Getting Unstuck #136: Listening Carefully to Yourself – a Transformation Story with Lorraine Flower
This is the first of two episodes that we’re offering over the next two weeks to help us step bravely and purposefully into 2021. And it doesn’t matter what role you currently play in life, there is are pearls of wisdom here for you.
In this episode of Getting Unstuck
What a special conversation…. In this episode of “Getting Unstuck,” we’re joined by Lorraine Flower who shares her powerful story of transformation. In her mid-thirties, Lorraine was all but assured that she would continue her rapid rise in the corporate ranks. But something didn’t feel right, and she knew she had to make a change.
Today Lorraine works as a corporate change agent, bringing the power of spirituality and consciousness into the workplace.
Let’s listen to how she processed her feelings and began a new career of bringing what had been lacking for her into the corporate world.
“You know when the genie wants to come out? You can’t shove it back in. ”
Why this conversation matters
What this episode came down to for me was the need to be deeply in tune with yourself. We talk a lot today about listening to others, but what Lorraine excels at is listening to herself. She knew something was amiss in her career – “I did start to give voice to this idea that there was something else happening inside of me.” She knew on a deep, spiritual level that she was destined for more rewarding work.
“Spirituality,” Lorraine notes “is a relationship with a higher expression of who we are as humans. It's an expression of our potential. And I wouldn't use the phrase ‘promised land ‘in most normal terms, but but there's something about the joy that we could have every day in our living this if we could only open ourselves to the potential.
Spirituality is is about recognizing that our birthright is a level of joyfulness, a level of loving kindness, a level of presence that is beyond our wildest dreams at this point as a humanity, but it isn't beyond our ability to access it.”
Lorraine and her team have identified 5 qualities they believe truly set a conscious leader apart from day-to-day business. These qualities are lived expressions of consciousness and bring about a significant change in the workplace.
How to use this podcast
As a corporate change agent, Lorraine helps leaders move from what she calls a vertical perspective to a horizontal one.
“A lot of our work is in opening up that collective horizontal space of leadership as distinct from the vertical space of leadership. And by taking people into that horizontal space of leadership, it has nothing to do with their expertise or their technical prowess that brought them to their current career. It's about who they are? How do they show up? What do they believe in? Who are they in that role that they’re occupying? And what's their relationship with others in that space?”
If you were to place each of the 5 “Conscious Leader Qualities” on a continuum with “0” representing “Not at All to “10” representing “Fully demonstrate,” how would you assess yourself?
Which, if any of the qualities, would you need to develop?
What’s an action or actions you could take to move higher up the continuum?
Connect with Lorraine
Lorraine on LinkedIn
Lorraine’s work
• Assur
In Shifting, educators and leadership experts Kirsten Richert, Jeff Ikler and Margaret Zacchei empower educational change leaders to proactively and coherently navigate complex change in schools to achieve the desired outcomes. Using a three-part framework—Assess, Ready,
Change leaders learn to
• Shift the emphasis in the change process from procedure to the people implementing change
• Move from an environment of “command and control” to one of leaders creating other leaders
• Reframe change as an essential shift in school culture rather than a series of episodic event
Rich with leadership insights, stories, podcasts, and hands-on activities, Shifting offers an integrated tapestry of wisdom and support for change-makers intent on meaningful collaboration in a positive, engaged workplace.