I’ve experienced 4 significant family deaths in the last 10 months.  Both parents.  Both aunts.

What’s one to do as a Leader, when hit by wave after wave of adversity?

Whether handling attrition, lost income, high interest rates, talent acquisition, retention or loss, the roadmap is similar.

Theory U, an awareness-based method for Emergent Leadership suggests 5 stages are helpful in these kinds of times:

1.     Build intent.  Stop and listen to what life calls you to do.
2.     Observe, Observe, Observe.  Go to the places of the most potential and listen with your mind and heart wide open.
3.     Retreat and reflect. Connect to the source of inspiration.  Go to the place of silence and allow inner knowing to emerge.
4.     Prototype the new in living examples. Integrate heart, head, and hand. 
5.     Embody the new in ecosystems that facilitate seeing and acting from the whole.

No sudden moves.

More tortoise.  Less hare.

John Carlin, author of Playing the Enemy (inspiration for the movie Invictus) shares, “When leaders function by getting into the gap, and are confronted with disruption, they stand a good chance of picking something that the future needs in order to create future possibilities.”

When we give ourselves the generosity of moving through these stages we not only fly in the face of culturally expected immediacy of action, we do what’s right for all involved, ourselves included.

How are you meant to apply these 5 stages to your relationships to allow the best of what’s to come?

May love be your decision today, always and in all ways.