Most leadership books and experts only scratch the surface. Brian Cunningham takes us deeper, revealing how expanding your Awareness Quotient (AQ) transforms your leadership impact. Join us for a unique journey into higher service, personal growth, and leadership mastery—from parking lot attendant to CEO, Brian's story and insights will elevate how you lead and live.
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Working on Purpose is broadcast live Tuesdays at 6PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Working on Purpose is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The topics and opinions express in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
liability explicit or implies shall be extended to W FOURCY
Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments
should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for
(00:20):
choosing W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the
answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose
at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their
lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization
that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their
highest potential. Business can be such a force for good
in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide
(00:51):
guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we
all want Working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, doctor
Elise Cortez.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program, which has
been brought to you with passionate and pride since February
of twenty fifteen. Thanks to tonading in this week. Great
to have you. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. If
we have not met before and you don't know me,
I'm an orkforce advisor, organizational psychologist, management consultant, local therapist,
a speaker and author. My team and I at GUSTA
now help companies to enliven and fortify their operations by
(01:26):
building a dynamic high performance culture, inspirational leadership, and nurturing
managers activated by meaning and purpose. And did you know
that inspired employees have outperform their satisfied peers by a
factor of two point twenty five to one. In other words,
inspiration is good for the bottom line. You can learn
more about us and how we can work together at
Gusto dshnow dot com or my personal site at Leascortes
(01:47):
dot com. Getting into today's program we have with us
today Brian Cunningham, who has navigated a journey from a
hospital parking lot attendant to CEO. He has studied the
leadership followership dynamic at every level within a complex organization,
and as a lifelong student of leadership and an explorer
of numerous approaches to expanding our awareness. Brian has sought
(02:07):
to uncover the larger possibilities of service as a leader,
and most importantly, how to then integrate these discoveries into
the day to day practice of leading in our increasing complexity.
As an outcome of his years of real world experience,
Brian has written three groundbreaking books that illuminate the keys
to our natural progression into the highest levels of leadership service.
We'll be talking to you about his latest book, Leadership
(02:29):
The Universal Principles, and today we'll discuss the two universal
principles that are foundational to our growth in leadership, end
in life, and then touch on the ten levels of
leadership he's discovered that are able to us to create
our own unique path of leadership mastery. He joined today
from Omaha, Nebraska. Brian, A hearty welcome to Working on Purpose.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
So good to see you. At least thank you here.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
As I said to you in our exchange, I am
so wildly impressed with what you have done. Brian. You know,
as you said before, I do read a lot of
books cover to cover for this ten year podcast, and
I have learned a lot about the perspectives as a
result of that. But I will tell you that what
you put in this book, Leadership the Universal Principles is
(03:14):
so deep and dense yet accessible. I'm really impressed.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Thank you so much. I mean so much coming from you.
Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Well, you know, you and I talked about this when
we had our first conversation, but we have to really
kind of start with this really titillating idea that you know,
your own journey starts from being a parking a lot
attended and somehow you found your way to the CEO
of status for quite a few years. What happened.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Yeah, So, you know, just like everybody else, you start
out you're young and a little bit confused in life.
But even at a young age, coming on my teens,
I had this sort of yearning to discover purpose and
meaning in life, and that was sort of the driver
of everything that I was thinking and doing. And you know,
I just sort of tripped into a job. My brother
(04:03):
got me a job at this large hospital in Philadelphia,
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, and my first job there I
was a parking lot attendant and I can still park
very well to this day, by the way, But what
I discovered in that job in healthcare working in this
large hospital, even though I was not even in the
hospital that something was different in healthcare. The people that
(04:26):
would come, the customers, so to speak, visitors, families, something
was different. They were either coming there because they had
a loved one, you know, who has had some trauma
or illness, or a birth or a death. You know,
the whole environment is infused by a different level of
emotion of energy. And even in my young, confused self,
(04:48):
I was picking up on this, like something's different. Later on,
you know, I did pretty good as a parking lot attendant.
I got my big promotion as an elevator operator, and
then as a transport aid, wheeling patients around this massive hospital.
You know, so many years as a transportologist, and then
went back to school. I became a nuclear medicine technologist,
(05:10):
but later went back as an occupational therapist. And along
these years, I just want to emphasize everything I was
seeing and learning was informed by this sort of yearning
for meeting and purpose. And so I was reading, since
you know, my late teens, about different indigenous cultures and
(05:32):
the wisdom that they provide, and Eastern traditions and all
these things. While I was trying to figure this out
through the lens of being partner a lot of tendent transportologists,
all these things, and so the growth was happening simultaneously.
I was watching the leadership followership dynamic as I went
along and questioning things going to school as an occupational therapist,
(05:56):
you know, serendipitously right, Occupational things therapy has its foundations
in meaning and purpose. They define occupations as meaningful activities,
meaningful daily activities came out of the work with rehabilitating
veterans in World War One and getting people back to
(06:17):
doing doing occupations meaningful activity and so this was one
of the parallels to the work that you're doing. And
how you know, we have this connection so many years
as an occupational therapist, right, and but you get still
pulled along by life. You know, the intent of life
is always moving towards greater complexity, greater opportunities to serve,
(06:39):
and I connected with that. At some point I got
an opportunity to move into hospital operations. Had moved out
to the southwest up to New Mexico area and got
into hospital operations and formal leadership positions and got really
more clear about my purpose, which was to serve a
lease right, that that simple thing that of us finally
(07:00):
come to It took me too long to figure it out,
but once I connected with it, you know, it was
off to the races. And got inspired by our CEO
at the time, John Rossfeld. He told me that in
my job, I get to serve a lot of people.
So I said, oh, then I want your job, and
(07:21):
he said, okay, I'll help you.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Right.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
So of course it's back to school again, all those things.
And finally, after maybe you know, about thirty five years
since I was doing parking lot attendant, I got the
opportunity to serve as a hospital CEO in New Mexico
and got the opportunity to, you know, now sort of
deliver on all the things, all the reading, all the studies,
(07:47):
all the school, all of the commitment to purpose, all
of the real work. You know, I love the way
you talk about it in your latest book. You still
got to do your work. And so all that work,
the being and doing of leadership and life came into
play and we were fortunately with a great team able
(08:08):
to move through some incredible challenges. Later, I got an
opportunity to serve as a hospital CEO at a hospital
in Hawaii, which I did for the last seven ish years,
and again really incredible challenges but met by an incredible
team of humans and were able to do some great
(08:28):
things and ultimately resulted in the acquisition, the planned acquisition
of that hospital by the largest hospital system in Hawaii,
and that sort of brings us up to through just
about the moment. So yeah, it was first sort of
this synchronicity, right, getting pulled into this job and somewhat
(08:49):
informed by my commitment to service, meaning and purpose and
just keep moving forward. That's kind of how it goes.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Well. It's celebration for that for sure. As you know,
I as an organizational psychologist, as a workforce advisor, I
believe in the power of work, and you're a walking
testament to that.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
That's why I chose to be in this field, because
I believe in the wonder and the power and the
nobility of work. And speaking of that, one of the
things I thought we would be remissive we didn't talk
about this on this show. Is one of our conversations.
You told me about at least one of the major
transformations that you got to help steward in a company
that you led, and I think that's worth talking about,
(09:28):
just if we can't just sort of touch on it
so that people can kind of understand, you know, we're
not just talking about stuff that you've researched and such.
You've lived this, and you know the power of this
being able to transform an organization. Which one do you
want to talk about?
Speaker 4 (09:42):
You know, we can go to my last organization in
why a hospital is extreme challenges, close to bankruptcy, a
lot of infrastructure problems, But what they did have is
a bunch of incredible committed people and healthcare that that
starts from the you know, the environmental services people all
(10:05):
the way up to nurses and physicians and of course
the board in the community that supports all this. So,
as you know, it takes a team to do anything
in this complexity. And I was fortunate enough to be
invited into that situation to help to serve to create
an opportunity for us to create a sustainable pathway. And
(10:26):
our only pathway was an acquisition by a larger organization,
which proved to be quite challenging. When you're a struggling
organization close to bankruptcy with lots of you know, capital
infrastructure issues, very challenging but through the engagement with everybody
on the team and through this larger organization after seven years,
(10:50):
it took us right. COVID happened in the middle of
all that and all those challenges, but it was through
applying right this apply to whereeness, which we're going to
talk about. It's nothing, nothing special that you do. It's
how you do it and how you engage with everyone.
It's not about some secret you know, tool or plan.
(11:14):
You know, we got to do this or we got
to do that. The plans are created through engagement with
everybody involved. The plans kind of emerge to you over time,
and through you know, practices and expanded awareness honed in
the workplace itself, we're able to see these sort of
subtle opportunities present themselves to us over time, and then
(11:34):
we're able to step into them and engage with these
opportunities and engage the people that is required to move
these things forward. So it's a little bit you know,
difficult to articulate because it was no secret, no special
I'm not smarter, better, faster, quicker than anyone. It's this
this lifelong commitment, this lifelong commitment to service and commitment
(11:56):
to expanding awareness and working with the subtleties of the
workplace beautiful.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
And I think as we go on here, as we
talk about the concepts in your book, and then of
course the levels leadership, some of the stuff will kind
of get fleshed a little bit further as well. But
I do want to start by in terms of the
conceptual aspect of your book. The first universal principle of
two is it all starts with awareness. So help us
understand just a bit more, because you've written a big,
very hefty book about this, help us understand just you know,
(12:25):
concisely what do you mean by that?
