Authenticity & Spiritual Intelligence
Authenticity and spiritual intelligence are co-related…
Authenticity and Spiritual Intelligence are co-related. Being an authentic leader is an art to be mastered over the lift time. In becoming authentic, it is the same as spiritual awakening and development. The more authentic you become, the higher your spiritual intelligence is.
Yet authenticity is not a concept that can be explained in one sentence or even a book. However, it can be felt and understood through stories. From these stories, you can relate to, resonate with, disagree with or even by inspired by, based on your own values and your life experiences to date.
I will share a couple of stories to illustrate the co-relation between authenticity and spiritual intelligence.
Recently, I watched an interview with the Dalai Lama. The interviewer mentioned that the Dalai Lama once said that he would be open to a female successor and that female must be attractive; otherwise, there is no much use. This remark is naturally controversial.
How you respond to his remark is a reflection of your level of authenticity and spiritual intelligence. Some may get upset by his comment; others would not. Now bearing in mind that English is not his mother tongue. So, those who would take no offence by his remark is because they understand the essence of his message.
The Dalai Lama has simply pointed out the very human nature, that is: we all like seeing beautiful things (e.g. people, babies, puppies etc) because they please our eyes as well as our other senses. Naturally, the female successor has to be attractive from the outside to get people’s attention first. She also has to be beautiful from the inside. In order to channel the inner wisdom from the inside and influence people, she has to be authentic.
Here is another story about a female meditation instructor. She is beautiful to look at, sounds beautiful and intelligent and walks gracefully. As a whole, she looks like a Goddess. And she wants to help people to enjoy love and intimacy and create a trustful life partnership. So she decides to design and facilitate workshops on love and intimacy. The workshops have gone really well and people have been inspired one way or another.
However, a controversial fact about her has come to light. It turns out that while she is preaching all the good practices for love, intimacy and sacred relationships, she is having a love affair with a married man.
Now let’s see how people with different SQ level may respond after discovering this controversy. Say, we scale SQ from 1.0 to 10.0, where 1.0 being the most basic and 10.0 being the most advanced. (SQ = Spiritual Intelligence)
SQ 1.0 – 2.0 people may respond in two opposite ways. One may say that “She is such a beautiful soul and a Goddess. I was so inspired by her workshop. There is no way that she would do such thing. This must be a fake news.” Denial?
The other may say that “She is beautiful from the outside but a hypocrite. How could she do such thing? I feel cheated.” Judgmental?
SQ3.0 – 4.0 people may say that “She is definitely beautiful and her workshop content was useful. Oh well, she is also a human. No one is perfect.” Trying to be indifference or objective?
SQ5.0-6.0 people may say that “Her workshop content was good. I guess she was trying to help herself by helping others. However, I now have questions about her credibility and integrity.” Now the value system is in spotlight.
SQ7.0-8.0 people may say that “Her work was good. I did find the content alone very useful. Credit to her for making such effort. However, I must admit that I did feel a disconnection somewhere but could not quite put my finger on it. It was as if some depth was missing. Now I know why.” The lack of depth is being picked up.
Guess what, SQ9.0 – 10.0 people probably have nothing to say. In fact, it is most likely that they would not have been drawn to her or her workshop in the first place. This is because they are the most discerning and can only be drawn by authenticity.
So why the differences? It really is just the reflection of our own life experiences and conditions at the given time. We all progress at different timelines.
As we become more authentic, we are raising our own spiritual intelligence. With the higher SQ, we develop the deeper self-awareness of our own values – who we are, what we believe in, what we stand for and what is the right thing to do (for the right reasons and even at the right time).
Whether you are in the corporate world (as CEO or COO of a company) or the spiritual world (as a Tai Chi teacher or Reiki master teacher) or in both worlds, being authentic is what sets you apart from the others.
It is important to understand and own our significant presence, our power of influence and the impact of our influence. This can only be channelled from our very core, the inner beauty and the inner universe when we are being authentic.
It is even more important to make “being authentic” a lifelong commitment - walk the talk; practice what we preach; not 40% of the time, nor 70%, nor 99.9% but 100% of the time at least. Who we are is how we lead.
I will leave you with one of my favourite quotes, by Lao Zhi from Dao Te Ching:
To know others is intelligence
To know oneself is true wisdom
To master others is strength
To master oneself is true power
Author: Stephanie Luo
Mindfulness - a key to Leadership Development
Mindfulness is a useful tool and good starting point for you to get to know yourself and to master yourself.
Mindfulness is "being present". It is the process of what is happening within us and around us moment by moment. In essence, it is a "Mind Management" process - centering ourselves, allowing our mind to filter out the clutters and becoming more focus.
