To be effective, it is critical that leaders learn to build and sustain healthy relationships as they ply their trade. One way to accomplish this is by resolving conflicts and restoring harmony, which in turn helps others feel whole, healthy or sound. Leaders who create a shared sense of the pursuit of wholeness with others are practicing healing as a leadership attribute.

 

In this article, we will examine the leadership attribute of healing, discuss how to create a healing environment, and provide an exercise to become more effective at healing that leverages your mentoring relationship.

Healing Leadership Defined

Healing leaders are those who inspire and enable wholeness to happen by modeling vulnerability, openness, hope and caring. They are present, concerned, realistic, and truly desire to enrich others. They also have a practical impact on those whom they influence. The ability to heal one’s self and relationships with others directly impacts the following leadership domains.

 

Leadership Domains and Healing

 

Healing Model

Leaders who heal are not perfect; rather, they are in touch with their imperfections and desire personal growth. They are able to create strong emotional bonds with others due to their honest and open communications. They understand their strengths and limitations and are secure enough in their self-image to call on the assistance of others. In turn, these behaviors make it easy for others to come to them in times of personal and professional need. The Healing Model shown here illustrates how your emotional intelligence and trust in others affect your ability to bring healing to yourself and others.

 

 

Your emotional intelligence (EI) can range from low to high. EI describes the ability to perceive and manage the emotions of one’s self and others. Productive EI reflects a high level of the following (adapted from Daniel Goldman):

 

• Self-awareness – the ability to understand one’s emotions and their impacts on decision making.
• Self-management – the ability to control one's emotions and impulses, and adapt to changing circumstances.
• Social awareness – the ability to sense, understand and react to others' emotions while comprehending social networks.
• Relational management – the ability to inspire, influence and develop others while managing conflict.

 

The amount of trust in others that you have will also affect your ability to heal. A modest amount of trust in others is essential for building productive and healing relationships. If you have little to no trust in others, you are apt to display skepticism and consequently be viewed by others suspiciously. At the other extreme, if you have blind (ungrounded) trust in others, you are apt to be viewed by others as naïve.

 

Each of the three regions displayed in the model has distinct attributes that affect how productive your healing is in relation to your ability to lead others.

 

Suspicious
Leaders who appear suspicious tend to be low in EI and have little or no trust in others. These leaders may have a high level of technical or professional competency, but fall short in people skills. This shortfall of people skills typically shows up as a lack of caring for or commitment to others. Leaders who show up with high levels of competency and display very little reliance on others are treated with suspicion. These leaders also tend to have fragile egos and are not open to sharing or receiving feedback from others. When challenged, they grow defensive and caustic toward others. These leaders are often viewed as egotistical, stubborn, puffed up, unreceptive and unsympathetic.

 

Naïve
Leaders who appear naïve tend to be low in EI and have blind (ungrounded) trust in others. These leaders may be very altruistic and concerned, but lack awareness or understanding of themselves and others in social situations. This, combined with over trusting tendencies toward others, leaves them appearing naïve. Leaders who show up with lots of optimism and an ungrounded trust in others are treated passively and dismissively. These leaders can also tend to be socially awkward and oblivious of their own shortcomings and foibles. They actually have a hard time understanding the personal relevance of critical feedback or suggestions. These leaders are often viewed as inexperienced, ineffectual, raw, immature and weak.

 

Collaborative
Leaders who appear collaborative tend to be high in EI and have moderate trust in others. These leaders are in touch with their own and others’ feelings and emotions, and are able to use them as a critical filter for thinking and acting. This, combined with the ability to create trusting bonds with others, makes them a desired collaborator. Others naturally want to work for and with them because they are authentic and share openly. These leaders are open to learning how others perceive them and are constantly looking to improve their personal performance. They are ethical and grounded in their identity; they are not looking for approval or devotion from others. These leaders are often viewed as approachable, honest, open, caring, committed and genuine.