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Sure, you know, as we're all attempting to simplify this
complexity that we work in. What became clear to me
over time is there is a couple universal principles that
we can sort of anchor ourselves to. In the first one, right,
that all starts and ends with our awareness period. Right,
we know this Modern physics tells us this our own
personal experience. Without awareness, there can be no sort of
(12:51):
understanding of the stimuli that's coming in. So it all
starts for awareness. Seems simple, but there's a lot of
depth to it, a lot of breath and depth. So
over time. After reading about awareness for quite literally thirty years,
I still was not clear functionally what it was how
to use it. So that became sort of my quest
(13:13):
and my practice. I sat with awareness, staring at awareness.
What is it? How does it work? What are the
levers of it? And what emerged over time is really
sort of some simple concepts, and that is our awareness
is made up, represents our perceptual abilities as a human,
(13:35):
our individuated awareness, and the levers of our awareness are
our attention, our focus, and our intent. Our attention could
be likened to a video camera right that we can
point in any direction and hold, and when we exercise
this over time, we are not pulled away. Our attentions
(13:56):
are not pulled away by the latest shiny object or
something out the window. Our attention is an extremely powerful
element of our awareness and our ability to serve as
a leader. Our focus. We could liken that to the
lens of our video camera, right. We can zoom in
and out or a wide angle, and the purpose of
our focus is to extract further information from the scene
(14:21):
of our attention. So our attention sort of frames a
bundle of information and our focus then extracts even more
gross and subtle information out of it. And the last
lever is our intent, which is really the foundational impulse
for all our being and doing in the world, and
(14:42):
it sort of guides the use of our attention and focus.
If we are not clear and connected with our core intent,
we will just sort of go whichever way the wing
blows or whatever way the predominant programming is dictating for us.
So it was about clarifying first what awareness is functionally.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Amazing incredibly well explained. Well, then that brings us and
let's hit this before we take our first break. You
are the uh, the awareness quotient guy, that is really
you know, your camp, So help us understand what's an
awareness quotient?
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Okay, great, great step. And you know, when I was
dealing with awareness and I was talking about awareness in
the workplace in this concept of AHU, I thought it
was a thing at least.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
That you know, everybody knows this.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Yeah, yeah, and intuition is a thing. So I was
doing something. I was going to present something, so I
decided to, you know, do a little research, and I
could find nothing on awareness quotient and no books. There
was a couple of little articles that were you know
a little bit superficial at that time, so I said, well, okay,
we're going to have to clarify this further, and so
(15:49):
looking at it, working with it, what emerged me is
that there are four key domains to our awareness quotient.
Our awareness quotient, you know, if we were to put
meaning to it, we could define it as the depth
and breath and clarity of our awareness right applied to life.
(16:09):
The four domains of our experience in life, which are
our internal environment. Some people call this self awareness, but
this is really much deeper, all of our thoughts, beliefs,
you know, feelings, emotions, and the awareness out of which
all that comes. And our external environment all the other
people out there, our social constructs, our environment, our social institutions,
(16:34):
our technologies. The third domain is the integration of these two.
We know by experience that we can be really grounded
in who we are and have a good understanding of
our environment or industry specific environment, but that does not
mean we'll be able to move groups forward. Our integration
this domain is about how we dance with the world,
(16:54):
how we connect with it, how we merge with it.
And the fourth domain is the deeper purpose of life. Itself,
and this is really sort of the foundation, the experiential
foundation of our being and doing in the world. This
provides us with the wisdom that informs the other domains.
And interestingly, this domain can be approached through the lens
(17:16):
of science, or religion, or spirituality or different cultures. You know,
it's interesting that the deeper purpose of life does not
care what we call it or how we access it.
And you know what, neither do the people that we
serve care about these things. So this is you know,
it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of
(17:37):
when we connect with this deeper purpose that further informs
these domains. And so our AQ is really sort of
the functional application, or we could call it applied awareness.
Is a short definition of what our AQ is, and
once we understand the domains of impact, we can then
apply it to anything in life, our hobbies, sports, right,
(18:00):
and of course leadership, and that's where this connection then
comes to.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Be so much richness. Brian, let's let our listeners and
viewers too on that as we talk about this. I
think most people have a very fundamental, basic understanding awareness,
and you have just opened it up into a whole
different set of possibilities. I'm your host, doctor Luise Cortez.
We run the air with Brian Cunningham, who has served
as CEO for numerous medical centers and hospitals. We've been
(18:26):
talking about his own history of his career and how
he got to the place where he was, and then
we're starting to talk about the foundations inherent in his work.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her
(19:13):
at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get
your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose
with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or
to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to
Alise A Lisee at elisecortes dot com. Now back to
(19:37):
working on Purpose.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Thanks for stating with us, and welcome back to working
on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes, as I
am dedicated to help them create a world or organizations
thrive because they're people thrive. They're led by inspirational leaders
that help them find and contribute their greatness. And we
do business at Betters in the World. So I keep
researching and writing my own books. One of my latest
came out that Brian's talking about is called The Great Revitalization.
How activating meaning and purpose can ratically in live in
(20:05):
your business. And I roder to help leaders understand the
lay of today's workforce land what do they want and
need from you to be able to want to give
their best and stick around? And then they offer twenty
two best practices to equip you to provide that sort
of a culture so that they will do just that.
You can find my books on Amazon or my personal
site at least quartest dot com if you are just
(20:26):
now joining us. My guest is Brian Cunningham, who has
written a trilogy of groundbreaking books on leadership, including his
latest Leadership Universal Principles. So we could talk about all
four of those domains, but for times sake, we don't
really have all that much time, and I do want
to talk about the leadership ones, but the one you
know I have to talk about is the deeper purpose itself.
So can we dive a little bit deeper into that one?
(20:48):
As you and i've spoken about before, and you even
said on your own path in both of us share this.
We have both been fascinated by meaning and purpose and
we're not alone in this quest.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Yes, And you know, as you very well know, this
is the question behind most of the questions in our lives.
And you know in mind, in yours and everybody's whether
it's it's spoken or unspoken, conscious or unconscious, that's the
question beneath the question. So we can ignore it, you know,
as long as we want in life, but at some
(21:21):
point it's going to become important to it. You know,
life has a way of pulling it drawing us into it.
So at some point it will find an access point
that helps us to to sort of enter into this
exploration of of you know, what the deeper purpose of
life is, what the deeper meaning for life is for us,
(21:42):
and it will present to us in our own way.
Once again, the deeper purpose of life itself does not
care what we call it or how we connect with it,
and once we do, our life takes on a whole
other level of meaning. Our leadership takes on a whole
level of new meaning, our service to the world takes
on a whole another level. Comes that sort of the
anchor and the you know, the the energy source right
(22:05):
for everything we do. It's that important, it's critical.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I love it. Now I really want to dive into
the second universal principle, and I think it's going to
relate to what you were seeing before about being pulled.
My own experience as I've gone along is that I
have felt compelled by things, especially meaning and purpose. I mean,
it's like got me around the throat and it's pulling
me a long kind of thing. It wasn't this subtle
little thing. It was like, you know, hit over the
(22:30):
head kind of thing. So your second universal principle is
all life unfolds along a natural development progression. Now that
word unfolds is also interesting to me. I discovered it
when I was researching meaning and work and identity, that
idea of unfolding. I've discovered that many people are not
familiar with the idea of unfolding. So expand on this idea,
if you would, of the second universal principle.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Yes, got it. So once we understand the first universal
principle and we start to look around with awareness, we
see the obvious. This everywhere around us. You know, all
life unfolded right quite literally, acorns turning into oak, trees, right,
flowers the way they unfold, the way that you know
tadpoles unfold grow into frogs. Right. Our own human development
(23:17):
grows along similar lines our educational systems. You don't get
you know, your PhD. You can't go to kindergarten and
then PhD work. There's an unfoldment, there's a learning, a growth,
all experiential and so sports is the same. You start
out at these different levels. So we can see it everywhere.
Accept leadership. In leadership, right, you do your job and
(23:40):
then one day somebody says you're the leader now, and
maybe you take some classes, maybe you go to school,
but that in no way prepares you developmentally for this
highly complex, dynamic activity. So this unfoldment is part of nature.
We see it everywhere. And I was just it struck
me one day, everywhere except for leadership. So as I
(24:02):
applied my awareness right through the tools of our AQ,
the AQ method right observing, discerning, and then applying the
insights that were coming out of these purposeful observations. Right,
you see what emerges to you out of the background
is all of these different levels or expressions of leadership.
