Leading From Above The Line
Self-awareness and acceptance are needed for any transformation in consciousness to take place.
Self-awareness is noticing how your past learned experiences predispose you to certain patterns of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Acceptance is recognizing how these patterns aren’t serving you and doing so without blame, shame, and guilt.
A transformation in consciousness occurs when you’re able to notice your patterns and welcome them without judgment, and from this perspective, choose new behaviors that move you forward in your desired direction.
We’re going to focus here on the self-awareness piece and the best model that we’ve discovered is a simple imaginary horizontal line*.
At any moment, we’re either above or below the line.
Above the line means we’re in a state of acceptance and security, and we’re open, curious, and committed to learning and growing.
Below the line means we’re in a state of resistance and threat, and we’re closed, defensive, and committed to being right.
To be below the line, we have to believe in certain things about the world, such as that there’s not enough (money, time, or energy), that the stories we tell ourselves are true, that the outside world is threatening, that we must take everything seriously, etc.
This leads to certain behaviors like clinging to our opinions, finding fault and blame, gossiping, criticizing, complaining, getting overwhelmed, avoiding or pursuing conflict, etc.
We have to believe certain things to be above the line as well, like learning and growing are more important than being right, all people and circumstances are our allies, anything can be appreciated with the right perspective, etc.
The behaviors that result from being above the line include living in curiosity, listening deeply, separating facts from stories, questioning our beliefs, living a life of play, etc.
What’s important to recognize is that we’re hardwired to go below the line. Our brains have been programmed by millions of years of evolution to perceive threats.
When we perceive a threat, a chemical cocktail is released into the bloodstream that causes us to go below the line, originally designed to help us survive physical threats.
However, in today’s modern world where physical threats are less of a concern, our brains can’t tell the difference between a physical threat and a threat to our ego, identity, or self-concept.
We become triggered, defensive, and reactive when we experience a threat to our ego, which at its simplest level is just a thought.
Therefore, being below the line is natural and normal, but we’re not in a state, literally a brain state, for creativity, collaboration, innovation, or connection.
We’re simply trying to survive and we can’t thrive if we’re trying to survive, so it’s important to recognize when we’re below the line so that we can shift above it.
Locating yourself in relation to the line is a simple concept, but is difficult to achieve without practice, so here’s an exercise you can do to cultivate a greater sense of self-awareness.
Set a timer that randomly reminds you several times a day to check in with yourself
When the timer goes off, pause, breathe, and ask yourself, “Where am I… above or below the line?”
If you find yourself below the line, simply notice without judgment and give yourself a deep breath of acceptance
Ask yourself, “Am I willing to shift?” You may want to shift, but be unwilling to shift, which is okay. If you’re unwilling, own it and accept it
If you’re willing to shift, try any one of the following:
Breathe. It’s pretty simple, but taking a few deep and centering breaths reduces our fear-induced reactivity and opens us to curiosity.
Move. Rather than lock yourself in a conference room to have tough conversations, stand up, move around, and even have walking meetings (Steve Jobs was famous for his walking meetings).
Appreciate your critics. Complainers are giving you valuable information for improvement. Learners want to keep the information coming, so they celebrate their critics.
Ask “What are the other possibilities?” instead of defending your original idea.
Explore the opposite of your beliefs to surface new information and free yourself from the tyranny of past success.
By creating a habit of locating yourself you’ll gain more self-awareness, which will allow you to notice your unconscious patterns that are no longer serving you and then have the opportunity to consciously choose new behaviors that move you toward where you want to go.
*This model comes from the book “The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership,” which is also the basis for our coaching program. We highly recommend reading the book, but we know that reading a book doesn’t usually spark dramatic change, which is why we created our conscious leadership course. Our course takes the concepts and practices from the book and helps you implement them into your daily life through support, guidance, and coaching. We want conscious leadership to stick so that more people can lead more productive and happy lives and create environments for others to do the same.