 

Developing Productive Healing

Healing is a lifelong pursuit that takes sustained and focused effort to fully live out in practice. Ideally, you will desire to learn more about yourself and others every day. With this in mind, consider the following suggestions.

 

Take Ownership for Your Feelings
Others do not make you feel anything; at best, they influence you. Our feelings come from our own thoughts, beliefs and behavior, rather than from others or from circumstances. This is a difficult reality for many to accept because it forces us to take ownership of our behavior in response to others. In this regard, it is advisable to learn to be comfortable with yourself rather than looking to others for acceptance and approval. Likewise, blaming others or circumstance for your emotional state is often counterproductive. By learning to take proper ownership of your feelings, you can better control your response to others who offend or irritate you. This also allows you to gain proper separation from the feelings of others – their feelings do not transfer to you as easily, allowing you to be more objective in emotionally tense situations.

 

Share Openly
To share openly is to learn to shed defensive posturing when communicating with others. It means sharing the negative with the positive, i.e., telling the whole story and not just the heroic parts. Leaders who are able to talk about their mistakes and the lessons they learned for them model personal vulnerability that invites honest communication. At the end of the day, leaders must make themselves real and approachable if they want others to share their concerns and hurts with them.

 

Validate Others
You validate others when you accept and seek to understand their feelings, thoughts and contributions. You invalidate them when you ignore, judge, belittle or minimize the feelings, thoughts or contributions of others. Great leaders are able to make everyone who they come in contact with feel significant and valuable. Leaders do this by recognizing individual contributions and effort, asking for thoughts and opinions, empathizing, and taking the time to listen to others.

 

Create Relational Accountability
Accountability is a fundamental tool for creating trust between people. Accountability happens when one person shares with someone else a goal, commitment or aspired behavior that they are attempting to achieve, all with the understanding that they will become answerable to the other person with regard to their progress. Great leaders work this in both directions, making themselves accountable to others and requesting accountability from others. They declare their values and objectives to others and report significant progress and setbacks to the appropriate authorities; on the flipside, they delegate projects and critical tasks to others with routine check-ins, rather than abdicating and assuming that others will complete the assignment as expected.

 

Healing is a complex skill to master, but the opportunity to grow in your healing ability is endless. Almost every day people encounter situations where they can learn more about themselves or others. Mentorship offers the ideal type of developmental relationship for working on and improving your healing skills, as well as the perfect type of relationship for creating personal accountability. Your mentoring partner can help provide guidance and developmental suggestions for improving your EI and trust bonds with others, helping make you a more effective leader.

Practice Exercise

The following exercise can help you discuss with your mentoring partner how to become more productive in healing.

1. Use the following self-evaluation to assess your ability to heal through your relationships.

Self-Evaluation
Think of the current work-oriented relationships you have. With this in mind, rate how closely you agree with the following statements.

 

Suspicious Tendencies (low score is desirable)	Low				High
I feel that I have very little trust in others.	1	2	3	4	5
I find it difficult to relate to others.	1	2	3	4	5
I get defensive when receiving feedback from others.	1	2	3	4	5

 

Naïve Tendencies (low score is desirable)	Low				High
I am too trusting of others.	1	2	3	4	5
I need approval and acceptance from others to feel comfortable.	1	2	3	4	5
I am often surprised when I get feedback from others.	1	2	3	4	5

 

Collaborative Tendencies (high score is desirable)	Low				High
I make myself accountable to others.	1	2	3	4	5
I stay in the present when I communicate with others.	1	2	3	4	5
I share openly and make myself vulnerable to others.	1	2	3	4	5

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Summary Results
Based on the results above and the understanding you have into your own behavior, which leadership tendency do you lean toward? Circle your choice.

 

Suspicious

Naïve

Collaborative

 

Give a brief explanation of your choice:

 

 

 

 

 

2. Discuss your self-evaluation results with your mentoring partner and solicit his/her perspective of your results.

3. If you have determined that you need to strengthen your healing abilities, determine what new actions you are going to take.

4. Set up a time to review your progress with your mentoring partner.

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