(24:24):
We can also see that they're tied directly to our
level of awareness. Right, this stuff is not separate. We
can only grow as a leader to the degree that
we are growing in awareness. So this is what I
was seeing, this unfoldment, and as I sort of applied
it to leadership, what started to emerge out of the
background is the developmental progression itself, as it exists in
(24:46):
education and sports and every other hobby. So I could see,
you know, these these more limited expressions of leadership, like
authoritarian leadership that we all know, all have experience with,
and I could see its limitations in an increasingly complex world.
And then what a more expanded expression was, and most importantly,
(25:10):
how to make that leap and how to support others,
at least in real time using the workplace itself as
the tool for transformation. You need to talk about that
in your book. This is the playground. The work itself
has inherent meaning, and when we connect with that, we
can use it for our own and our group transformation,
(25:33):
and that's where what unfolded to me was this developmental
progression from level one authoritarian leadership all the way up
through transformational leadership, service leaders servant leadership all the way
up to this concept of unified leadership level ten, this
experience with oneness and wholeness expressed through our service to
others in the realities of our day to day work.
(25:57):
So that's how it sort of came together and able
to articulate and sort of detail these so that they're
reproducible and workable every day in the workplace.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yeah, I got to say, Brian, you know, I was
merely enjoying, you know, the conceptual part of your book,
the first part, and then I thought that this is
pretty cool, and then I encountered these ten levels and
I was really blown away. And I think there's so
much utility in being able to see one, to recognize,
you know, what are the general characteristic characteristics of that level,
(26:30):
and how does it actually serve and how do you
actually get to the next level. So as much as
we have time, I'd love to get through all of them,
because i'd love our listeners and viewers who one try
to identify where they think they are themselves today, two
who they might have reported to as we go through
each one of these, and three where what they really
aspire to go. I know they need to unfold into
(26:50):
the next. But so let's talk a little bit more
deeply about the level one authoritarian leadership. What are the characteristics?
How would somebody recognize?
Speaker 4 (26:57):
That's the lot And as a precursor, to be clear,
we have all performed at all ten levels. These are
not exclusive only for the chosen few. We all have
performed at all levels. We know authoritarian leadership very well,
at least because we've done it, we've handled it, we've
expressed it, so we all have experience. The question is
(27:18):
where are we grounded as a leader, especially in times
of challenge? What is our default? So with that, if
your default is a level one authoritarian leadership, we know
this very well. It is all about command and control.
That's how you find meaning and purpose in the world, right,
That's your comfort zone, That's how you express your power.
(27:39):
So there's all of these growth and subtle expressions of
this really ruled by emotion, and that emotion is typically
fear in all of its expressions, and that's how we
attempt to move things forward. Now, authoritarian leaders can still
get results, they can still move things forward, they can
still make money and you know, be famous all that,
(28:00):
but they tend to leave a trail of bodies wherever
they go and upset and frustrated people. And in an
increasingly complex world, it's becoming less and less of a
you know, of an allowable expression of leadership. So once
we understand that, we have to say, okay, how do
we move beyond it and to your work?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Right?
Speaker 4 (28:22):
First, we got to do our work. We need to
get clear about our attachment to the need for control,
our programming around that, and begin to move beyond that.
We have to do some work, and that work, you know,
we've talked about these attachments in these chapters and how
we move beyond them through the real work of the workplace. Right,
we don't have to go out for a retreat. Their fund,
(28:44):
by the way, very valuable, but we can use the
workplace and simply reaching out to other people and engaging
with them for their support their opinion. Right, Because as
an authoritarian leader, it's my way or the highway. It's
based on my experience, understanding and the simple act of
forcing ourselves to reach out to others, starts to break
(29:05):
that up for us, and then we're in a position
to support others in doing the same thing in a
meeting in real time. So there's sort of the authoritarian leadership.
There's a lot of predominant characteristics. There's thousands of them
based in the need for control and the emotion of fear.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Okay, very well explained, and our leader listeners and viewers
can kind of understand if that's where they are, if
they're boss, is that way or etc. So let's move
on to level too, which is evidence based leadership, got it?
Speaker 4 (29:34):
And remember and authoritarian leaders aren't necessarily bad, that's just
their limitation in their ability to serve. However, as we
start to reach out to others and utilize the up
leveling strategies, one of which is very simply to do
some additional research to clarify the problem. Through some research, research,
as you know, expands your awareness, your understanding. That simple
(29:59):
act automatically moves you into this next level of leadership.
The work does the work for us, does the heavy lifting,
and so evidence based leadership comes out of the information age, right,
all of the data and information and best practices when
we utilize those right based in logic. Authoritarian leadership based
(30:19):
in emotion fear, evidence based leadership based in logic, intellect,
utilizing data, information, best practices to determine the best course
of action forward and of course very popular approach in
our complexity to doing that. However, evidence based leadership also
has its limitations that we must understand. Since it's grounded
(30:43):
in logic, and since it's so closely related to authoritarian leadership,
there's still there's still an element of control, only we
express it through our need to be right. As an
evidence based leadership, I am so well researched, I'm so
smart police. That's how I will utilize that to control you.
(31:03):
Our power as an evidence based leadership is through persuasion.
We use data, information, right, selective data and information to
maintain our control. And so it's that limitation, that attachment
to the need to be right that holds us in
place and limits the experience of everybody we serve.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Lust to chew on. Let's let our listeners and viewers
chew on that as well and can start to consider
where they might be or who they know in that space.
We'll rever last break I'm your host, doctor Earli's Cortez.
We've been on here with Brian Cunningham, who has served
as CEO for numerous medical centers and hospitals. We've been
getting into his leadership levels. There are ten of them
that he's discovered. We've covered two after the Marik, we'll
try to get through all of the rest eight.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at
(32:24):
elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your
employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with
doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to
open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise
A Lise at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working
(32:48):
on Purpose.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Thanks for sting with us, and welcome back to working
on Purpose. I'm your host doctor release Cortes. I mentioned
an a last break that one of my books came
out recently. It's called a Great Vitalization. What he did
for you is I created a very simple three page
assessment that you can pull off my site Gusto Dashnel
dot com and it will help you ascertain the extent
to which your organizacial culture is meeting the needs of
today's discerning workforce. You can find it again at gustodashnew
(33:16):
dot com if you are just now joining us. My
guest is Brian Cunningham, who has written a trilogy of
groundbreaking books on leadership, including his latest which is called
Leadership the Universal Principles. So those first two levels were
so beautifully explained and so easy for us to understand
where we might be. Let's keep going. Number three coaching leadership.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
Got it, And they're so easy to understand because they
represent the status quo of leadership across the planet. Okay, interesting,
the way beyond the status quo the up leveling steps.
One of the main ones is to clarify our purpose
at least right it comes into play at this point,
and as we clarify our purpose and connect with that,
we are naturally moved into expanded into our awareness, expands
(33:59):
into coaching leadership. It's not something we do. It's an
expression of who we are becoming, who are how we
unfold into it. So, whereas authoritarian leadership is leadership through
command and control, and evidence based is through persuasion of
data information, coaching leadership is leadership through guidance with an
understanding of the knowledge that it takes for the right
(34:24):
use of the data and information that we are accumulating. So,
as a coach leader, our goal is to understand the
environment and the teams and the people that we work with.
To a coaching leader, it's our team that are the
most important. Our power as an authoritarian leader comes through
our control, evidence based our ability to be right. Our
(34:46):
power as a coaching leadership comes through empowering others. And
so this is where people feel like they're part of
something larger in life. This involves the art and science
of adapting our teams to the environs pacific environmental challenges,
and so coaching leadership is that natural evolution still limited.
(35:07):
Though as good as it is right, there's still limitations.
And we might say that coaching leadership connects right and
left hemispheres or holistic aspect of the mind and applies
that in a systems based way. Right we understand the parts,
how they all fit together, and can sort of connect
with them and leverage them. But using the mind, we
(35:29):
discover at some point limits our ability to serve. Using
the mind as our singular tool for changer, transformation has
its limitations, and so the up leveling strategies help us
to move beyond those We consider that intended and unintended
consequences of our challenges, and most importantly, we begin to
understand that, you know, just as our IQ, our industry
(35:52):
IQ has been so important to our success, there's this
EQ you know, this thing in our chest, our heart,
and this connection that once we connect to our own heart,
we're in a position to connect with the hearts and
minds of others. And this is what creates a transformational experience.
You can change things at level three, but in order
(36:12):
to transform, to step into transformational leadership level four, we
need to connect mind with heart to connect with others.
Change makes things different, but transformation makes us different. That
requires our connection to our heart. So that'll lead us
right into level four transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is about
(36:33):
leadership through connection, connection to mind and heart, as we
just spoke about, and it's based on our ability to
clarify these connections, to create genuine connections with other with
the others on our team, right, so that we can
engage others in their best effort. At each level, we're
able to draw people those we serve into a larger
(36:55):
experience of themselves. So it's not just about us starting
to levitate as a leader something like that. It's how
we engage everybody so that they can step into their
you know, their next level of expression for themselves. We
help then clarify their purpose. We help our team connect
with the purpose of the work, and this is what
(37:16):
creates another level of engagement for us. So transformational leadership
engages you know, the hearts and minds of everybody we serve.
