The in­con­ve­nient truth is that both tox­ic and whole­some in­di­vid­u­als get pro­mot­ed. This means that good, bad and ug­ly habits make the jour­ney as well. One way to be­gin the process of neu­tral­is­ing the habits that can cause may­hem and max­imis­ing those that breed ci­vil­i­ty is for lead­ers to un­der­take the ex­er­cise of self-en­quiry.

It’s an es­sen­tial process that places new and prospec­tive lead­ers un­der the mi­cro­scope for a self- ex­am­i­na­tion of their core be­liefs, traits, at­trib­ut­es and habits. The re­sults pro­vide in­sights in­to the strengths and weak­ness­es of the can­di­date on the hu­man side of lead­er­ship.

Au­then­tic self-en­quiry en­ables in­di­vid­u­als to con­front the good, bad and de­struc­tive ways in which they show up in the world. It’s peel­ing back the in­ner­most work­ings of the self and de­tail­ing the dis­cov­er­ies. The con­se­quent ac­tion would be to ap­ply ei­ther small acts of per­son­al im­prove­ment or rev­o­lu­tion­ary trans­for­ma­tion reme­dies, de­pend­ing on what needs to be cor­rect­ed. To their cred­it, some new­ly pro­mot­ed lead­ers have al­ready com­plet­ed this lev­el of per­son­al evo­lu­tion and pos­sess a laud­able de­gree of en­light­en­ment. For those lead­ers who have yet to ad­dress the jour­ney of self-en­quiry, it is an es­sen­tial step in pre-empt­ing emo­tion­al and be­hav­iour­al dys­reg­u­la­tion. Ne­glect­ing this step of­ten sparks in­ter­per­son­al and cul­tur­al fric­tion.

When ex­e­cut­ed cor­rect­ly, the process of de­con­struct­ing one’s per­sona can be both grat­i­fy­ing and ter­ri­fy­ing. In many cas­es, in­di­vid­u­als dis­cov­er some deep-seat­ed emo­tions that have been buried alive. While these emo­tions may have been as­so­ci­at­ed with ad­verse ex­pe­ri­ences that oc­curred in the past, their long tail of in­flu­ence con­tin­ues to be felt in the present through their pres­ence in the sub­con­scious mind.

Of­ten, the self-en­quiry suite of prac­tices forces these buried in­flu­encers to sur­face, al­low­ing the new leader an op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­front and course cor­rect.

The prac­tice of self-en­quiry en­ables new and prospec­tive lead­ers to be­come aware of their trig­gers and of­fers an op­por­tu­ni­ty to side­step the per­ils as­so­ci­at­ed with de­struc­tive au­to re­spons­es. The re­al­i­ty is that for many in­di­vid­u­als, habits and pat­terns form in­nocu­ous­ly. Pos­i­tive as well as neg­a­tive be­hav­iours, once re­peat­ed, be­come wired in­to the sub­con­scious mind. Be­fore long, in­di­vid­u­als de­vel­op au­to-re­spons­es to sit­u­a­tion­al trig­gers. In the ab­sence of aware­ness or in­ter­ven­tion, these be­hav­iours per­sist. Some cause har­mo­ny, oth­ers, hav­oc. Be­ing obliv­i­ous to one’s ad­verse au­to re­spons­es and their as­so­ci­at­ed pat­terns of be­hav­iour can be one of the most po­tent dri­vers of lead­er­ship im­pair­ment.

The prac­tices at­tached to the self-en­quiry ex­er­cise elim­i­nate sev­er­al at­trib­ut­es that are detri­men­tal to lead­er­ship ex­cel­lence. They elim­i­nate the “su­pe­ri­or wis­dom” trap. Lead­ers who have fall­en in­to this trap dis­play “know-it-all” ar­ro­gance, are dis­mis­sive of oth­ers and are un­aware of their com­mu­ni­ca­tion blind spots. An ef­fec­tive re­sult would be lead­ers with low emo­tion­al bag­gage, high em­pa­thy lev­els and a hu­man con­nec­tion ad­van­tage.

Self-en­quiry should be a manda­to­ry ex­er­cise for prospec­tive and new­ly pro­mot­ed lead­ers. Through struc­tured re­flec­tion, hid­den men­tal, emo­tion­al and be­hav­iour­al risks to their lead­er­ship lega­cy are re­vealed. The lead­ers are guid­ed to de­vel­op the in­ner ar­chi­tec­ture that pro­duces healthy be­hav­iours that pre­vent at­mos­pher­ic chaos.

A suc­cess­ful out­come will be the emer­gence of lead­ers who can avoid the pit­falls of lead­er­ship ar­ro­gance and are em­bold­ened to re­set the cen­tral tenets of their lead­er­ship style. They be­come forces of na­ture. Em­ploy­ees will have the plea­sure of in­ter­act­ing with lead­ers who are thought­ful, com­posed and emo­tion­al­ly reg­u­lat­ed. Not er­rat­ic in­di­vid­u­als who are prone to im­pul­sive be­hav­iour and ques­tion­able judge­ment.

This is the shap­ing of con­scious lead­er­ship, where the leader is not tone deaf to the com­plex re­al­i­ties of lead­ing a mod­ern-day work­force. The trick is to har­ness the dy­namism of a busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment to pro­duce the ide­al cul­tur­al state, where task-based per­for­mance and hu­man tran­scen­dence co-ex­ist.

Con­scious lead­er­ship is more than per­son­al growth. It is a busi­ness strat­e­gy that trans­lates in­to a com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage in the mar­ket­place. Suc­cess on the hu­man side of lead­er­ship pro­duces cul­tur­al har­mo­ny, which, in turn, acts as a moat that sup­ports strong busi­ness per­for­mance.

The start­ing point? Self-en­quiry on the part of the lead­ers.