The voice of Dorian Baroni
Dorian Baroni is an executive coach and a leadership team advisor. She is also the founder of Women Agents of Change
Interview by Cécile Masson, Coach host and writer of Rose, letters of love to life was held on the 9th of April in English https://studio.youtube.com/video/FcK-dHtLa3k/edit
The essence of the exchange
Imagine all the people…
I resource myself with a number of tiny practices to help me consider what are possibilities, the bigger, larger possibilities that intellectually and emotionally draw me forward into optimism. And then what are the pragmatic smallest next steps I can take whether it is just taking 60 seconds to breathe, whether it is writing an e-mail to a friend who I haven’t heard from a long time just to feel the connection, or taking a walk, applying some self compassion, or whatever else it might take.
Self-compassion?
This idea and practise (based on the great work of Kristin Neff and Nelisha Wickremasinghe) is to remind ourselves that we must care for ourselves and acknowledge that the joy, the pain, the hurt, whatever may show up, is natural, it’s occurring … So not to try to ignore it, but if it hurts, just give ourselves a little hug, metaphorically, and say: ‘it’s OK, it does hurt, this is not easy.’ Let us remind ourselves that this a sign of our common humanity, that there are others who are probably feeling this way in this moment and that we are not alone, whether we feel lonely or not, we are definitely not alone.
In a plane, in case of turbulence you put on your own oxygen mask first, in order to help others and this is very much the case with leadership. It is not self indulgent to grow our capacity for resilience, because it is that very capacity for resilience that is a generous gift to others. So yes, a little indulgence perhaps in the moment, but it has positive ramifications for everyone else as well.
I think that one of the gifts that is most prevalent in my mind right now in these days is the quadrated leadership model that is at the heart of the Coming Into Your Own programmes as well as so many other cutting edge leadership programmes. For me the four archetypes, the Sovereign, Warrior, Lover and Magician are examples of how to, in your day to day and in your person, manage polarities …
Sustainable, systemic solutions are never coming out of one polarity, it’s always an AND … that invites us into a model of wholeness … and the question is how can we embrace the full mature range of each archetype in ourselves.
It starts with the sort of the inner acknowledgement that any one reaction to the current level of crisis is a natural, well-meaning reaction. Then to invite a dialog in oneself and with others to help everyone to bring their truth to the table and see how to step up out of reaction and into creativity bringing the best of our various lenses, our various propositions to the issue at hand.
I think the world of work will change dramatically. Everyone has experienced the power of being able, if they their work allows for it, to work remotely and they don’t have to live in particular urban centres and drive to work or commute to work. They actually can leverage this new technology that is available to us … But it also reminds us that there are essential jobs and industries in urban settings and beyond, where people don’t have the luxury of working remotely from home. And these roles are critical to the survival of our civilizations, as we know them and they’re often the most underpaid and undervalued sectors of our society. So I think that it is becoming so blatantly clear to all of the rest of us who have the luxury of locking down at home, that grocery store clerks and nurses and bus drivers and truck drivers and farmers and people who manufacture the goods we need or the food we eat, they are not sitting at home, working remotely. They actually are the core, a foundational essential base of activities and sectors of work that we rely on every day without even noticing it. So I think that there has to be a way that this type of essential work might need to be reorganised and the value of that work needs to be re-imagined.
My last words… Questions more likely
How can you stay curious?
How can you stay hopeful?
How can you let go of old answers?
Trust that each of us will find our ease, our clarity and our knowhow in these times of change. We have been here (historical times of pandemics or wars or natural disasters) before and found our way.