And yet there are limitations to transformational leadership. Right. You
can do some great things connect transform, but there's more
out there. There's this wider time frame that we need
(37:38):
to understand. There's there's a larger sort of expression of
wisdom waiting to come through. So once we realize this
and realize sort of the limitations and this sort of
attachment to sort of short term gains immediate gratification. We
start to let go of that and consider sort of
how all of our macro and micro actions and interactions
(38:01):
are connected over a wider timeframe. As a leader, we
need to create more sustainable results in complexity, and this
is where we start to emerge into our awareness expands
into the next expression of leadership service, and that is
level five servant leadership. See servant leadership is or transformational
leadership either. You just can't read a book on it.
(38:23):
I mean, servant leadership came out in the seventies, So
everybody's not a servant leader by now. And it's because
there's a developmental progression to get there that is not
well articulated in the literature or in the experience or
training programs of many leadership approaches. But through this natural
developmental progression, using the real work of leadership, we unfold
(38:48):
into it. We find ourselves deeply connected to our ability
to serve servant leadership. Another way to define it would
be leadership through clarity of visioning these connections over a
longer period, a longer timeframe, understanding the cause and effect
relationship of everything we think and say and do and
(39:11):
being able to integrate that into a basic project in
the workplace in real time, and to pull people into
a larger dialogue about the intended and unintended consequences of
our planned actions over a wider timeframe. So this is
grounded in the real work of creating sustainability. So that's
(39:34):
the unfoldment through the first five levels, and obviously servant
leadership very high level of service. And another key point
about the developmental progression is, as you know, it's not
levels stacked on one another. It's like an expanding ball.
So each level incorporates everything from the previous level. It
(39:55):
builds on itself, just like our experience as humans or
in education, everything builds on itself. So as a servant leader,
we have access to all of the previous approaches to leadership,
yet we express them in a way that doesn't create
We can still be directive as a servant leader. It's
(40:16):
not wishy washy, it's not you know, it is a
very strong stance as a leader grounded in service and connection. Right,
we can still give clear direction, but without the need
to dominate somebody or belittle them, you know. So it
looks and feels completely different than the than the direction
(40:38):
given by an authoritarian leader. So there's one through five.
If we if we develop across these levels, we are
in a really good position to do amazing things in
service to our people and our organizations. And yet it
kept unfolding for me, I kept seeing further expressions.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Keep going.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
I'll want need to say this first. What I so
appreciate about your work Brian, and that excites me down
to my last tone in all the back twenty seven
thousand times, is that it just for me in my
work of helping to catalyze leaders to their highest best
service and to be able to develop organizations that are
vibrant and thriving. I'm so excited to see that there
is so much that we can unfold into as humans,
(41:23):
and that is just gets me. Keep going. Number six
dental leadership.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Yeah, so the attachment that then holds us as a
servant leader, which is an amazing place to be held up.
But there's more. At some point you're getting pulled what
else is next? And so you know, the attachment that
we usually experience at this point is this attachment to
what we think we know, even in our wisdom, we
can get attached to that, and as we begin to
(41:50):
release that, as we begin to consider sort of these
larger wise behind the wise, we just quite naturally move
into the next level of leadership expression, and that is
this concept of transcendental leadership, right, leadership through direct insight,
where we're transcending even what we think we know and
(42:10):
moving into this really purposeful exploration of reality and possibility.
We're no longer trying to solve problems. We are looking
at possibilities. And so this is an approach to leadership
that is very grounded in creating the potential futures of
(42:31):
our organization and the potentials of everybody that we serve.
So it grounds us in this direct insight, we can
clearly understand very deeply the why behind the why of
many on our teams are projects, the goals and objectives
of the organization, the strategic plans, and again address things
(42:52):
and more expanded perspective. So I'm just going to keep rolling.
You stop me at any time?
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Got this?
Speaker 4 (42:58):
You got might go at some point, Right, we feel
the limitation of even this transcending of what we think
we know, and we come up against very often this
illusion of separation. Right, we have to tackle this at
some point. Some do it earlier, but at some point
it will happen. And through this, this engaging with all
(43:19):
of the ambiguity and all this complexity, we are just
moved into this requirement of connecting with others in order
to accomplish things. This starts to move us beyond this
illusion of separation and into level seven, which I term,
you know, mystic leadership. You'll see that term out there.
I don't know that it'll be defined this way. But
(43:40):
this is leadership through direct experience. This is not about
talking to people about what it's about. This is not
about you know, setting out the plans and this three steps.
This is about creating direct experiences with ourselves and others,
in creating possibility from this seemingly impossible right. So much
(44:02):
in our complexity these days, it's like what we never
had to deal with that before. There's nothing in the
in the you know, the handbook about this. How do
we deal with this, these these seemingly impossible situations, And
through this expansion of our awareness, we learn through experience
how to step into that. It's very common in leadership
to be comfortable with ambiguity. Every leader says they're comfortable
(44:25):
in ambiguity until they're in ambiguity and watch things start
to crumble and they default to, you know, wherever their
default level is. But as a mystic leader, we become comfortable, energized,
excited about the unknown. You know, we're drawn to these
projects that others run away from and we're drawn into them.
(44:45):
We're drawn in to serve there, to see, to look at,
stare at the subtleties of life. You know, life is
always speaking to us, sharing information with us. The universe
is made of information, energy, and it's always presenting itself
and the deeper we sort of work with this, it
starts to emerge these little sort of snippets of insight
(45:08):
that we can then start to connect these dots. So
it's a very practical approach to working in really challenging
situations and working with people to clarify the path forward
and move in that direction. And then we come up against,
you know, an opportunity. We feel the poll there's more
waiting for us, you know, we can sense these larger possibilities.
(45:32):
We also sense this common experience of leadership where we
downplay what leaders are really doing the value of it, right,
it's always about the team, it's always about somebody else,
and that has a purpose to it to stand up
our teams right first and foremost. But at some point,
as we're starting to work with other leaders to help
them to step into the larger expression of themselves, we
(45:54):
need to be really clear and honest about these larger possibilities.
And as we go about that process, we move into
this next level, level eight awakened leadership. And this is
viewing leadership as a genuine path to awakening as a
human being. Right, the challenges of leadership, they're all in there, right,
all of these paths to awakening from Eastern and Western
(46:17):
sort of religious and spiritual approaches. It's all in the workplace.
It's all in the daily challenges. This is where the
real work occurs. So we can see it and experience
it as a path to awakening and start to articulate
the fundamentals of leadership and the possibilities in a way
that others who are on this journey and passionate about
(46:40):
service can connect with and say, oh, okay, I see
and it sort of calls them, pulls them into a
larger version, larger expression of themselves in service. And so
this is the expression of level eight, awakened leadership. We
are able to articulate complexity in a way that others
(47:02):
can connect with. And then we are pulled and pulled
and we feel at some point well, as we're working
along this path of awakening, that there are these challenges
imposed by social constructs right, our social institutions that we
are held to and working within, and at some point
(47:24):
we begin to see them for what they are, that oh, yes,
we work in them, but we are not bound by them.
We need to understand them, we need to respect them,
but we see them for what they really are, which
is really sort of our collective search for meaning, right,
so that we can bring meaning to the chaos of
the world. But they can bind us at some point
(47:45):
we can't do that. We can't think about that, and
that's not the way I was taught. Well, once again,
we can respect that, we can understand it, and we
can at the same time move beyond it. And the
next level then is this concept of integrated leadership level nine,
and this is leadership through active presence.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
We've got like thirty seconds for this so forth presence.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
Right, and our ability to work with reality as it's
emerging unfolding when we work with reality as it's unfolding.
We're in a better position to sort of influence movement forward,
which leads us into this experience, unified leadership, the oneess
with everybody and that expression of service to others. That's
the short version.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
Oh, Brian, that was amazing, What a journey. I feel
like I need to sleep now. It was so much.
I'm so grateful to know you, Brian, my friend, and
be to be elevated by you, to learn from you,
to share with my listeners and viewers around the world.
Thank you for being on working on.
