WCS Event Reflection | Executive Leadership Series | Guts & Grace
By: Aoife McCarthy
For an organization that focuses on advancing “the roles of women in growing the green economy,” Women in Cleantech & Sustainability really added a huge element of the “how” when it welcomed executive coach LeeAnn Malorie to Pattern Energy’s San Francisco offices.
LeeAnn was able to tap into that thing we all find ourselves guilty of doing, even when we try our hardest not to. As LeeAnn puts it, women are prone to “systematically ignore our bodies and disconnect from their intuition in order to get ahead at work.”
Guilty.
But as LeeAnn is quick to point out, this about failing to exercise or meditate, although that certainly doesn’t help. This is about placing data over one’s own instincts. If we think about it, we all know what we need to be at our best.
For the introvert who plays a litigator by day, it may be the necessity of quiet, alone time to recharge.
For the extrovert numbers wizz, the role of accountant may leave them craving social interaction to recharge.
When we ignore the cues of what we need, even if our bodies couldn’t be screaming at us any louder, we are “missing life-giving, intuitive cues that could help you make game-changing adjustments” to our leadership skills.
Throughout the two hour session, LeeAnn gave guided more than 20 women, and one very brave man, through a series of exercises to identify some tell-tail signs that they are ignoring their “inner guidance system.”
I don’t think there was a person in the room who didn’t nod their heads to some of these harsh truths.
The take-away from the evening was that as women, we need to demand more, not of society, but from ourselves. We have the ability to drive our own future successes. We need to stop depleting ourselves and make the decision to listen to the needs of our bodies. If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t and we should listen to that and make moves to fix it.
In her forthcoming book, LeeAnn goes through 13 “practices for fully embodied, boldly empowered, and radically conscious leadership.”
Guts & Grace by LeeAnn Mallorie will be available in January 2020. The preface can be downloaded here.
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