November 16, 2025 • 18 mins
I believe that leading a spirit-respecting workplace is easier than managing a traditional organisation - it tends to take on a life of its own.
However, at the same time, leading this kind of workplace is also harder, particularily for those of us that are compelled to control the uncontrollable. (smile).
Most of us have clear ideas about what should happen and not happen in organisations and our reponsibilites as leaders within them. These become the rules by which we do our work and simplify the workplace. It simplifies the way we do businesss by keeping everything on a superficial level.
When we choose to build a spirit-respecting and spirit-nurturing organisation, we give up the illusion of simplicity. We build an environment for courageous leadership that encompasses everyone. WE make it safe to explore, to try newthings, to stretch our creativity. Time now to explore the principles.
Additional Insights
Spirituality: The Next Frontier of Workplace Wellbeing | Susannah Healy.
https://youtu.be/MosvBKul270
Dream Dare Dazzle
However, at the same time, leading this kind of workplace is also harder, particularily for those of us that are compelled to control the uncontrollable. (smile).
Most of us have clear ideas about what should happen and not happen in organisations and our reponsibilites as leaders within them. These become the rules by which we do our work and simplify the workplace. It simplifies the way we do businesss by keeping everything on a superficial level.
When we choose to build a spirit-respecting and spirit-nurturing organisation, we give up the illusion of simplicity. We build an environment for courageous leadership that encompasses everyone. WE make it safe to explore, to try newthings, to stretch our creativity. Time now to explore the principles.
Additional Insights
Spirituality: The Next Frontier of Workplace Wellbeing | Susannah Healy.
https://youtu.be/MosvBKul270
Dream Dare Dazzle
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Again everyone, and here we go again back to hard leadership,
and this week i'ld like to explore with you what
leading what is leading a spirit respecting organization? In a
lot of ways, leading a spirit respecting workplace it's easier
(00:30):
than managing a traditional one. The former takes on a
life of its own, and at the same time, leading
such a workplace is also harder, especially for those that
are compelled to control but uncontrollable. Most of us have
a clear ideas about what should and shouldn't happen than
(00:52):
organizations about our responsibilities leaders within these organizations, these ideas
become the rules and how we do our work. They
simplify the workplace, our workplaces in the way we do
our business by keeping everything on a superficial level. We
(01:15):
choose to build a spirit and respecting and spirit nurturing organization.
We choose to give up the illusion of simplicity. We
choose to give up the rules by which we have
lived and operated, and we develop atns for ambiguity, enabling
us to reap the harvest and the complexity in our
(01:40):
organizations that it can yield. We build an environment for
courageous leadership to wear at all levels. And everyone who
works for us. I've talked about this before. Leadership without title.
We'll all take person no responsibility. It's all within each
(02:03):
and every one of us. And particularly over the years
i've worked in safety leadership, behavioral safety leadership, it's about ownership,
each and every one abouts taking responsibility. We make it
safer to explore things, to try new things, and to
stretch our creativity. There's a lad Thomas Watson, former chairman IBM,
(02:31):
I'll recognize that many years ago, talked about such an
environment when he said, if you want to increase your
success rate, double your failure rate. Companies in the path
of fear spend incredible amounts of time and energy wringing
their hands for fear something won't go right. This attitude
(02:54):
doesn't create an environment in which leader leadership emergers from
the ranks want to go there. They'll stay down below. Oh,
no one wants to be a yes man a yes
woman and do it the way it's always done. You
get what's old class, You get what you always get.
(03:14):
No one aspires to grow and become a leader. And
of course, when our bosses are afraid of making mistakes,
no one else is going to get too innovative and
identifying either problems or their solutions. I stroll believe that
(03:38):
in making it happen, there's no rules about what we
should do in organizations, but then we can get some
guidance about leading in a way that provides an environment
for leaders to mars getting them comforward at all levels
within our organizations. After sharing the results of the studies
(04:04):
and how and how our way of being in the
world influences our tendency to have a heart attack and
the trusting heart, Doctor Redford Williams reviews teaching from various
religious traditions found that Jesus, Buddha, Confucius to all had
(04:28):
similar message, and all of them recommended living in ways
similar to those that discovered would reduce the odds having
a heart attack. I know a lot about that. Throughout
these are religious traditions we profind a preferred way of
being described as one. We're advised to look for the
(04:54):
good and others rather than the bad three others well,
just as we would like to be treated ourselves, stop
being concerned with our own selves, but direct our attention
and acts more towards other people. All forms of creation
(05:15):
we've seen in many traditions ideas. As humans, we contain
something within us, somehow, something that motivates to enable us
to followed what someone described as a preferred way. The
work that leaders do in order to be more courageous
(05:37):
and spirit respecting is to find that what is it
step within us and to learn to live from that within.