Speaker 4 (48:40):
Purpose my pleasure. Thank you, Thank you for what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Leader, listeners in viewers. You were going to want to
learn more about Brian Cunningham and his books, including the
latest one Leadership The Universal Principles. You can start by
visiting his website, which is Awareness Quotient Leadership dot com
Awareness Quotient Leadership. Last week, we were on aero with
Sebastian Page, the head of Global multi asset and Chief
(49:05):
Investment Officer at tro Price. He has more than two
decades of leadership experience and has done extensive research on
positive sports and personality psychology. We talked about his latest book,
The Psychology of Leadership, Timeless Principles to improve your management
of individuals, teams, and yourself, which is chock full of
previously accepted pearls of wisdom turned on their head to
(49:25):
be used entirely differently for a better outcome. Next week
will be on AER with Raj Chaudhuri talking about his
latest book, The World Is Your Office, How work from
anywhere both boost talent, productivity and innovation. You'll be dazzled
by the unfolding possibilities of how work can be incredibly fluid, fulfilling,
and fruitful. See you there. Remember that work is one
(49:46):
of the best adventures and means of realizing our potential
and making the impact with crave that you give us
the opportunity to do business in a way that betters
the world. So let's work on Purpose.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to
tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise
Cortes each week on W four CY. Together we'll create
a world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires and passion performance,
and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning
and purpose They crave see you there. Let's work on purpose,
The topics and opinions express in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
liability explicit or implies shall be extended to W FOURCY
Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments
should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for
(00:20):
choosing W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the
answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose
at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their
lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization
that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their
highest potential. Business can be such a force for good
in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide
(00:51):
guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we
all want Working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, doctor
Elise Cortez.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program, which has
been brought to you with passionate and pride since February
of twenty fifteen. Thanks to tonading in this week. Great
to have you. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. If
we have not met before and you don't know me,
I'm an orkforce advisor, organizational psychologist, management consultant, local therapist,
a speaker and author. My team and I at GUSTA
now help companies to enliven and fortify their operations by
(01:26):
building a dynamic high performance culture, inspirational leadership, and nurturing
managers activated by meaning and purpose. And did you know
that inspired employees have outperform their satisfied peers by a
factor of two point twenty five to one. In other words,
inspiration is good for the bottom line. You can learn
more about us and how we can work together at
Gusto dshnow dot com or my personal site at Leascortes
(01:47):
dot com. Getting into today's program we have with us
today Brian Cunningham, who has navigated a journey from a
hospital parking lot attendant to CEO. He has studied the
leadership followership dynamic at every level within a complex organization,
and as a lifelong student of leadership and an explorer
of numerous approaches to expanding our awareness. Brian has sought
(02:07):
to uncover the larger possibilities of service as a leader,
and most importantly, how to then integrate these discoveries into
the day to day practice of leading in our increasing complexity.
As an outcome of his years of real world experience,
Brian has written three groundbreaking books that illuminate the keys
to our natural progression into the highest levels of leadership service.
We'll be talking to you about his latest book, Leadership
(02:29):
The Universal Principles, and today we'll discuss the two universal
principles that are foundational to our growth in leadership, end
in life, and then touch on the ten levels of
leadership he's discovered that are able to us to create
our own unique path of leadership mastery. He joined today
from Omaha, Nebraska. Brian, A hearty welcome to Working on Purpose.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
So good to see you. At least thank you here.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
As I said to you in our exchange, I am
so wildly impressed with what you have done. Brian. You know,
as you said before, I do read a lot of
books cover to cover for this ten year podcast, and
I have learned a lot about the perspectives as a
result of that. But I will tell you that what
you put in this book, Leadership the Universal Principles is
(03:14):
so deep and dense yet accessible. I'm really impressed.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Thank you so much. I mean so much coming from you.
Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Well, you know, you and I talked about this when
we had our first conversation, but we have to really
kind of start with this really titillating idea that you know,
your own journey starts from being a parking a lot
attended and somehow you found your way to the CEO
of status for quite a few years. What happened.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Yeah, So, you know, just like everybody else, you start
out you're young and a little bit confused in life.
But even at a young age, coming on my teens,
I had this sort of yearning to discover purpose and
meaning in life, and that was sort of the driver
of everything that I was thinking and doing. And you know,
I just sort of tripped into a job. My brother
(04:03):
got me a job at this large hospital in Philadelphia,
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, and my first job there I
was a parking lot attendant and I can still park
very well to this day, by the way, But what
I discovered in that job in healthcare working in this
large hospital, even though I was not even in the
hospital that something was different in healthcare. The people that
(04:26):
would come, the customers, so to speak, visitors, families, something
was different. They were either coming there because they had
a loved one, you know, who has had some trauma
or illness, or a birth or a death. You know,
the whole environment is infused by a different level of
emotion of energy. And even in my young, confused self,
(04:48):
I was picking up on this, like something's different. Later on,
you know, I did pretty good as a parking lot attendant.
I got my big promotion as an elevator operator, and
then as a transport aid, wheeling patients around this massive hospital.
You know, so many years as a transportologist, and then
went back to school. I became a nuclear medicine technologist,
(05:10):
but later went back as an occupational therapist. And along
these years, I just want to emphasize everything I was
seeing and learning was informed by this sort of yearning
for meeting and purpose. And so I was reading, since
you know, my late teens, about different indigenous cultures and
(05:32):
the wisdom that they provide, and Eastern traditions and all
these things. While I was trying to figure this out
through the lens of being partner a lot of tendent transportologists,
all these things, and so the growth was happening simultaneously.
I was watching the leadership followership dynamic as I went
along and questioning things going to school as an occupational therapist,
(05:56):
you know, serendipitously right, Occupational things therapy has its foundations
in meaning and purpose. They define occupations as meaningful activities,
meaningful daily activities came out of the work with rehabilitating
veterans in World War One and getting people back to
(06:17):
doing doing occupations meaningful activity and so this was one
of the parallels to the work that you're doing. And
how you know, we have this connection so many years
as an occupational therapist, right, and but you get still
pulled along by life. You know, the intent of life
is always moving towards greater complexity, greater opportunities to serve,
(06:39):
and I connected with that. At some point I got
an opportunity to move into hospital operations. Had moved out
to the southwest up to New Mexico area and got
into hospital operations and formal leadership positions and got really
more clear about my purpose, which was to serve a
lease right, that that simple thing that of us finally
(07:00):
come to It took me too long to figure it out,
but once I connected with it, you know, it was
off to the races. And got inspired by our CEO
at the time, John Rossfeld. He told me that in
my job, I get to serve a lot of people.
So I said, oh, then I want your job, and
(07:21):
he said, okay, I'll help you.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Right.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
So of course it's back to school again, all those things.
And finally, after maybe you know, about thirty five years
since I was doing parking lot attendant, I got the
opportunity to serve as a hospital CEO in New Mexico
and got the opportunity to, you know, now sort of
deliver on all the things, all the reading, all the studies,
(07:47):
all the school, all of the commitment to purpose, all
of the real work. You know, I love the way
you talk about it in your latest book. You still
got to do your work. And so all that work,
the being and doing of leadership and life came into
play and we were fortunately with a great team able
(08:08):
to move through some incredible challenges. Later, I got an
opportunity to serve as a hospital CEO at a hospital
in Hawaii, which I did for the last seven ish years,
and again really incredible challenges but met by an incredible
team of humans and were able to do some great
(08:28):
things and ultimately resulted in the acquisition, the planned acquisition
of that hospital by the largest hospital system in Hawaii,
and that sort of brings us up to through just
about the moment. So yeah, it was first sort of
this synchronicity, right, getting pulled into this job and somewhat
(08:49):
informed by my commitment to service, meaning and purpose and
just keep moving forward. That's kind of how it goes.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Well. It's celebration for that for sure. As you know,
I as an organizational psychologist, as a workforce advisor, I
believe in the power of work, and you're a walking
testament to that.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
That's why I chose to be in this field, because
I believe in the wonder and the power and the
nobility of work. And speaking of that, one of the
things I thought we would be remissive we didn't talk
about this on this show. Is one of our conversations.
You told me about at least one of the major
transformations that you got to help steward in a company
that you led, and I think that's worth talking about,
(09:28):
just if we can't just sort of touch on it
so that people can kind of understand, you know, we're
not just talking about stuff that you've researched and such.
You've lived this, and you know the power of this
being able to transform an organization. Which one do you
want to talk about?
Speaker 4 (09:42):
You know, we can go to my last organization in
why a hospital is extreme challenges, close to bankruptcy, a
lot of infrastructure problems, But what they did have is
a bunch of incredible committed people and healthcare that that
starts from the you know, the environmental services people all
(10:05):
the way up to nurses and physicians and of course
the board in the community that supports all this. So,
as you know, it takes a team to do anything
in this complexity. And I was fortunate enough to be
invited into that situation to help to serve to create
an opportunity for us to create a sustainable pathway. And
(10:26):
our only pathway was an acquisition by a larger organization,
which proved to be quite challenging. When you're a struggling
organization close to bankruptcy with lots of you know, capital
infrastructure issues, very challenging but through the engagement with everybody
on the team and through this larger organization after seven years,
(10:50):
it took us right. COVID happened in the middle of
all that and all those challenges, but it was through
applying right this apply to whereeness, which we're going to
talk about. It's nothing, nothing special that you do. It's
how you do it and how you engage with everyone.
It's not about some secret you know, tool or plan.
(11:14):
You know, we got to do this or we got
to do that. The plans are created through engagement with
everybody involved. The plans kind of emerge to you over time,
and through you know, practices and expanded awareness honed in
the workplace itself, we're able to see these sort of
subtle opportunities present themselves to us over time, and then
(11:34):
we're able to step into them and engage with these
opportunities and engage the people that is required to move
these things forward. So it's a little bit you know,
difficult to articulate because it was no secret, no special
I'm not smarter, better, faster, quicker than anyone. It's this
this lifelong commitment, this lifelong commitment to service and commitment
(11:56):
to expanding awareness and working with the subtleties of the
workplace beautiful.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
And I think as we go on here, as we
talk about the concepts in your book, and then of
course the levels leadership, some of the stuff will kind
of get fleshed a little bit further as well. But
I do want to start by in terms of the
conceptual aspect of your book. The first universal principle of
two is it all starts with awareness. So help us
understand just a bit more, because you've written a big,
very hefty book about this, help us understand just you know,
(12:25):
concisely what do you mean by that?
