A Conscious Integral Leader . . .
Is conscious of the fundamental value of realizing “I am conscious, therefore I am.�
Is conceptually and experientially conscious of one’s whole fully functioning personal self – mental, spiritual, physical, emotional, socio-technical, economic, and ecosystemic self.
Is conscious that one’s soul is one with the cosmic ‘ocean’ of timeless awareness called the Source of all, i.e. the transparent timeless awareness within her or him is the same as outside.
Is conscious that the ‘realm’ of peace on earth is within oneself as well as outside in nature amid constant change.
Is conscious of being a co-creative self, co-managing responses from his or her inner ‘seat’ of timeless awareness.
Is conscious that every perception is, in effect, a belief, and every belief is an option, every response to a belief is an option which, if exercised, elicits consequences for health or ill.
Is conscious of one’s choices for being a participant, a competitor, or avoider in the management of our planet earth.
Is conscious of being a vital constituent of integral nature.
Is conscious of the laws and principles of healthful integral nature and the consequences of being in harmony or discord with them.
Is conscious of the implications of being centered and balanced for health, full functioning, and wise action.
Is conscious of the equal importance of female and male psycho-spiritual-physical-social energy.
Is conscious that his or her soul may have seven functions: a co-creative self-management center; supersensing-intuiting; sensing; feeling-emoting; thinking; intention forming; and memorizing-recalling.
Is conscious of being an involuntarily programmed psycho-bio-computer since his or her biologicalconception.
Is conscious that one can learn to disidentify with, transcend, change, and manage his or her psycho-bio-computer programs at will.
Is conscious of the probability that consciousness (mind) is more than brain.
Is conscious that the thoughts one chooses influence the secretion of biochemicals in one’s body; and what one does to one’s body – nutrition, exercise, general lifestyle, etc. – influences the body, including one’s brain for health or ill.
Is conscious of her or his fundamental underlying unity with all humanity and all other life-forms throughout the omniverse.
Is conscious that he or she has always lived and will probably always live within the infinite omniverse.
Is conscious of the basic importance of being aware of, transcending, and using existentially available extreme polar opposites and their connecting continuums of values and behaviors in negotiating with other entities.
Is conscious that no one has sinned and come short of the glory of infinite timeless awareness (God, Goddess, Atman, or whatever one calls the Source of all). The only hell there is is the one we create for ourselves.
Is conscious of the fact that no one need feel guilty, i.e., there no sin, only the ‘sins’ that human beings have created to support their respective world views and belief systems.
Is conscious of the unconditional love of the infinite timeless aware Source for itself including all its constituents.
Is conscious of the fact that each of us is free to motivate ourselves, that is, choose our identity, beliefs, values, roles, attitudes, motives, intentions, personalities, methods, behaviors, and possessions whether in consonance and harmony with the laws of nature or not.
Is conscious of her or his right to choose whether work will be designed in harmony with nature’s integral laws of health and full functioning or not.
Is conscious of the fact that every human has desires, intentions, or objectives (motivations), more or less consciously or unconsciously.
Is conscious that all human communication is more or less metaphoric, therefore, illusory to some degree.
Is conscious that one is capable of freely choosing one’s responses to life’s events only to the degree he or she is liberated from his or her involuntarily programmed values,beliefs, attitudes, motives, methods, and behaviors.
Is conscious that one has the choice to be a leader who is directive, participative, or non-directive or combination of all three, depending on the situation at hand.
Is conscious that people who create and plans and organize resources to support their intentions, desires and objectives in consonance with natural laws of health and full functioning tend to succeed optimally well.
Is conscious of the probability that the closest we can come to reliably predicting the future is through the interdisciplinary study of cycles.
Is conscious that, while we have ‘free choice’, there are certain limits, e.g. our bodies die at freezing and boiling temperatures.
Is conscious there will probably always be some conflict in human affairs if for only the reason that I’m hungry when you’re thirsty, I want to sleep when you want to get up, I want to go left when you want to go right, thus she or he knows it is not conflict, per se, but how one responds to it.
Is conscious there are basically five ‘families’ of responses to conflict: participators, transcenders, competitors, avoiders, and resigners.
Is conscious of the fact that we can expect, no matter what one’s intention, desire, or objective: helping forces, neutral forces, and opposing forces, all of which are supported by infinite timeless awareness (‘God’).
Is conscious of his or her freedom and will to choose and act to implement plans within a broad,
‘determined’ living omniverse, e.g. our biobodies are determined in their overall design and functioning (DNA), however, we have freedom of choice as to how they will be fed and used.
Is conscious that one has the choice of using scientific or spiritual methods or an integration of both in problem solving
Is conscious of the fact that some degree of conflict is a necessary part of life, precluding stagnation and gross imbalances in growth, and encouraging creativity.
Is conscious of the fact that offensive, defensive, and avoidant, as well as collaborative values and behaviors are needed to keep us and our ecosystem in balance and renewing, hence healthy, vibrant, creative, competent, productive, and optimally prosperous.
Is conscious that the solution to a problem usually breeds new problems.
Is conscious that we are, each of us, leaders, followers, and peers, depending on the situation we find ourselves.
Is conscious of her or his teacher-facilitator responsibilities when counseling others.
Is conscious conceptually and experientially of being integrally conscious: intrapersonally, interpersonally, and ecosystemically.
Is conscious that the cycles involved in creative
co-self managing are directly related to the extent one is consciously identified with timeless awareness, the Source of all creativity.
Is conscious that she or he is not an ‘ego’ but possesses ego-states – child, adolescent, adult, parent, and grandparent -- which she or he can learn to employ as appropriate to the situation at hand.
Is conscious that he or she is not their personality but possesses personality traits which he or she can learn to manage according to the life script one chooses.
Is conscious that she or he is not involuntarily learned values, beliefs, motives, attitudes, processes, or behaviors, but can consciously learn to transcend, own, and manage all those depending on the situation at hand.
Is conscious that he or she is not their thoughts and therefore is free to choose and/or respond to their thoughts.
Is conscious that she or he is not their feelings and therefore free to respond to their feelings with healthfully appropriate thoughts and actions.
Is conscious that he or she is not the contents of their perceptions received by their senses and therefore is free to respond to such contents with healthful thoughts and actions.
Is conscious that he or she is not the contents of their supersensory perception (telepathic inputs) and therefore is free to respond to such perceptions with healthful thoughts and actions.
Is conscious that he or she is not the contents of their memories and therefore is free to respond to memories with healthful thoughts and actions.
Is conscious of the fact that one’s personality characteristics reflect espoused values, beliefs, attitudes, and motives as well as inherited physical attributes.
Note: The list of fifty-two characteristics presented above evolved from my work with over three thousand leaders involved in cocreative transformational projects in a wide variety of organizations since 1966.
It is based on my general ‘working hypothesis’ underlying conscious integral leadership which states: If one views situations from her or his inner ‘seat’ of transparent, centered, balanced, timeless awareness, every perception is an option, every interpretation is an option, every response is an option with positive consequences and caveats. Each of those may be controllable, only influenceable, or utterly uncontrollable, relative to realizing mutual empathy, integral health, harmony, wisdom, and full functioning as one consciously responds to events and situations.
©Copyright 1983; Revised February 11, 2006 – Robert Wayne Johnston. You may copy providing you cite the author and this document as the source.
Original version published by Robert Wayne Johnston in the Association of Transpersonal Psychology Summer Newsletter 1983
