of 

Me are

Everywhere, scattered

With that

Person, in

That place,

And situation,

At that time. 

I must

Call them 

Back, back

Into myself,

To have

My power

Once again.

So, now, pause again.

Notice the things that generally have your attention, your energy, at the moment, besides this blog. Make a list, even a mental one, if that helps. Which of these things is the number one priority right now?  When you have identified that one, listen to this guided meditation.

Good. Welcome back. 

How do you feel? I am going to take it that you feel more energized. More focused. More powerful. Now, flow your energy into that one thing that is now priority for you. Give it your attention. Give it your love.

As a leader, it is impossible to lead well without your energy. It is also impossible to lead well without love. You must be able to notice, call in, protect, and direct your energy. Use your attention and your heart to do this. You don’t have to take my word for it, go test it out. It could make the difference between being a good enough leader and being a phenomenal one.