I believe it's the being that is the being of
being a leader. When learn to live and work from
(05:57):
that spot, we're free, free the ego driven need to
view everything from our own perspectives. We're able to focus
our attention and acts. It's not so much the eye,
it's the we, It's the wey and team. But our
organizations become collectings of health and creative human beings working
(06:19):
as one, working together as a community towards a common goal.
Leaders must be free, must free themselves of measuring everything
in the terms of ego, ego win, or ego laws.
To live in the way that it seems essential both
(06:43):
to living in the golden rule common to these various
spiritual teachings and to see each individual contribution as unique
and important. Despite the millions of pounds and dollars across
the USA spent on effective communications motivation, diversity, stress reduction,
(07:09):
and other training programs. The most significant thing that can
be done to accomplish all these ends, as I believe
being neglected for quite a highly most organizations will be
dramatically improved places of work if leaders done a wee
(07:30):
bit of soul search to bring a loving and respectful
way of being to all their interactions, and to build
an environment for others to do the same same kind
of soul search, bringing that kind of really consciousness to
our workplaces. However, I was saying the same as an engineer.
(07:55):
You were saying, we can't be good leaders, but just
providing a work place where people relate to the really
better teach other But organizations falter because they're not being effective.
When we aren't relating to each other, we ultimately fail
(08:19):
and our collective responsibility to provide a place of work
together and to supply income needed to sustain our lives.
We can let ourselves fall into either either or thinking.
We can't choose between having a spirit respecting workplace or
(08:43):
a productive, rational and effective workplace. Neither of these really
are sustainable. It's about choosing to create both. It's the
merging of a spiritual based organized with all the other
parts of production and particularly working as I have over
(09:07):
the years, and major accs and hazards. Organization get it
wrong by gum and you'll know about it. People are
community and environment will be severely damaged. It's it's a combination.
It's an integration of both. As I've worked over the years,
(09:30):
I've discovered a few simple truths about how we be
in relationships within ourselves, within our organization and and all
our colleagues as we create a whole sustainable workplace. A
(09:50):
few kind of truths that seem to go through or
be within the heart. Leadership are leaders Leaders that create
an environment that invites and supports. A spirit supports the heart,
supports are heard. Leaders are conscious, They're intentional. Leaders recognize
(10:14):
everything we see and do is a choice. Leaders they
see all forms of possibilities. Leaders respect people in the
process of involving. That's what heart leaders do. However, leaders
live with integrity. They walk the talk. They put the
boots on, the shoes on, and walk the talk. They're committed.
(10:39):
Leaders are connected to others. Leaders ask questions. More importantly,
they're listening. Creates space for answers to emerge, or is it,
create space, allowed, ask open question. They all principle of
heads tell, playing, describe, show, and the surface. These truths
(11:05):
seem kind of easy to do the intuitive to some people.
The truths are not about doing, they're about being. When
they're viewed as ways of being, the truths are as
much more challenging. We move beyond saying trendy words, business
(11:26):
words of the day and live the words deeply. Experience
has shown me that a simple as these truths sound,
they're generally not and things that most of us as managers,
team leaders, and as human beings have taught or have practice.
(11:51):
They're not the things that people generally do. A couple
of critical opponents seem to be implice in being able
to lead these few truths. Number One, we must see
the need to unlearn behaviors that have served as well
at one time no longer work. Second, the unlearning and
(12:15):
the new learning there's really a lifeline, a lifetime process.
