Integrated Leadership

By Laurel Elders, MCC

​You may be wondering what this picture of veggies has to do with leadership. It turns out everything.

Decades ago, I was the Director of Education at a medical school for Traditional Chinese Medicine. One branch of medicine they taught was food. I recalled sitting in a lecture on nutrition from an Eastern perspective and learning that the best way to get all of the nutrients needed was to add color to your meal.

So, if I were having tacos, I could add salsa, which has red, green, and white. If I was having chicken and rice, I could add a side of pomegranate, broccoli, collard greens, or shredded purple cabbage. This became a fun way for me to get adequate nutrition. I still use this all the time.  

Yet, embedded in this approach is an empowering metaphor for leadership efficacy.

When we add color to what we do and how we do it, everyone benefits. There is diversity of thought, options, strategies, and innovation. There is diversity of cultures, races, and perspectives. And the most overlooked diversity is inner diversity—our individuality. 

This teaching also brought me to a new level of self-acceptance as a leader. I grew up painfully shy and didn't adjust to social norms very well. Later in my teenage years, I rebelled against much of what I saw in the world. In my adult life, after years of spiritual development, coaching, and mentoring, I learned how to live in the world but not of the world. 

I watched the prescription for leadership success unfold in front of me. The women who made it to high-ranking leadership positions acted more like men. You needed push energy, and you needed to be harsh or bold. 

Years later, thinking these thoughts might all be in my head, I came across the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by  Susan Cain. Susan's research on introverts mirrored my experience that quiet people in this Westernized society are often overlooked, dismissed, or unconsciously viewed as incompetent. 

After reading Erec Smith’s article on Prescriptive Racism, I realized prescriptions are for drugs and truth is the real medicine.

So I say, "Fork it. I am a soft leader. Love me, leave me, judge me, or join me. This is who I am." Embracing both inner and outer diversity gave me the confidence to take a stand and still be strong while also being true to my essence. I could be both soft and gentle yet strong in my leadership.

As with many truths in life, it is not either-or. It is either a matter of degree or gradation. 

Is there any part of you that you've pinched off or set aside because of a social prescription? 

How can you embrace both internal and external diversity to strengthen the tapestry of your life? 

As you can see, this is one faucet to a large prism. I bring up this faucet because it was my fight for individuality in a world where we want to categorize and box everything up in neatly wrapped explanations that ironically keep us linked but not synced. We've become more divided than united. 

It is time to release the boxes.

As my colleague Dr. Victor McQuire put it, "Diversity does justice to the art and the artist."

There is not one area that diversity doesn't elevate. Not one. 

In fact, the more linear our thinking, the more limited we become. The more integrated we become within ourselves, with others, and with the world, the more our capacity for miraculous outcomes expand. 

We are living at a false summit in humanity. The success we see has been born of the ego. The ego is so proud of its accomplishments, its money. The billionaire boys are off playing with their rocket toys. And! We have yet to collectively succeed through the essence of what makes us human… our human heart. 

When we step into success born of the heart, we will begin to see integration and healing start. We will move from division into a new vision. 

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