What would you attempt to do if you knew you were valued for your whole self? Not just your intelligence, the honors you have received, your hard work, the results you’ve achieved, or even your pleasant personality and good looks?

This question beckons us to live our lives fully, wholly, with courage and compassion, whether it’s in a boardroom or your living room, in a community room or a courtroom. 

Whole person leadership is about all of you: your mind AND your heart; your thoughts AND your instincts. The concepts and ideas about this way of leading are relatively simple to understand, but not necessarily easy to incorporate in our everyday, whirlwind and demanding lives.  So, in this introductory missive, I’m going to describe several concepts, give a few personal examples and then ask questions.  I’d love to hear your reactions to what I’ve written, your answers to the questions and your own personal experiences. I imagine a rich dialogue taking place.

Let’s begin…. when you lead in this way—as a Whole Person—you lead from your center with backbone and heart.  This style of leadership invites you to join the journey to become a whole person leader:

Whole Person Leadership is grounded in one’s character, commitment and collaboration, first within ourselves and then with others.  It leverages individual gifts and talents to bolster personal and professional leadership by using all our skills, intelligences and aspects to produce sustainable results at the individual, interpersonal and institutional levels.  Whole Person Leadership then becomes a thread running through the entire gamut of work, family, community and life!

Since I was young, I have wondered, “Are leaders born or is leadership something that can be learned?” As I looked around (in the ‘60s and ‘70s) at the leaders in this country—be they politicians, actors, heads of companies— I wondered even more about who is a leader because the vast majority of leaders I saw on television, read about in school, and learned about in church, did not look like me but rather were mostly male and white.

Today more than ever Asian Pacific American (“APA”) women are taking on high -powered jobs traditionally held by men.   In fact, a greater percentage of us hold professional and managerial jobs compared to any other racial group — 41.1 percent versus 38.7 percent of white women and 36.2 percent of all women—and that APA women are the highest paid females in the United States. (Source: 2000 Census.) It was at Vassar College that I gained some perspective on being an APA woman and my capabilities, similar to what these statistics reveal in today’s market. For the first time, my academic environment said: “You can do anything and twice as good as any man, so go out and do it.”  I felt valued and capable.

Nonetheless, APA women are still likely to face a subtle “bamboo ceiling,” as noted by author Jane Hyun in Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling. We face these barriers in a variety of places, be they public or private, government or not-for profit, and while most instances are not outright acts of discrimination, they can be micro-inequities that may negatively impact careers and slow down advancement. 

In law school, I realized—from an all white (and mostly male) faculty and administration that had admitted and flunked out the largest percentage of minorities in my year—that all I had learned about leadership would be put to a test.  For me, law school seemed to value solely the mind and intellectual intelligence. It reinforced being tough, hiding feelings, sucking it up, and doing what it takes to win. Other intelligences were not focused upon or deemed important. By the time I graduated, I felt as though my head was oversized and my heart was encapsulated in metal. Physical intelligence was only the stamina to go the distance and win, and there was not even a hint of the spiritual, soul or heart.  I was once asked by the Dean, “What’s behind those dark, inscrutable eyes.”

Today, APA women are misperceived as passive and quiet, and while commended for their work in the background, “behind-the-scenes” these abilities are not viewed as foreground, leadership skills and, therefore, APA women may not be recommended for more aggressive projects, which, in turn, limit their opportunity for high-visibility projects and professional advancement.  This is in part why APA women are often considered an invisible minority, which has the following consequence: Asian American women are less likely than other women of color to be in positions within three levels of the CEO, though they hold the highest levels of graduate education. (Source: 2003 Catalyst study, Advancing Asian Women in the Workplace: What Managers Need to Know.) Catalyst president, Sheila Wellington said, “There is…. the perception that Asians have not been the victim of prejudice to the same degree as African Americans or Hispanics.”  That can foster a belief that Asian Pacific American women do not require specific diversity efforts so they are often overlooked in diversity programs, fast track programs or even Women of Color initiatives. 

Yet we ARE leaders; we DO have vision; we CAN contribute in boardrooms, classrooms, communities, families and NGOS in this country, whether we have accents, fail to speak out, or are seen as passive; or, when we do speak up and are seen as too aggressive; whether we secretly compete with one another and don’t know how to support each other, or don’t feel comfortable forging social relationships with others.  We, as APA women ARE leaders with contributions to be made, voices to be heard, experiences to be shared and messages to convey.  Whole person leadership can be the foundation for APA women taking such action.

