Unlocking the Power of Transcendence

Keywords: Psychological wellbeing, leadership development, resilience, coaching, mental health

Author: Dr Anna-Rosa le Roux
Date: 6 August 2024, Worklife Digital

Meet our executive client, a dedicated and passionate leader who feels he's missing a crucial element in connecting with his staff. Despite his achievements, he faces the frustration of high staff turnover, disengagement, and absenteeism. Recognizing the potential link between his leadership challenges and his own psychological wellbeing, he sought our coaching to explore how self-transcendence could help him foster a more inclusive, connected, and resilient team environment.

Meet Our Client: The Executive Missing the Magic Trick

I worked with an executive yesterday that felt that he is missing a trick with his staff.

He is 55 years old, married and enjoys information security challenges. He loves implementing global strategies and taking the idea to make it practical for organisations. He is a strong implementer and well-respected in the Industry and involved in various Industry bodies.

His motto is to help people thrive. He loves working with his people to achieve goals together. He is spoken out as a keen sponsor for women's rights and holds weekly mentorship sessions for women.

The Frustration: Losing His Team

Despite his passion and dedication, he is frustrated as his staff keeps leaving. He finds himself without anyone left to implement the security strategy. An achievement-driven, successful, and keen networker, he knows something is missing. His leadership role has become challenging, with disengaged staff, quiet quitting, and absenteeism plaguing his team.

He has heard that executives become more valuable if they are managing their own well-being. He wondered if there was a link between how he embodies certain aspects of his own psychological wellbeing?

He called us up for coaching to critically reflect with him on what this journey means?

Some of his questions were:

1. How do I manage a space where people can belong?
2. How do I slow down and listen authentically to my people?
3. How do I look at diversity and give people “voice” that they feel they are respected?
4. What about in and out-groups?
5. How do I improve my own levels of resilience in a chaotic corporate environment?

A Deeper Understanding Of Purpose

Our executive client scored very low on self-transcendence, struggling to connect with others and achieving a deeper sense of purpose. Self-transcendence involves letting go of selfish desires to focus on the greater good, and it is closely tied to openness to change, a motivation to grow, and caring for others' wellbeing.

He reflected on the following questions:

1. What are other’s perspectives, values or agendas that I need to respect going forward?
2. What are valuable from these views? How can I adapt myself to fit into the bigger picture?
3. What activities that extend beyond my own interests give me purpose and align with my values?
4. How can I spend more time in nature and practice mindfulness to foster a sense of connectedness to the world around me?

Our Executive realised that self-transcendence is a lever to serve and connect authentically to others and co-create transformative goals that are both motivating and inspiring and benefiting the greater good.

Taking action

Are you perhaps also struggling with a team or people in your organisation that are not pulling their weight? Do you also feel that you are bearing the brunt of disengaged employees ?

Reflecting on well-being is worthwhile and worth the investment as you will gain from new perspectives to create a healthy self, healthy spaces and healthy relationships. Take our free Psychological Wellbeing Assessment to identify areas for growth and enhance your ability to connect with and inspire your team.

Identifying areas of psychological wellbeing that hold you back, and focusing on addressing them is key to developing a strong, healthy mindset. Our free assessment helps you identify your strengths (areas where you are an ambassador) and areas where you have room to grow. Recommended guidance also helps you to focus on and develop areas of weakness and provide insight in how to use your strengths as a leader for others.

Click here for your 15 min free assessment and diagnostic report.

WorkLife Digital is a global mental-wellbeing consultancy driven by the mission to improve the sustainability of businesses. Our psychological wellbeing tool, Worklife Quotient (WL-Q), is modelled on cutting-edge scientific research and provides organisation-wide measurement and intelligence on the mental wellbeing levels and psychological resilience of staff. WL-Q also assesses the impact of organisational practices (i.e. people and culture, leadership styles, organisational purpose and values, social impact) that have a direct influence on staff wellbeing and provides strategic recommendations on addressing risks and promoting strengths.

For more information, get in touch at anna-rosa@worklife.digital