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Sure, you know, as we're all attempting to simplify this
complexity that we work in. What became clear to me
over time is there is a couple universal principles that
we can sort of anchor ourselves to. In the first one, right,
that all starts and ends with our awareness period. Right,
we know this Modern physics tells us this our own
personal experience. Without awareness, there can be no sort of
(12:51):
understanding of the stimuli that's coming in. So it all
starts for awareness. Seems simple, but there's a lot of
depth to it, a lot of breath and depth. So
over time. After reading about awareness for quite literally thirty years,
I still was not clear functionally what it was how
to use it. So that became sort of my quest
(13:13):
and my practice. I sat with awareness, staring at awareness.
What is it? How does it work? What are the
levers of it? And what emerged over time is really
sort of some simple concepts, and that is our awareness
is made up, represents our perceptual abilities as a human,
(13:35):
our individuated awareness, and the levers of our awareness are
our attention, our focus, and our intent. Our attention could
be likened to a video camera right that we can
point in any direction and hold, and when we exercise
this over time, we are not pulled away. Our attentions
(13:56):
are not pulled away by the latest shiny object or
something out the window. Our attention is an extremely powerful
element of our awareness and our ability to serve as
a leader. Our focus. We could liken that to the
lens of our video camera, right. We can zoom in
and out or a wide angle, and the purpose of
our focus is to extract further information from the scene
(14:21):
of our attention. So our attention sort of frames a
bundle of information and our focus then extracts even more
gross and subtle information out of it. And the last
lever is our intent, which is really the foundational impulse
for all our being and doing in the world, and
(14:42):
it sort of guides the use of our attention and focus.
If we are not clear and connected with our core intent,
we will just sort of go whichever way the wing
blows or whatever way the predominant programming is dictating for us.
So it was about clarifying first what awareness is functionally.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Amazing incredibly well explained. Well, then that brings us and
let's hit this before we take our first break. You
are the uh, the awareness quotient guy, that is really
you know, your camp, So help us understand what's an
awareness quotient?
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Okay, great, great step. And you know, when I was
dealing with awareness and I was talking about awareness in
the workplace in this concept of AHU, I thought it
was a thing at least.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
That you know, everybody knows this.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Yeah, yeah, and intuition is a thing. So I was
doing something. I was going to present something, so I
decided to, you know, do a little research, and I
could find nothing on awareness quotient and no books. There
was a couple of little articles that were you know
a little bit superficial at that time, so I said, well, okay,
we're going to have to clarify this further, and so
(15:49):
looking at it, working with it, what emerged me is
that there are four key domains to our awareness quotient.
Our awareness quotient, you know, if we were to put
meaning to it, we could define it as the depth
and breath and clarity of our awareness right applied to life.
(16:09):
The four domains of our experience in life, which are
our internal environment. Some people call this self awareness, but
this is really much deeper, all of our thoughts, beliefs,
you know, feelings, emotions, and the awareness out of which
all that comes. And our external environment all the other
people out there, our social constructs, our environment, our social institutions,
(16:34):
our technologies. The third domain is the integration of these two.
We know by experience that we can be really grounded
in who we are and have a good understanding of
our environment or industry specific environment, but that does not
mean we'll be able to move groups forward. Our integration
this domain is about how we dance with the world,
(16:54):
how we connect with it, how we merge with it.
And the fourth domain is the deeper purpose of life. Itself,
and this is really sort of the foundation, the experiential
foundation of our being and doing in the world. This
provides us with the wisdom that informs the other domains.
And interestingly, this domain can be approached through the lens
(17:16):
of science, or religion, or spirituality or different cultures. You know,
it's interesting that the deeper purpose of life does not
care what we call it or how we access it.
And you know what, neither do the people that we
serve care about these things. So this is you know,
it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of
(17:37):
when we connect with this deeper purpose that further informs
these domains. And so our AQ is really sort of
the functional application, or we could call it applied awareness.
Is a short definition of what our AQ is, and
once we understand the domains of impact, we can then
apply it to anything in life, our hobbies, sports, right,
(18:00):
and of course leadership, and that's where this connection then
comes to.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Be so much richness. Brian, let's let our listeners and
viewers too on that as we talk about this. I
think most people have a very fundamental, basic understanding awareness,
and you have just opened it up into a whole
different set of possibilities. I'm your host, doctor Luise Cortez.
We run the air with Brian Cunningham, who has served
as CEO for numerous medical centers and hospitals. We've been
(18:26):
talking about his own history of his career and how
he got to the place where he was, and then
we're starting to talk about the foundations inherent in his work.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her
(19:13):
at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get
your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose
with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or
to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to
Alise A Lisee at elisecortes dot com. Now back to
(19:37):
working on Purpose.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Thanks for stating with us, and welcome back to working
on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes, as I
am dedicated to help them create a world or organizations
thrive because they're people thrive. They're led by inspirational leaders
that help them find and contribute their greatness. And we
do business at Betters in the World. So I keep
researching and writing my own books. One of my latest
came out that Brian's talking about is called The Great Revitalization.
How activating meaning and purpose can ratically in live in
(20:05):
your business. And I roder to help leaders understand the
lay of today's workforce land what do they want and
need from you to be able to want to give
their best and stick around? And then they offer twenty
two best practices to equip you to provide that sort
of a culture so that they will do just that.
You can find my books on Amazon or my personal
site at least quartest dot com if you are just
(20:26):
now joining us. My guest is Brian Cunningham, who has
written a trilogy of groundbreaking books on leadership, including his
latest Leadership Universal Principles. So we could talk about all
four of those domains, but for times sake, we don't
really have all that much time, and I do want
to talk about the leadership ones, but the one you
know I have to talk about is the deeper purpose itself.
So can we dive a little bit deeper into that one?
(20:48):
As you and i've spoken about before, and you even
said on your own path in both of us share this.
We have both been fascinated by meaning and purpose and
we're not alone in this quest.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Yes, And you know, as you very well know, this
is the question behind most of the questions in our lives.
And you know in mind, in yours and everybody's whether
it's it's spoken or unspoken, conscious or unconscious, that's the
question beneath the question. So we can ignore it, you know,
as long as we want in life, but at some
(21:21):
point it's going to become important to it. You know,
life has a way of pulling it drawing us into it.
So at some point it will find an access point
that helps us to to sort of enter into this
exploration of of you know, what the deeper purpose of
life is, what the deeper meaning for life is for us,
(21:42):
and it will present to us in our own way.
Once again, the deeper purpose of life itself does not
care what we call it or how we connect with it,
and once we do, our life takes on a whole
other level of meaning. Our leadership takes on a whole
level of new meaning, our service to the world takes
on a whole another level. Comes that sort of the
anchor and the you know, the the energy source right
(22:05):
for everything we do. It's that important, it's critical.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I love it. Now I really want to dive into
the second universal principle, and I think it's going to
relate to what you were seeing before about being pulled.
My own experience as I've gone along is that I
have felt compelled by things, especially meaning and purpose. I mean,
it's like got me around the throat and it's pulling
me a long kind of thing. It wasn't this subtle
little thing. It was like, you know, hit over the
(22:30):
head kind of thing. So your second universal principle is
all life unfolds along a natural development progression. Now that
word unfolds is also interesting to me. I discovered it
when I was researching meaning and work and identity, that
idea of unfolding. I've discovered that many people are not
familiar with the idea of unfolding. So expand on this idea,
if you would, of the second universal principle.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Yes, got it. So once we understand the first universal
principle and we start to look around with awareness, we
see the obvious. This everywhere around us. You know, all
life unfolded right quite literally, acorns turning into oak, trees, right,
flowers the way they unfold, the way that you know
tadpoles unfold grow into frogs. Right. Our own human development
(23:17):
grows along similar lines our educational systems. You don't get
you know, your PhD. You can't go to kindergarten and
then PhD work. There's an unfoldment, there's a learning, a growth,
all experiential and so sports is the same. You start
out at these different levels. So we can see it everywhere.
Accept leadership. In leadership, right, you do your job and
(23:40):
then one day somebody says you're the leader now, and
maybe you take some classes, maybe you go to school,
but that in no way prepares you developmentally for this
highly complex, dynamic activity. So this unfoldment is part of nature.
We see it everywhere. And I was just it struck
me one day, everywhere except for leadership. So as I
(24:02):
applied my awareness right through the tools of our AQ,
the AQ method right observing, discerning, and then applying the
insights that were coming out of these purposeful observations. Right,
you see what emerges to you out of the background
is all of these different levels or expressions of leadership.
(24:24):
We can also see that they're tied directly to our
level of awareness. Right, this stuff is not separate. We
can only grow as a leader to the degree that
we are growing in awareness. So this is what I
was seeing, this unfoldment, and as I sort of applied
it to leadership, what started to emerge out of the
background is the developmental progression itself, as it exists in
(24:46):
education and sports and every other hobby. So I could see,
you know, these these more limited expressions of leadership, like
authoritarian leadership that we all know, all have experience with,
and I could see its limitations in an increasingly complex world.
