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Why Breakthrough Leadership?

We face four big challenges: the guardianship of our planet; the mental and physical health of its inhabitants; the widening gap between rich and poor as the asset-holding rich get richer and the job-holding middle classes get hollowed out and join the poor; and the simultaneous consolidation, fragmentation and increasing debt within the world’s economies.

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The evidence is that conventional approaches have not worked to date. What is the likelihood that the same leadership and the same thinking will solve the huge problems that they have created? Investors have been experiencing the slow reduction in real returns over time. This shows that things aren’t working. In the natural world too, things aren’t working. We face accelerating extinctions on a level we have not experienced before. At what point will we collectively wake up and notice?

If there was any time when different approaches might be needed, it would be now. Time and again, our political and business leaders prove they cannot act outside of their own short-term individual interest. And yet, if we are to save ourselves and our future on this planet, our leaders need to act with the needs of all stakeholders in mind.

This is why we need breakthrough leadership training.

Before change can happen at a global, national or organisational level it needs to happen at an individual level. The change can be achieved in a 1-2-1 breakthrough or at a breakthrough retreat.

What is Breakthrough Leadership?

Every other ‘program’ talking about leadership breakthroughs is addressing only the conscious, logical domain, the domain of management. This is their fatal flaw, because real change only happens at the unconscious level and it involves emotion, not logic. You cannot think and act your way into becoming a better leader without first resolving what lies in your unconscious mind.

Many people use the term ‘breakthrough’ to convey a message of significant change or discovery. Mostly though, this is just marketing hype. Some talk about the skills breakthrough leaders need, but skills without emotional resolution are wasted. The breakthrough that matters is the transition from the unconscious to the conscious. This is what our clients have achieved both from the 1-2-1 breakthrough and the breakthrough retreat.

Here at Breakthrough Leadership, we summarise our kind of leadership in the form of 5 acts:

  • Seeing beyond yourself and your own needs (individuation)
  • Mastering the present (delegation) and the future (focus) simultaneously
  • Cultivating the environment for the successes of others (servant leadership)
  • Seeding the future by matching talents with opportunities (succession) and
  • Remaining a curious, sceptical, self-aware ‘sponge’ (growth mindset)

To reach this level of leadership, like Level 5 Leadership, one must first pass through the process of individuation. It is only the individuated person who has broken ‘through’ to the next level and who has broken ‘out’ of the need to satisfy purely themselves at the expense of others.

There are many, many examples of ego-trip CEOs that seem to think their job is to run the company for their own benefit at their shareholders’ expense. One of my employers legendarily spent over $1M of company money having the view from his office window landscaped!

Further down the organisation managers jockey for position in what one client called ‘the accountability avoidance matrix’ and this was in one of the UK’s biggest companies.

Let’s not even get started on politics!

Another way to look at it is to think about scarcity and abundance. A person with a scarcity mindset, like a panic-buyer, will act solely for themselves, thinking there is not enough to go around. A person with an abundant mindset knows that acting in the interests of all stakeholders is the most likely way to create the most benefit for all, including themselves.

Let’s be clear about this. When I act with a scarcity mindset and act solely to line my own pockets, it is likely that I will walk away with less money than if I had acted with an abundant mindset and considered everyone. Why? Because when you act for yourself, everyone around you realises it and copies you. They act for themselves and not for you. Consequently, your organisation performs very poorly.

When you act for others, again, they copy you, but this time everyone is trying to help everyone else and so they all pull together. This organisation greatly outperforms the other. It is not rocket science; it is just very rarely practised. Breakthrough leadership training takes senior teams and business families through individuation, from scarcity to abundance and abundant action.

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How Leaders break through

There are three stages to breaking through as a leader: enlightenment; empowerment; and achievement.

Enlightenment is concerned with you shining a light on yourself, finding out about yourself. – Once you understand why you are the way you are, you can decide what you want to change. We start by helping you release the past. At an unconscious level we are all governed by our values levels and their inherent conflicts, our unresolved emotions, and our beliefs. Whilst most people prefer to go through the 1-2-1 breakthrough to make this transition, the group breakthrough retreat is exceptionally powerful for individuals, senior teams and business families. Once you have released these unconsciously held blocks we move our focus to embracing the present.

In the present we need to examine our relationships with time, with money, and with our physical selves. Having released their pasts, people are much more comfortable dealing with their further challenges in a group setting, rather than needing more 1-2-1 breakthrough work. Finally, when clear of our last unconscious blocks and limiting attitudes we are ready to properly imagine our future. Here we start with finding our flow. Flow is a directional indicator of purpose or calling which in turn can be quantified in terms of our mission. This stage is much more suited to a breakthrough leadership training environment as it should be far less challenging emotionally than the previous stages.

We are fully enlightened when we get to know our true selves, when we know why we are here, and we know what we are going to do about it.
Empowerment is about developing the habits to master self-effectiveness, learning the communication styles of yourself and others, and building the relationship skills you will need to influence and enrol others to your mission.

Achievement is about accomplishing the mission. There are three critical success factors to achievement: your behaviour as a leader; the autonomy of your team; and the structure in which you and they operate.

What happens next?

What we’ve found is that programme graduates start to collaborate, regardless of their different starting places. This is because they have a shared experience, they have all transcended their egos to one degree or another, and they have discovered they hold common values.

Their shared experience outside of the programme is that they are performing at a higher level than before. Their real level of competency is showing up. They are grasping opportunities that perhaps they would have ignored in the past.

Clients have achieved promotions at work, better business results, closer relationships and improved health. All of them though have one important thing in common – they are happier.

If you would like to find out if the breakthrough program for senior executives is what you need, why not book a 10-minute discovery call today and take that important first step towards a better future.

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