About the Eight Pillars

The Praxis Leadership Academy is based upon 8 Pillars of Success proven to be needed in today’s social and business climates:

  1. Authenticity
  2. Consciousness
  3. Emotional & Social Intelligence
  4. Mindfulness
  5. Resilience
  6. Systems
  7. Vision
  8. Engagement

The word “Praxis” means to bring “IDEA’S into ACTION”, and that’s exactly what we’ll learn how to do throughout this series of highly interactive workshops.

First, this work will clear away the existing questions and doubts we all have as early stage leaders around embracing our strengths, as well as looking at what we normally call “weaknesses,” which are actually just an opportunities to be mindful and grow from the inside out.

Second, we create a safe and creative environment for up and coming leaders to fully embrace their personal mission, vision, and values as they continually clear old beliefs and build their ability to recognize the value of being mindful around emotional and social intelligence. Once we recognize the value of leaders being able to engage on both a personal and team level, you’ll begin to see big shifts and widespread influence. We’ll also learn the importance of being resilient in the workplace as challenging moments arise that could easily prompt leaders to fall back into old habits and ways of being that aren’t of service.

Next, we’ll learn to motivate a group of people to take conscious action through coaching and by nurturing up and coming leaders from a mentor mentality, rather than the old command and control paradigm.

Here is some information about how the “8 Pillars of Leadership Success” will be included in the workshops.

AUTHENTICITY

This day in age, people can easily smell when someone isn’t being honest, real, and totally in integrity. The more transparent you can be, the quicker you’ll be able to lead from a place of trust. The new way of doing business and leading is to support others to succeed in whatever they’re doing. It’s more than a win/win for companies, teams, and leaders, because it builds a deep level of trust and commitment, which is necessary when growing an organization and bringing your work or message to a larger audience. Being an authentic and conscious leader will become a way of life, one that brings success on all levels, because you truly walk your talk.

CONSCIOUSNESS

There’s a deep need in the world right now for all of us to bring more awareness to our actions. Not just the “woo-woo” consciousness, I’m talking about practical and pragmatic awareness of each and every moment, as well as how your behavior impacts those around you. The more conscious you can be, the more directly you’ll begin to see the affect on your life and the lives of those around you. Simply put, consciousness is about “being here now,” and we’ll learn how exactly to do that, every moment of every day, no matter what.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE and SOCIAL INTELLIGNCE

Out of the top 10 things employers and HR execs are looking for, eight revolve around emotional and social intelligence. The other two are skill and IQ, both of which are a given (and IQs don’t change over time). Your EQ (Emotion Quotient), also known as “Emotional Intelligence,” continues to expand and grow for the rest of your life, IF you put effort into understanding how to lead from your mind/body awareness, values, emotion, and spirit. Your “Social Intelligence” skills can also be expanded as you become aware of your direct impact as a leader. The days of command and control leadership are quickly coming to an end, and you really don’t want to be left behind.

MINDFULNESS

Mindfulness is about combining the first three pillars of focus and becoming unconsciously competent at them. Becoming mindful of your thoughts, actions, reactions, words, lack of words, and ego, developing compassion towards others, and having the ability to be honest and authentic from a clear perspective. It brings together so many skills and allows them to become an integrated part of who you are, as opposed to who you think you should be. We’re all unique and different as individuals and leaders, and mindfulness allows us to be all we can be with the least amount of pain or effort.

RESILIENCE

The truth is, we’re not always going to win. We’re not always going to do the right thing or make the right call. We’re not going to be the perfect leader all the time. We’ll mess up, fall on our faces, and fail. At some point in our lives, we’re even going to experience massive failure, because it’s what happens along the way to successes and wins. And being ready to face it is essential to your growth as a leader. Not from a pessimistic perspective, but from an honest and pragmatic sense of reality. How you deal with those failures is actually more important than how you deal with success. Your response to chaos and trouble and what you do with those missteps speaks volumes to the people you’re leading. As a leader, everyone is watching you, taking your lead whether you realize it or not. You can either motivate your team to be more and pull each other up by the bootstraps, or you can drive them into fear based defensives, playing games of victim and blame, and leading to micromanaging and control with no responsibility for their actions. Having the ability to bounce back with “resilience” is a key skill to have as a leader in any situation that comes your way!

SYSTEMS

Becoming conscious of the existing “systems” and how we look at them is a huge part of strong and successful leadership. Leaders who can create the proper channels of communication, conscious controls and procedures, and a plan for how to deal with chaos when it occurs are a step ahead of the crowd.

We find that when we look consciously at what already exists, we can use the stress points in dysfunctional or poor systems (which are being continually passed on to new people) to create speedy changes. This is application of the Law of Dissipative Structures for which Ilya Prigogine won a Nobel Prize in 1977. The amount of change that takes place in the human mind is directly proportional to the emotional content of the experience. This is why nearly all major changes in the workplace come from high emotional content situations our mind defines as crisis. Crisis is nothing more than a situation creating fear-based emotional content, and we’ll spend time learning how to identify specific points of focus to bring the hidden issue to the surface for resolution.

VISION

Having the foresight and vision to identify what you stand for as a leader, as well as how you can magnify and strengthen those guiding principles, will help solidify the big “why” behind what you do.  What do you want your legacy to be from your time as a Leader? How do you want to be remembered by those that you lead? Who are you now and who will you be as a Leader as time goes on?  What’s the timeline of your Mission, Vision, Values, and Goals? Can you inspire others to take conscious action? We’ll explore the true meaning of Leadership in the mindfulness of the moment, while embracing the past, present, and future of conscious creation.

ENGAGEMENT

This is the culmination of ALL the skills we’ll have explored, discovered and learned in this series of workshops. Now that you know who you are as a leader and the vision of what you want to create… we have to ask ourselves: can I move myself, my team, my company, or even my tribe into action?  We’ll explore the art of conscious influence and how to stand up and deliver a heartfelt message that motivates others to move forward with conscious action, passion, and purpose. For those that already feel comfortable with public speaking, they’ll take it to a whole new level of presence and influence. And for those who aren’t comfortable with public speaking yet, they’ll learn to feel at ease delivering their message in any setting. You’ll be amazed by the shifts and changes you experience from learning these conscious engagement techniques and skills when they come from the heart.

The Praxis Leadership Academy is truly life changing and empowering on more levels that just leadership. The skills learned will change the way that you look at the world and how the world looks at you.  Be prepared to enter the arena of Leadership and emerge as a true agent of change. All while carrying a new toolbox loaded with skills you’ll have for the rest of your life.

join 

I look forward to working with you.

Skip Lackey
Founder and CEO
MyChiefWellnessOfficer.com
Home of The Praxis Leadership Academy