For Founders and CEOs making difficult decisions

I work with clients who never set out to become leaders for the sake of status. One even describes herself as "reluctant".

They didn’t grow up wanting to be in charge. Some of them quite liked having a boss. Another person made the final call at the top, and they got on with the work.

Then, over time, they ended up running organisations in tough areas. The sort of work where decisions are rarely simple and whatever you choose will have significant consequences.

One thing I notice is how easily the role takes over.

You stop feeling like a person working with an organisation and start feeling like everything is you.

Every decision, every doubt, every difficult conversation comes back to your desk. So you read more, listen to more podcasts, talk it through again. It can help. It can also mean you’re rarely alone with your own thinking.

When someone says to me, “I wish someone would just tell me what to do,” I don’t hear a lack of ability.

I hear someone who’s had enough of carrying it all themselves.

So I suggest a different way of approaching it: we're going to give you a new boss.

Try imagining the organisation as something separate from you.

Below you'll find an exercise I gave to a CEO client earlier today. I’m sharing it here in case you want to try it too.

It's a bit more creative, perhaps even a little "woo" if you like: a mish-mash of approaches I've tried myself over the years and inspiration from the sadhana practice I was given at my Buddhist Ordination (that's the light bit you'll spot).

Just give it a go and see what happens.

The Mythical (Magical? Mystical?) Being that is [insert your organisation here]

(Let’s get playful with this one)

Imagine the organisation exists on some other plane as a mythical, magical, even mystical being.

What does it look like? Does it have a name? What is its origin story — why has it come into being?

Emerging out of its heart area is an aura of light. The light reaches out into the universe, touching everything it comes into contact with.

There are three concentric circles of light. What colour are these? What qualities or values do they represent?

Your role as CEO in our plane of existence is to be a conduit for those values, and the mission of this magical being, coming into our world.

How does it speak to you?

Can you ask it direct questions, as if talking to it in your mind?

Do you need to write down your questions and see how it responds, writing back to you?

Does it communicate through symbols (like images in The Wild Unknown tarot set I use)?

Or through signs in the natural world that you have to notice and be receptive to?

Instead of asking yourself:

What should I do?

Ask the organisation, this being, questions like:

What do you need from me right now?

What am I missing?

What do you need me to see more clearly?

We have to make a decision about..... What's most important to you here?

Then you need patience to see how it responds.

It's a bit like waiting to see if a deer will emerge from the woods. You can't shout. You can't keep moving about.

Just shut up.

Sit still.

And listen.