Self-Assessment for Inquiry Leadership
The first step for a person in exploring the art of Inquiry Leadership is to do a self-assessment. This is not easy. Many successful people have become successful because of their ability to push distractions aside—distractions like emotions, feelings, desires, self-care, dissatisfaction, ideas, wants, frustrations, etc. You may have viewed these types of “distractions” as a threat to the pursuit of success and achievement, but is this true? A self-assessment is taking some time to take an inventory of our lives and how we are experiencing and enjoying them.
What makes life meaningful? What creates happiness? These are essential questions in a life-assessment.
If you run a company or business and deny yourself happiness, your leadership and others’ experience of working for you will develop in such a way as to support a similar life view to your own. Your employees and your corporate structure are a mirror for your inner self. Your company is a reflection of you. The experience of working for you is a reflection of you. The experience of being your customer is a reflection of you. Your business is your message to the world.
We are all artists of life, and the life we create is our expression of what we think or see as the best (and most esthetic) answer to life. Your business is a big part of your art. It is probably your Magnum Opus (great and primary work of your life). It is your statement about how life should be. In your self-assessment, you must ask yourself if what you are doing with your life is an expression of your highest self.
This does not mean you need to go out and become a painter or a philanthropist. You can express yourself through the medium you have already created, which is ready to be formed and amplified, to grow and refine, to be a more accurate expression of what you hold to be good and right in the world. And the big bonus is that as you do this, you will become more successful.
In this same spirit, you must ask yourself, “How would my life be if it was just the way I wanted it?” And “What kind of person would I be if I could be just the person I wanted to be?”When you are ready to begin leading yourself toward your true nature and goals, you take the first step to being able to lead others. This is where we start in Inquiry Leadership.