And then what a more expanded expression was, and most importantly,
(25:10):
how to make that leap and how to support others,
at least in real time using the workplace itself as
the tool for transformation. You need to talk about that
in your book. This is the playground. The work itself
has inherent meaning, and when we connect with that, we
can use it for our own and our group transformation,
(25:33):
and that's where what unfolded to me was this developmental
progression from level one authoritarian leadership all the way up
through transformational leadership, service leaders servant leadership all the way
up to this concept of unified leadership level ten, this
experience with oneness and wholeness expressed through our service to
others in the realities of our day to day work.
(25:57):
So that's how it sort of came together and able
to articulate and sort of detail these so that they're
reproducible and workable every day in the workplace.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yeah, I got to say, Brian, you know, I was
merely enjoying, you know, the conceptual part of your book,
the first part, and then I thought that this is
pretty cool, and then I encountered these ten levels and
I was really blown away. And I think there's so
much utility in being able to see one, to recognize,
you know, what are the general characteristic characteristics of that level,
(26:30):
and how does it actually serve and how do you
actually get to the next level. So as much as
we have time, I'd love to get through all of them,
because i'd love our listeners and viewers who one try
to identify where they think they are themselves today, two
who they might have reported to as we go through
each one of these, and three where what they really
aspire to go. I know they need to unfold into
(26:50):
the next. But so let's talk a little bit more
deeply about the level one authoritarian leadership. What are the characteristics?
How would somebody recognize?
Speaker 4 (26:57):
That's the lot And as a precursor, to be clear,
we have all performed at all ten levels. These are
not exclusive only for the chosen few. We all have
performed at all levels. We know authoritarian leadership very well,
at least because we've done it, we've handled it, we've
expressed it, so we all have experience. The question is
(27:18):
where are we grounded as a leader, especially in times
of challenge? What is our default? So with that, if
your default is a level one authoritarian leadership, we know
this very well. It is all about command and control.
That's how you find meaning and purpose in the world, right,
That's your comfort zone, That's how you express your power.
(27:39):
So there's all of these growth and subtle expressions of
this really ruled by emotion, and that emotion is typically
fear in all of its expressions, and that's how we
attempt to move things forward. Now, authoritarian leaders can still
get results, they can still move things forward, they can
still make money and you know, be famous all that,
(28:00):
but they tend to leave a trail of bodies wherever
they go and upset and frustrated people. And in an
increasingly complex world, it's becoming less and less of a
you know, of an allowable expression of leadership. So once
we understand that, we have to say, okay, how do
we move beyond it and to your work?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Right?
Speaker 4 (28:22):
First, we got to do our work. We need to
get clear about our attachment to the need for control,
our programming around that, and begin to move beyond that.
We have to do some work, and that work, you know,
we've talked about these attachments in these chapters and how
we move beyond them through the real work of the workplace. Right,
we don't have to go out for a retreat. Their fund,
(28:44):
by the way, very valuable, but we can use the
workplace and simply reaching out to other people and engaging
with them for their support their opinion. Right, Because as
an authoritarian leader, it's my way or the highway. It's
based on my experience, understanding and the simple act of
forcing ourselves to reach out to others, starts to break
(29:05):
that up for us, and then we're in a position
to support others in doing the same thing in a
meeting in real time. So there's sort of the authoritarian leadership.
There's a lot of predominant characteristics. There's thousands of them
based in the need for control and the emotion of fear.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Okay, very well explained, and our leader listeners and viewers
can kind of understand if that's where they are, if
they're boss, is that way or etc. So let's move
on to level too, which is evidence based leadership, got it?
Speaker 4 (29:34):
And remember and authoritarian leaders aren't necessarily bad, that's just
their limitation in their ability to serve. However, as we
start to reach out to others and utilize the up
leveling strategies, one of which is very simply to do
some additional research to clarify the problem. Through some research, research,
as you know, expands your awareness, your understanding. That simple
(29:59):
act automatically moves you into this next level of leadership.
The work does the work for us, does the heavy lifting,
and so evidence based leadership comes out of the information age, right,
all of the data and information and best practices when
we utilize those right based in logic. Authoritarian leadership based
(30:19):
in emotion fear, evidence based leadership based in logic, intellect,
utilizing data, information, best practices to determine the best course
of action forward and of course very popular approach in
our complexity to doing that. However, evidence based leadership also
has its limitations that we must understand. Since it's grounded
(30:43):
in logic, and since it's so closely related to authoritarian leadership,
there's still there's still an element of control, only we
express it through our need to be right. As an
evidence based leadership, I am so well researched, I'm so
smart police. That's how I will utilize that to control you.
(31:03):
Our power as an evidence based leadership is through persuasion.
We use data, information, right, selective data and information to
maintain our control. And so it's that limitation, that attachment
to the need to be right that holds us in
place and limits the experience of everybody we serve.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Lust to chew on. Let's let our listeners and viewers
chew on that as well and can start to consider
where they might be or who they know in that space.
We'll rever last break I'm your host, doctor Earli's Cortez.
We've been on here with Brian Cunningham, who has served
as CEO for numerous medical centers and hospitals. We've been
getting into his leadership levels. There are ten of them
that he's discovered. We've covered two after the Marik, we'll
try to get through all of the rest eight.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at
(32:24):
elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your
employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with
doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to
open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise
A Lise at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working
(32:48):
on Purpose.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Thanks for sting with us, and welcome back to working
on Purpose. I'm your host doctor release Cortes. I mentioned
an a last break that one of my books came
out recently. It's called a Great Vitalization. What he did
for you is I created a very simple three page
assessment that you can pull off my site Gusto Dashnel
dot com and it will help you ascertain the extent
to which your organizacial culture is meeting the needs of
today's discerning workforce. You can find it again at gustodashnew
(33:16):
dot com if you are just now joining us. My
guest is Brian Cunningham, who has written a trilogy of
groundbreaking books on leadership, including his latest which is called
Leadership the Universal Principles. So those first two levels were
so beautifully explained and so easy for us to understand
where we might be. Let's keep going. Number three coaching leadership.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
Got it, And they're so easy to understand because they
represent the status quo of leadership across the planet. Okay, interesting,
the way beyond the status quo the up leveling steps.
One of the main ones is to clarify our purpose
at least right it comes into play at this point,
and as we clarify our purpose and connect with that,
we are naturally moved into expanded into our awareness, expands
(33:59):
into coaching leadership. It's not something we do. It's an
expression of who we are becoming, who are how we
unfold into it. So, whereas authoritarian leadership is leadership through
command and control, and evidence based is through persuasion of
data information, coaching leadership is leadership through guidance with an
understanding of the knowledge that it takes for the right
(34:24):
use of the data and information that we are accumulating. So,
as a coach leader, our goal is to understand the
environment and the teams and the people that we work with.
To a coaching leader, it's our team that are the
most important. Our power as an authoritarian leader comes through
our control, evidence based our ability to be right. Our
(34:46):
power as a coaching leadership comes through empowering others. And
so this is where people feel like they're part of
something larger in life. This involves the art and science
of adapting our teams to the environs pacific environmental challenges,
and so coaching leadership is that natural evolution still limited.
(35:07):
Though as good as it is right, there's still limitations.
And we might say that coaching leadership connects right and
left hemispheres or holistic aspect of the mind and applies
that in a systems based way. Right we understand the parts,
how they all fit together, and can sort of connect
with them and leverage them. But using the mind, we
(35:29):
discover at some point limits our ability to serve. Using
the mind as our singular tool for changer, transformation has
its limitations, and so the up leveling strategies help us
to move beyond those We consider that intended and unintended
consequences of our challenges, and most importantly, we begin to
understand that, you know, just as our IQ, our industry
(35:52):
IQ has been so important to our success, there's this
EQ you know, this thing in our chest, our heart,
and this connection that once we connect to our own heart,
we're in a position to connect with the hearts and
minds of others. And this is what creates a transformational experience.
You can change things at level three, but in order
(36:12):
to transform, to step into transformational leadership level four, we
need to connect mind with heart to connect with others.
Change makes things different, but transformation makes us different. That
requires our connection to our heart. So that'll lead us
right into level four transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is about
(36:33):
leadership through connection, connection to mind and heart, as we
just spoke about, and it's based on our ability to
clarify these connections, to create genuine connections with other with
the others on our team, right, so that we can
engage others in their best effort. At each level, we're
able to draw people those we serve into a larger
(36:55):
experience of themselves. So it's not just about us starting
to levitate as a leader something like that. It's how
we engage everybody so that they can step into their
you know, their next level of expression for themselves. We
help then clarify their purpose. We help our team connect
with the purpose of the work, and this is what
(37:16):
creates another level of engagement for us. So transformational leadership
engages you know, the hearts and minds of everybody we serve.