It has been said that we've all that we all
behave rationally within our current frames of reference. As we
change and when we choose to lead in a spirit
(12:37):
respecting way, a frame of reference or metaphor changes what
seems rational when we think of people as flesh and
blood robots who need to be driven. No longer seems
rational or reasonable when a frame of reference becomes one
that includes spirited human beings fuse with energy, vitality, creativity
(13:05):
in search of life and meaning within the work. The
finite rules we develop we develop in a fairly stable world.
No longer work in a world as we know just now,
constant change and chaos for daily been escalating pace of
technology and new global markets. The learning of twenty thirty
(13:30):
forty years isn't unlearned overnight. Life and work always present
new lessons for us lecens that require us explore, re
fine and adapt or understanding we knew. The second critical
moment has been able to lead by these simple truths
is the realization that the unlearning and new learning never end.
(13:57):
Require constant practice a commitment, and practice requires discipline. We
didn't learn to walk the first time we'd tried, but
crawling eventually outlived its usefulness to this. Although most of
us can see how inefficient and foolish would be to
depend on crawling into our offices and boardrooms, we continue
(14:22):
to run our companies economy model. We began to learn,
not much later than that period we learned to walk.
The model we use, even when it's infused with participator
activities is one I will call it parenting, one in
(14:43):
which manager ultimately assumed to have all the answers, and
one in which these answers, or even their right to answers,
is rarely ever questioned. At the moment just now, there's
been a sense within many governments in that they'll take
care of you, they'll take care of society. But so
(15:07):
we can see, actually, just now that's not happening, and
there's loads and loads of disquiet in many countries, quite
a number of organizations. However, there's a difference there and
awakening just now when we see and we recognize more
mature organizations who are living, living and working from the heart,
(15:33):
we see it even stronger. We see it where every
challenge coming over horizon is an opportunity, but it takes
the path of courage. And we'll talk about that and
a wee bit more depth next week. Will start exploring
(15:57):
or choosing the path of courage looks, sounds and feel like.
But let's explore the path of courage just for a
wee moment. A we things to think about over next week?
What does spirit and spirituality mean to you? What your
(16:17):
experiences with what we call if you don't want to
call it heart and it greats a bit with you,
what would your experiences with we'll call it heart or
heart leadership in a workplace? Is yours a heart respecting organization?
Or is it dead? Is it spiritually dead? Make a
(16:39):
list of ten things that you can change to make
your workplace more heart respecting, and then change them too.
If you choose to go to a workplace and do
all the things you normally do, instead of saying that
going to work, you said you would go to play.
(17:02):
What difference would that make nich A less I would
impact of your playful behavior change other experiences of you
at work? How would that type of behavior change relationship
at home and within your community? What if everyone at
your workplace were more playful? What difference would a more
(17:25):
playful attitude have made it a time when things weren't
going well within your work? And the final one for
this week, what did it take for you to experience
more joy at work? What would impact in your life
and more joy in your workplace if you could feel
(17:47):
that and you carry that to all aspects of your
life until next week. Live life with passion,
Again everyone, and here we go again back to hard leadership,
and this week i'ld like to explore with you what
leading what is leading a spirit respecting organization? In a
lot of ways, leading a spirit respecting workplace it's easier
(00:30):
than managing a traditional one. The former takes on a
life of its own, and at the same time, leading
such a workplace is also harder, especially for those that
are compelled to control but uncontrollable. Most of us have
a clear ideas about what should and shouldn't happen than
(00:52):
organizations about our responsibilities leaders within these organizations, these ideas
become the rules and how we do our work. They
simplify the workplace, our workplaces in the way we do
our business by keeping everything on a superficial level. We
(01:15):
choose to build a spirit and respecting and spirit nurturing organization.
We choose to give up the illusion of simplicity. We
choose to give up the rules by which we have
lived and operated, and we develop atns for ambiguity, enabling
us to reap the harvest and the complexity in our
(01:40):
organizations that it can yield. We build an environment for
courageous leadership to wear at all levels. And everyone who
works for us. I've talked about this before. Leadership without title.
