Conscious Leadership: Balancing Success and Kindness

Often, in the game of business, results are the points by which everything is measured. Success relies on extraordinary results. But that doesn’t mean your personal values should ever be sacrificed to meet these goals. Today’s guest is an expert at taking a nuanced and informed perspective and applying it so that both professional and personal values are honored in the workplace.

In This Episode

• What the conscious leadership model is in practice [2:10]
• Realizing the importance of our actions through a cosmic lens [6:40]
• Where to find inspiration for building intrinsic motivation [12:02]
• Avoiding a culture of entitlement in your company [15:25]
• Pausing and reflecting on our natural impulses in the workplace [21:00]
• How to build emotional competence based on cooperation [26:55]
• The role of ritual inside a company culture [35:17]

About Matt MacInnis

Matt is Chief Operating Officer at Rippling where he oversees business operations. From 2009 to 2018, he was the co-founder and CEO of Inkling, a mobile learning platform that provides on-the-job training for companies including MacDonald’s and Whole Foods. Inkling was named one of Fast Company’s most innovative companies and raised over $100 million in funding before being acquired in 2018. Before Inkling, Matt spent eight years at Apple, growing the use of its products in education and the sciences. He holds an Electrical and Computer Engineering degree from Harvard.

Building a Conscious Business

At 15Five, we are big followers of conscious business. The work we do shapes our lives and experience. That’s why work can be the place where we become our best selves. Intentionally building a company where someone can become a happier, healthier, more fulfilled and competent version of themself is not only possible, but a necessary element.

Finding Cosmic Inspiration to Value Human Performance

Being a conscious business means taking a one hundred thousand light-year view of everything. When you view yourself as just a speck of dust in the universe, it’s easy to become nihilistic. That’s not the point. Instead, the cosmos is a place for inspiration. Building a company that’s informed and inspired by the wonder and awe of life, we can raise the bar on what performance actually is. 

This creates an environment in which emotions are valued and respected. Too often, we are taught to repress the way we really feel. Emotion is our intuition. When we are allowed to consciously feel our feelings and analyze them, we’ll become more informed and resilient.

Quotes

“You go to work every day as a means by which to express your values. In other words, work is not a means to an end.” [5:32]

“Do you think that LeBron James takes his work less seriously because he understands that it’s a game? Of course not. The game is his game and the game of business is my game.” [14:37]

“Do not confuse the things that you wish were true with the things that are because nothing you say is going to change the not true things into true things.” [42:22]

Key Takeaways

1. Emotional competence is a strength at work. Intentionally building it into a company culture involves holding ourselves and others accountable while still offering needed support. This can be fostered through the use of ritual in the workplace.

2. Kindness has a place even in the most high-stakes business settings. You can be direct, candid, and demanding while still being kind and caring for your people.

Links & Resources

Rippling

Conscious Business by Fred Kofman

The Conscious Leadership Group

The Big Picture by Sean Carroll

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