Can you find the courage to step up to who you are?

In a time when we see leadership falter in so many places, we can sense it on multiple levels.

Our inner leadership, which mostly drives us to do more.
Our connective leadership, which connects us to what we have accomplished, not to who we are.
And our societal leadership, which lacks stability and a clear focus on the long term, instead of goalkeeping the whole time during an already short period in office.

Basically, all forms of leadership miss two ingredients that, although we use the words, are difficult to embody if we no longer make the effort to live them.

The missing links here are Truth and Trust.

Not the truth we think of with our minds.
Not the truths we enforce with laws and regulations.
But the truth that is in alignment with your soul.

Open.
Honest.
Sometimes kind.
Sometimes direct and corrective.

The truth we know of, but no longer dare to speak or follow.
Not the one with the loudest voice, but the one that is straight as an arrow.

The one most of us have forgotten. Or never learned how to listen to.

This truth is the one that truly drives and nourishes you, and those around you. It forms the kind of leadership we all long for.
Leadership that is in love with life.

If we practice truth, and hold ourselves accountable to it, we create the second missing link.

Trust. 

Only if we are speaking and living the truth can we begin to trust again.
It is most of the time the hardest way. But it is always the most rewarding.
Not only for the leader, but for everyone the leader connects with.

Trust is a lived experience.
Through it, we learn that we can trust. And we begin to understand life again from the perspective of continuity.
A truly trustworthy leader is able to explain the situation and remain honest, even when saying:
“I don’t know, but I trust my intuition.”

That leader embodies trust.

As persons, as groups, and even as a whole society, we will encounter new and surprising situations.
That is a condition of growth.
But if we have experienced, and learned, how to return to trust, we return to the original quality beneath everything.

Peace. 

The living truth of our souls.
And sometimes, peace begins where we remember an older language.

The language of soul.
The gift of fire. 

A language that can be learned. If we are willing to listen.