We'll all take person no responsibility. It's all within each
(02:03):
and every one of us. And particularly over the years
i've worked in safety leadership, behavioral safety leadership, it's about ownership,
each and every one abouts taking responsibility. We make it
safer to explore things, to try new things, and to
stretch our creativity. There's a lad Thomas Watson, former chairman IBM,
(02:31):
I'll recognize that many years ago, talked about such an
environment when he said, if you want to increase your
success rate, double your failure rate. Companies in the path
of fear spend incredible amounts of time and energy wringing
their hands for fear something won't go right. This attitude
(02:54):
doesn't create an environment in which leader leadership emergers from
the ranks want to go there. They'll stay down below. Oh,
no one wants to be a yes man a yes
woman and do it the way it's always done. You
get what's old class, You get what you always get.
(03:14):
No one aspires to grow and become a leader. And
of course, when our bosses are afraid of making mistakes,
no one else is going to get too innovative and
identifying either problems or their solutions. I stroll believe that
(03:38):
in making it happen, there's no rules about what we
should do in organizations, but then we can get some
guidance about leading in a way that provides an environment
for leaders to mars getting them comforward at all levels
within our organizations. After sharing the results of the studies
(04:04):
and how and how our way of being in the
world influences our tendency to have a heart attack and
the trusting heart, Doctor Redford Williams reviews teaching from various
religious traditions found that Jesus, Buddha, Confucius to all had
(04:28):
similar message, and all of them recommended living in ways
similar to those that discovered would reduce the odds having
a heart attack. I know a lot about that. Throughout
these are religious traditions we profind a preferred way of
being described as one. We're advised to look for the
(04:54):
good and others rather than the bad three others well,
just as we would like to be treated ourselves, stop
being concerned with our own selves, but direct our attention
and acts more towards other people. All forms of creation
(05:15):
we've seen in many traditions ideas. As humans, we contain
something within us, somehow, something that motivates to enable us
to followed what someone described as a preferred way. The
work that leaders do in order to be more courageous
(05:37):
and spirit respecting is to find that what is it
step within us and to learn to live from that within.
I believe it's the being that is the being of
being a leader. When learn to live and work from
(05:57):
that spot, we're free, free the ego driven need to
view everything from our own perspectives. We're able to focus
our attention and acts. It's not so much the eye,
it's the we, It's the wey and team. But our
organizations become collectings of health and creative human beings working
(06:19):
as one, working together as a community towards a common goal.
Leaders must be free, must free themselves of measuring everything
in the terms of ego, ego win, or ego laws.
To live in the way that it seems essential both
(06:43):
to living in the golden rule common to these various
spiritual teachings and to see each individual contribution as unique
and important. Despite the millions of pounds and dollars across
the USA spent on effective communications motivation, diversity, stress reduction,
(07:09):
and other training programs. The most significant thing that can
be done to accomplish all these ends, as I believe
being neglected for quite a highly most organizations will be
dramatically improved places of work if leaders done a wee
(07:30):
bit of soul search to bring a loving and respectful
way of being to all their interactions, and to build
an environment for others to do the same same kind
of soul search, bringing that kind of really consciousness to
our workplaces. However, I was saying the same as an engineer.
(07:55):
You were saying, we can't be good leaders, but just
providing a work place where people relate to the really
better teach other But organizations falter because they're not being effective.
When we aren't relating to each other, we ultimately fail
(08:19):
and our collective responsibility to provide a place of work
together and to supply income needed to sustain our lives.
We can let ourselves fall into either either or thinking.
We can't choose between having a spirit respecting workplace or
(08:43):
a productive, rational and effective workplace. Neither of these really
are sustainable. It's about choosing to create both. It's the
merging of a spiritual based organized with all the other
parts of production and particularly working as I have over
(09:07):
the years, and major accs and hazards. Organization get it
wrong by gum and you'll know about it. People are
community and environment will be severely damaged. It's it's a combination.
It's an integration of both. As I've worked over the years,
(09:30):
I've discovered a few simple truths about how we be
in relationships within ourselves, within our organization and and all
our colleagues as we create a whole sustainable workplace. A
(09:50):
few kind of truths that seem to go through or
be within the heart. Leadership are leaders Leaders that create
an environment that invites and supports. A spirit supports the heart,
supports are heard. Leaders are conscious, They're intentional. Leaders recognize
(10:14):
everything we see and do is a choice. Leaders they
see all forms of possibilities. Leaders respect people in the
process of involving. That's what heart leaders do. However, leaders
live with integrity. They walk the talk. They put the
boots on, the shoes on, and walk the talk. They're committed.