At the Center for Asian Pacific American Women (“The Center”) believe that leadership and personal development mean paying attention to developing and stretching ourselves on four different levels:  Physical (body), Mental (head), Emotional (heart), and Self (Spiritual). These four levels are closely related and affected by one another.  To lead from the CENTER we must first focus on inner development before our outer expression of that development.

It took many years and a somewhat tortuous career to begin exploring these other aspects of myself.  Eventually I left the practice of law and started consulting in diversity and cultural competency.  When I heard about spiritual psychology and enrolled in a master’s program, I began to shift my thinking about what it means to be a leader. Leadership is not just about changing institutions or working with others on an interpersonal level.  Leadership did not come from other’ beliefs or standards, but rather from within, starting with myself, and from there, radiating out to others.  Am I willing to trust my heart as much as I trust my head?  Whole person leadership is, not EITHER/OR but it is more than BOTH/AND.  It is the ability to hold, live and act from seeming paradoxical ways of being. It is about generating new ways of doing business with backbone and heart.

A recent Harvard Business Review article called this ability integrative thinking and contends that this skill—not a superior strategy or faultless execution— is the defining characteristic of most exceptional businesses and the leaders who run them. Posner and Kouzes call it exemplary leadership. We, at the Center, call it Whole Person Leadership at the individual, interpersonal and organizational levels.  We know that such leadership goes far beyond any title, position, circumstance and structure. It is a fundamental way of being. 

Whole Person Leadership is definitely a journey for me, not a destination. I have had and will continue to have my ups and downs: eating too much; thinking I’m right and trying to make the other person wrong; hiding my feelings, even from myself; and having judgments that much of spiritual discussions are about psychobabble. That’s when I’m out of balance… internally, which often shows up externally or can be triggered by some external situation.  I believe now that when we stumble, it’s about how quickly we can recover, but certainly I have not lived by that for most of my life.

I hope this helps you better understand Whole Person Leadership and how it plays a role in my life.  Now, it’s your turn.   Here are some questions I have for you:

•  What are your reactions to the above description of Whole Person Leadership? Does it resonant for you?

•  How have you seen yourself as a leader and what are your yearnings and aspirations as a leader?

•   Finally, how are you doing at the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels of your life? What do you do to stay in balance? What do you do when you get tipped over and fall into a state of imbalance? How do you recover?
 

I look forward to hearing from you and to continuing the dialogue!  Thanks so much!

This is the first post The Center for Asian Pacific American Women has published on the newly established Networking Circle Leadership Blog.  Each month The Center will invite an exemplary APA Woman leader to host a blog.  She will write under an umbrella of four topics, and in most cases will concentrate on one of them specifically.  The topics consist of the following:

Family Circle: Balancing Your Commitments

Financal Well-Being

Career Building & Transition

Leading From Your Whole Person: Physical and Mental Health, Emotional and Spiritual Support

The following are some reasons The Center has decided to commence this project.

First, with the current economic turbulence, there has been no greater time for the need to strengthen the practices and bonds of networking.  Understanding your own situation could be understanding the parts or whole of another's situation.  The stability of knowledge guest bloggers provide in this space, will help you navigate through the bumps to more solid ground.

Second, providing a long-term sustainable program for keeping APA Women connected and supported.  This is the answer to past summit participant requests for more formal networking practices.  Each month a new guest blogger will use the space to give you the opportunity to learn, engage and grow.  The blog leader will review any comments posted and respond as necessary throughout the month.  As a participant, you too will have the opportunit to give respose to comments, as well as connect with the other participants via email.

Third, this mode of social networking will make it easier for a larger group of APA Women to have access to one another, as well as having access to the perspectives of many positive role models.  By stretching our roots broad and deep in this way, The Center will help to strengthen the bonds between Asian Pacific American Women and providing a positive framework from which to work from.

Please visit regularly and comment as often as you'd like.  As the month progresses, the scope of what was originally posted will have become more clearly defined though the interactions of you all and the blog leader.

Thank you for your participation!

We look forward to a GREAT YEAR OF GROWTH!