Somatic awareness for leaders

Background

This has been a tough year so far. More wars erupting, more economic turmoil and general flaring of uncertainty in almost weekly shocks. With levels of anxiety rising, our resilience is challenged and stretched far beyond what we were used to. Very quickly our mind and body goes into shut-down with huge impact on how we make decisions and influence others.

The core challenge for leadership in these demanding times is to liberate decision-making from the grip of overwhelm, fear, and withdrawal, to instead stay grounded in the moment, to stay receptive to every information available and how to truthfully stay connected with partners in the room. Its about staying open, awake and curious.

For this task, we need to go beyond the classic idea of leadership as a purely cognitive or even emotional exercise and to work deliberately with a third component: the information the body provides. Traditional…