This is a leadership skill that must be mastered over time. You may wonder how would you know that you have mastered such fine art. One obvious telltale is to find that people follow you as a leader because of who you are and what you represent. It is a powerful position to be in - and such wisdom has already been told by Lao Zhi over 5000+ years ago:
To know the others is intelligence;
To know yourself is true wisdom;
To master the others is strength;
To master yourself is true power.
The concept of “emotional intelligence” was first introduced and articulated towards the end of 20th century. EQ became the buzz word for talent and leadership development. However, in 21st century, EQ is just the entry level of leadership development. We are now looking further into the individual leader’s “cultural intelligence” and “spiritual intelligence”. Ultimately, the world starts with “I” and “my perceptions” and then “how I relate to the others”. In the end, it becomes “One” and the “Oneness”.
In the corporate world, the “Oneness” is all about the team – my team, your team and our team etc. In other words, it is a simple math – that when each team member knows himself or herself well and able to master himself or herself, you have a powerful and high performing team.
Mindfulness is a useful tool and good starting point for you to get to know yourself and to master yourself. As you make it a part of your life journey, you will begin to identify and embrace each present moment of enjoyment (whether you are in a crowd or alone).
Another simple mathematic formula – when you are enjoying every present moment, you are creating and fulfilling a life journey that is filled with content, gratitude and happiness.
Contributor: Stephanie Luo
The Physical Me is Materialised Spirit
When we establish a firm mind-body-spirit connection, it means that we have a healthy and balanced lifestyle and living in higher consciousness. After all, “the Physical me is Materialised Spirit.”
“The Physical me is Materialised Spirit.”
This is such a profound and yet inspiring statement. The more I contemplate on the essence of this statement, the more inspiration and wisdom I gain from it.
There is an uprising of people whose purposes and missions in life are ultimately to raise our connection with the beauty of living in higher consciousness. In pursuing such life purposes, they are drawn and open to an array of modalities to enhance and maintain a healthy mind-body-spirit connection. These modalities include mindfulness, meditation, yoga, kinesiology, reiki, craniosacral work and sound healing, etc.
Sounds very “new age”, doesn’t it? One may even assume that these people are very detached from the materialistic corporate world or even loath the capitalism. If you firmly believe so, then you are in for a surprise.
It has become prominent for us to meet more of these people in the so-called materialistic corporate world (like investment banks and global corporates etc.) and many of them are holding the senior executive positions. It is a lifestyle choice - whereby we strive to maintain a healthy mind-body-spirit connection. That way, we are able to maintain the work-life balance and to fulfil our potentials at the highest.
Many of these senior executives are the leaders with high emotional intelligence (EQ) and spiritual intelligence (SQ). People who are of high spiritual intelligence radiate integrity, wisdom, compassion, courage, selflessness and inspiration. They are the agents of changes.
In the corporate world, they are likely the ones raising the awareness and introducing different mindset for the better. It is evident that a growing number of corporates are engaging in the community services because it is the right thing to do (instead of a good PR strategy). We are also seeing more and more corporates incorporating the equality and diversity practice, so that they are able to attract and retain talents.
In the banking and finance world where I came from, I am seeing the trend that the senior leaders (driven by their strong values) are utilising the extensive corporate connection and their own power of influence to create the positive shift – be it in their employees, in the underprivileged community, in the environment etc. In short, it is erroneous to continue looking at a business as a money-making machine. Instead, a business is a living entity.
As the Dalai Lama has said in his book “The Leader’s Way”, “the true value of a business is not the sum of its facilities and its employees and its financial resources: The value resides in the relationships between the people within it and with the many stakeholders outside the organisation.”
The corporate world is a grounding environment for us to develop multiple intelligences as well as to cultivate our spirituality. Naturally, the modalities like meditation, reiki and craniosacral work are becoming popular and regularly subscribed to. These modalities are useful tools for us to access our own resources from within.
When we establish a firm mind-body-spirit connection, it means that we have a healthy and balanced lifestyle and living in higher consciousness. After all, “the Physical me is Materialised Spirit.” So, ask yourself this question (or simply ponder on it) - How intelligent and sophisticated is my Materialised Spirit?
Contributor: Stephanie Luo
A good book to read:
The Leader’s Way, by His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Laurens Van Den Muyzenberg.
Can global capital markets become catalysts for social change? According to investment expert Audrey Choi, individuals own almost half of all global capital, giving them (us!) the power to make a difference by investing in companies that champion social values and sustainability. "We have more opportunity today than ever before to make choices," she says.