Leadership: learning to unmask as a core skill to find your power

We can learn a lot about how we act as leaders in life, by being aware of how people who come into our lives might be role models for us, or that they influence our thinking in some way. Each person of any significance whom you encounter in your life, can help you learn something from your  experience.

J. Krishnamurti, a well-known philosopher, notes that I can only really know myself in the context of a relationship with another person. All of life is played out in relationship. That is why I must study my behavior in daily life, and observe how I truly am by learning from the examples and feedback of others, rather than clinging to an image of how I wish to be.

A good friend, or even better a mentor or colleague whom you trust at work, can tell you better than anyone what your mask is, what eccentricities or unhelpful behaviors they observe, and also what your unique qualities are. If you dare to ask. Your friend/mentor/colleague has no interest in catering to your ego. A true friend would rather help you take off your mask and take on other, more helpful roles as a leader in life.

We may try to keep the mask on, to play out a role or 'act' in a way that aims to protect the greater glory of "me", the self we wish to see ourselves as. This is not a useful exercise because in fact you then resist any feedback you are getting. It doesn't mean you have to agree with others, or think it's so wonderful to hear what you just heard. But your friend/mentor/colleague can see right through you, and usually has something valuable to say. The bigger one's ego, the less tolerant we are for feedback and the more resistant to learning. Watch people around you, how they respond to feedback -- you might be doing the same thing.

Naturally, you can't be expected to see dropping the mask as an experience that you will be  grateful to learn from immediately, or in advance. But if you can find a way of looking at the symbolic meaning of your role, your mask, your way of reacting to things, you will be better prepared to flow through the inevitable changes and challenges in your life.

If you are not ready to ask for help from others around you, you can learn a lot about yourself as a leader, by going back to some archetypical or mythical figures in ancient stories, for example by philosophers like Plato. In the 10th and final book of The Republic, Plato relates the Myth of Er. The story tells of a Greek soldier named Er who is left for dead on the battlefield. Twelve days later he awakens on his own funeral pyre, and later tells a remarkable tale of what he observed while he was suspended between life and death.

Er found himself in a kind of way station between heaven and earth where souls were passing from one plane to the other. Dead souls were waiting to be judged and assigned to their reward or punishment, while other souls prepared for their journey to earth. Some were old souls returning for another go-round; others were freshly minted and awaiting their first life on Earth. At one point the waiting souls are presented with many possible life scenarios, and are advised to choose from these "samples of lives." 

Plato informs us that "there were many more lives than the souls present, and they were of all sorts. There were lives of every animal and of man in every condition," including tyrants.

Before entering life on the Earth plane, however, the souls were led to the plain of Forgetfulness, a barren waste with no vegetation, where they were required to drink from the river of Unmindfulness. They then promptly forgot everything that had just happened to them. The reason should be obvious: if you know in advance exactly what's going to happen in your life, you would have great difficulty making decisions or taking actions that are intended to teach you something, often through painful experiences. You might naturally be reluctant to begin a relationship with someone who you knew would hurt you, even though you needed to learn a valuable lesson from that person.

Whether we take this myth literally or simply as a teaching device of Plato's, we can use it to gain a higher perspective on how we lead our life. If you think of your life as a process in which to learn your life's lessons, then what formerly seemed like arbitrary, cruel or even absurd conditions can be seen in another light. They are part of the roadmap that you can (subconsciously or consciously) follow in order to reach another plane of existence, one where you can take more leadership and make better decisions rather than being driven quite so much by unconscious behavior and ego.

If this resonates with you, you might explore the roles you play out as a leader, by taking a 'bird's eye view' of your life, and asking yourself, what people came into your life and helped you realize an important lesson about leadership? What role(s) do you tend to attract to you or play out without realizing it? For example, sometimes we choose to remain in defense mode, or in victim mode for a long time. What if we could choose to leave that role? What is the result? What role models might you have who did this?

It is essential to keep asking these kinds of questions to motivate yourself from your deepest core, so you have the energy to transform in the direction you feel you need to go in your life. Asking the question and being open to feedback is more important than having the 'right' answer, or even any answer. At the end of the day, the final answer is not something anyone else can tell you. It is for you to discover if you dare to take of the mask to see what's there It what makes life rich.

Questions might include:

What is most unique about me? How often do I share that uniqueness with others? What fears keep me from doing it more often? How might sharing what is uniquely powerful and talented inside me benefit others? (this does not have to be something that keeps everyone happy, nor does it have to be nice and pretty all the time, it could be a talent that is like a catalyst or change agent, a revolutionary or a 'mad' inventor... they all have a valuable role to play in our society!).

You could also look at the things that have revitalized you in your life in the past. You got more energy and sense of vitality from these because they were positive for you. What might you now learn from these experiences from the past, bringing this into your present and immediate future life? How does it call on your sense of leadership to bring more of that into your life? How will you make the changes?

I often ask the people I coach, to write a piece about how they would like to change. Writing it down makes it so much clearer; it will give you important insights about what you need to do.

I believe you have all the wisdom inside you already to achieve this and you are on the right path. Enjoy the process.