(10:39):
Leaders are connected to others. Leaders ask questions. More importantly,
they're listening. Creates space for answers to emerge, or is it,
create space, allowed, ask open question. They all principle of
heads tell, playing, describe, show, and the surface. These truths
(11:05):
seem kind of easy to do the intuitive to some people.
The truths are not about doing, they're about being. When
they're viewed as ways of being, the truths are as
much more challenging. We move beyond saying trendy words, business
(11:26):
words of the day and live the words deeply. Experience
has shown me that a simple as these truths sound,
they're generally not and things that most of us as managers,
team leaders, and as human beings have taught or have practice.
(11:51):
They're not the things that people generally do. A couple
of critical opponents seem to be implice in being able
to lead these few truths. Number One, we must see
the need to unlearn behaviors that have served as well
at one time no longer work. Second, the unlearning and
(12:15):
the new learning there's really a lifeline, a lifetime process.
It has been said that we've all that we all
behave rationally within our current frames of reference. As we
change and when we choose to lead in a spirit
(12:37):
respecting way, a frame of reference or metaphor changes what
seems rational when we think of people as flesh and
blood robots who need to be driven. No longer seems
rational or reasonable when a frame of reference becomes one
that includes spirited human beings fuse with energy, vitality, creativity
(13:05):
in search of life and meaning within the work. The
finite rules we develop we develop in a fairly stable world.
No longer work in a world as we know just now,
constant change and chaos for daily been escalating pace of
technology and new global markets. The learning of twenty thirty
(13:30):
forty years isn't unlearned overnight. Life and work always present
new lessons for us lecens that require us explore, re
fine and adapt or understanding we knew. The second critical
moment has been able to lead by these simple truths
is the realization that the unlearning and new learning never end.
(13:57):
Require constant practice a commitment, and practice requires discipline. We
didn't learn to walk the first time we'd tried, but
crawling eventually outlived its usefulness to this. Although most of
us can see how inefficient and foolish would be to
depend on crawling into our offices and boardrooms, we continue
(14:22):
to run our companies economy model. We began to learn,
not much later than that period we learned to walk.
The model we use, even when it's infused with participator
activities is one I will call it parenting, one in
(14:43):
which manager ultimately assumed to have all the answers, and
one in which these answers, or even their right to answers,
is rarely ever questioned. At the moment just now, there's
been a sense within many governments in that they'll take
care of you, they'll take care of society. But so
(15:07):
we can see, actually, just now that's not happening, and
there's loads and loads of disquiet in many countries, quite
a number of organizations. However, there's a difference there and
awakening just now when we see and we recognize more
mature organizations who are living, living and working from the heart,
(15:33):
we see it even stronger. We see it where every
challenge coming over horizon is an opportunity, but it takes
the path of courage. And we'll talk about that and
a wee bit more depth next week. Will start exploring
(15:57):
or choosing the path of courage looks, sounds and feel like.
But let's explore the path of courage just for a
wee moment. A we things to think about over next week?
What does spirit and spirituality mean to you? What your
(16:17):
experiences with what we call if you don't want to
call it heart and it greats a bit with you,
what would your experiences with we'll call it heart or
heart leadership in a workplace? Is yours a heart respecting organization?
Or is it dead? Is it spiritually dead? Make a
(16:39):
list of ten things that you can change to make
your workplace more heart respecting, and then change them too.
If you choose to go to a workplace and do
all the things you normally do, instead of saying that
going to work, you said you would go to play.
(17:02):
What difference would that make nich A less I would
impact of your playful behavior change other experiences of you
at work? How would that type of behavior change relationship
at home and within your community? What if everyone at
your workplace were more playful? What difference would a more
(17:25):
playful attitude have made it a time when things weren't
going well within your work? And the final one for
this week, what did it take for you to experience
more joy at work? What would impact in your life
and more joy in your workplace if you could feel
(17:47):
that and you carry that to all aspects of your
life until next week. Live life with passion,
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