And yet there are limitations to transformational leadership. Right. You
can do some great things connect transform, but there's more
out there. There's this wider time frame that we need
(37:38):
to understand. There's there's a larger sort of expression of
wisdom waiting to come through. So once we realize this
and realize sort of the limitations and this sort of
attachment to sort of short term gains immediate gratification. We
start to let go of that and consider sort of
how all of our macro and micro actions and interactions
(38:01):
are connected over a wider timeframe. As a leader, we
need to create more sustainable results in complexity, and this
is where we start to emerge into our awareness expands
into the next expression of leadership service, and that is
level five servant leadership. See servant leadership is or transformational
leadership either. You just can't read a book on it.
(38:23):
I mean, servant leadership came out in the seventies, So
everybody's not a servant leader by now. And it's because
there's a developmental progression to get there that is not
well articulated in the literature or in the experience or
training programs of many leadership approaches. But through this natural
developmental progression, using the real work of leadership, we unfold
(38:48):
into it. We find ourselves deeply connected to our ability
to serve servant leadership. Another way to define it would
be leadership through clarity of visioning these connections over a
longer period, a longer timeframe, understanding the cause and effect
relationship of everything we think and say and do and
(39:11):
being able to integrate that into a basic project in
the workplace in real time, and to pull people into
a larger dialogue about the intended and unintended consequences of
our planned actions over a wider timeframe. So this is
grounded in the real work of creating sustainability. So that's
(39:34):
the unfoldment through the first five levels, and obviously servant
leadership very high level of service. And another key point
about the developmental progression is, as you know, it's not
levels stacked on one another. It's like an expanding ball.
So each level incorporates everything from the previous level. It
(39:55):
builds on itself, just like our experience as humans or
in education, everything builds on itself. So as a servant leader,
we have access to all of the previous approaches to leadership,
yet we express them in a way that doesn't create
We can still be directive as a servant leader. It's
(40:16):
not wishy washy, it's not you know, it is a
very strong stance as a leader grounded in service and connection. Right,
we can still give clear direction, but without the need
to dominate somebody or belittle them, you know. So it
looks and feels completely different than the than the direction
(40:38):
given by an authoritarian leader. So there's one through five.
If we if we develop across these levels, we are
in a really good position to do amazing things in
service to our people and our organizations. And yet it
kept unfolding for me, I kept seeing further expressions.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Keep going.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
I'll want need to say this first. What I so
appreciate about your work Brian, and that excites me down
to my last tone in all the back twenty seven
thousand times, is that it just for me in my
work of helping to catalyze leaders to their highest best
service and to be able to develop organizations that are
vibrant and thriving. I'm so excited to see that there
is so much that we can unfold into as humans,
(41:23):
and that is just gets me. Keep going. Number six
dental leadership.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Yeah, so the attachment that then holds us as a
servant leader, which is an amazing place to be held up.
But there's more. At some point you're getting pulled what
else is next? And so you know, the attachment that
we usually experience at this point is this attachment to
what we think we know, even in our wisdom, we
can get attached to that, and as we begin to
(41:50):
release that, as we begin to consider sort of these
larger wise behind the wise, we just quite naturally move
into the next level of leadership expression, and that is
this concept of transcendental leadership, right, leadership through direct insight,
where we're transcending even what we think we know and
(42:10):
moving into this really purposeful exploration of reality and possibility.
We're no longer trying to solve problems. We are looking
at possibilities. And so this is an approach to leadership
that is very grounded in creating the potential futures of
(42:31):
our organization and the potentials of everybody that we serve.
So it grounds us in this direct insight, we can
clearly understand very deeply the why behind the why of
many on our teams are projects, the goals and objectives
of the organization, the strategic plans, and again address things
(42:52):
and more expanded perspective. So I'm just going to keep rolling.
You stop me at any time?
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Got this?
Speaker 4 (42:58):
You got might go at some point, Right, we feel
the limitation of even this transcending of what we think
we know, and we come up against very often this
illusion of separation. Right, we have to tackle this at
some point. Some do it earlier, but at some point
it will happen. And through this, this engaging with all
(43:19):
of the ambiguity and all this complexity, we are just
moved into this requirement of connecting with others in order
to accomplish things. This starts to move us beyond this
illusion of separation and into level seven, which I term,
you know, mystic leadership. You'll see that term out there.
I don't know that it'll be defined this way. But
(43:40):
this is leadership through direct experience. This is not about
talking to people about what it's about. This is not
about you know, setting out the plans and this three steps.
This is about creating direct experiences with ourselves and others,
in creating possibility from this seemingly impossible right. So much
(44:02):
in our complexity these days, it's like what we never
had to deal with that before. There's nothing in the
in the you know, the handbook about this. How do
we deal with this, these these seemingly impossible situations, And
through this expansion of our awareness, we learn through experience
how to step into that. It's very common in leadership
to be comfortable with ambiguity. Every leader says they're comfortable
(44:25):
in ambiguity until they're in ambiguity and watch things start
to crumble and they default to, you know, wherever their
default level is. But as a mystic leader, we become comfortable, energized,
excited about the unknown. You know, we're drawn to these
projects that others run away from and we're drawn into them.
(44:45):
We're drawn in to serve there, to see, to look at,
stare at the subtleties of life. You know, life is
always speaking to us, sharing information with us. The universe
is made of information, energy, and it's always presenting itself
and the deeper we sort of work with this, it
starts to emerge these little sort of snippets of insight
(45:08):
that we can then start to connect these dots. So
it's a very practical approach to working in really challenging
situations and working with people to clarify the path forward
and move in that direction. And then we come up against,
you know, an opportunity. We feel the poll there's more
waiting for us, you know, we can sense these larger possibilities.
(45:32):
We also sense this common experience of leadership where we
downplay what leaders are really doing the value of it, right,
it's always about the team, it's always about somebody else,
and that has a purpose to it to stand up
our teams right first and foremost. But at some point,
as we're starting to work with other leaders to help
them to step into the larger expression of themselves, we
(45:54):
need to be really clear and honest about these larger possibilities.
And as we go about that process, we move into
this next level, level eight awakened leadership. And this is
viewing leadership as a genuine path to awakening as a
human being. Right, the challenges of leadership, they're all in there, right,
all of these paths to awakening from Eastern and Western
(46:17):
sort of religious and spiritual approaches. It's all in the workplace.
It's all in the daily challenges. This is where the
real work occurs. So we can see it and experience
it as a path to awakening and start to articulate
the fundamentals of leadership and the possibilities in a way
that others who are on this journey and passionate about
(46:40):
service can connect with and say, oh, okay, I see
and it sort of calls them, pulls them into a
larger version, larger expression of themselves in service. And so
this is the expression of level eight, awakened leadership. We
are able to articulate complexity in a way that others
(47:02):
can connect with. And then we are pulled and pulled
and we feel at some point well, as we're working
along this path of awakening, that there are these challenges
imposed by social constructs right, our social institutions that we
are held to and working within, and at some point
(47:24):
we begin to see them for what they are, that oh, yes,
we work in them, but we are not bound by them.
We need to understand them, we need to respect them,
but we see them for what they really are, which
is really sort of our collective search for meaning, right,
so that we can bring meaning to the chaos of
the world. But they can bind us at some point
(47:45):
we can't do that. We can't think about that, and
that's not the way I was taught. Well, once again,
we can respect that, we can understand it, and we
can at the same time move beyond it. And the
next level then is this concept of integrated leadership level nine,
and this is leadership through active presence.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
We've got like thirty seconds for this so forth presence.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
Right, and our ability to work with reality as it's
emerging unfolding when we work with reality as it's unfolding.
We're in a better position to sort of influence movement forward,
which leads us into this experience, unified leadership, the oneess
with everybody and that expression of service to others. That's
the short version.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
Oh, Brian, that was amazing, What a journey. I feel
like I need to sleep now. It was so much.
I'm so grateful to know you, Brian, my friend, and
be to be elevated by you, to learn from you,
to share with my listeners and viewers around the world.
Thank you for being on working on.
Speaker 4 (48:40):
Purpose my pleasure. Thank you, Thank you for what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Leader, listeners in viewers. You were going to want to
learn more about Brian Cunningham and his books, including the
latest one Leadership The Universal Principles. You can start by
visiting his website, which is Awareness Quotient Leadership dot com
Awareness Quotient Leadership. Last week, we were on aero with
Sebastian Page, the head of Global multi asset and Chief
(49:05):
Investment Officer at tro Price. He has more than two
decades of leadership experience and has done extensive research on
positive sports and personality psychology. We talked about his latest book,
The Psychology of Leadership, Timeless Principles to improve your management
of individuals, teams, and yourself, which is chock full of
previously accepted pearls of wisdom turned on their head to
(49:25):
be used entirely differently for a better outcome. Next week
will be on AER with Raj Chaudhuri talking about his
latest book, The World Is Your Office, How work from
anywhere both boost talent, productivity and innovation. You'll be dazzled
by the unfolding possibilities of how work can be incredibly fluid, fulfilling,
and fruitful. See you there. Remember that work is one
(49:46):
of the best adventures and means of realizing our potential
and making the impact with crave that you give us
the opportunity to do business in a way that betters
the world. So let's work on Purpose.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to
tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise
Cortes each week on W four CY. Together we'll create
a world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires and passion performance,
and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning
and purpose They crave see you there. Let's work on purpose,
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