You and The Future of Work
"We need to both think and feel our way forward from a holistic head, heart and gut perspective.”
Lead Into the Future Today (LIFT) is brought to you by Louise Mowbray of Mowbray by Design, the creative Conscious Leadership Consultancy. If you’re reading this and haven’t yet subscribed, you can do so here:
I’ve been actively tracking the abundance of shock-media around the massive changes ‘The Future of Work’ will bring and there seem to be three very human reactions to this:
The first is to ignore it and hope it goes away.
The second is to wait until it becomes a personal threat.
The third is to ponder the impact on self, family, friends, team and beyond.
There are those too who are taking positive action to prepare themselves for the future and I really appreciate your insights and observations. Thank you!
I believe it’s time to take the ‘shock’ out of our exploration into the future of anything. We have all dined spectacularly well on media-driven fear-mongering and it’s just not helpful.
Truth be told, the future doesn’t exist. It’s a construct and we have way more agency over what’s to come than we might realise. Future chapters are not yet written and we will all play our part in creating what will be. The question is, are we actively driving the future we desire or are we being accidental tourists?
Saying this, we do need to get way more curious about what’s on the horizon and hone our personal skills and thinking to refine how we do what we do.
As leaders at all levels, we’re (hopefully) well-schooled in what it takes to lead into the future, today. Over recent years we’ve all been hearing and learning about what it means to be conscious, empathetic, intuitive, emotionally agile leaders who are able to bring our ‘whole selves’ to work.
As the Managing Partner in a legal firm I work with recently said in a presentation to the firm’s Partners:
“It’s time to get out of your heads and into your hearts. We know that AI can/will deliver many of the rules-based tasks the legal and other professions perform and we must serve all of our stakeholders better. We need to both think and feel our way forward from a holistic head, heart and gut perspective.”
Leading with our head, heart and gut…
So how do we lead with our heads and our hearts and learn to trust our gut instinct? Interestingly, the human heart has a heart-brain composed of about 40,000 neurons that can sense, feel, learn and remember, making it innately intelligent.
Your gut produces about 90% of your serotonin, a brain neurotransmitter also known as the ‘happy hormone’?
When we understand that the heart and the gut play a direct part in our intelligence, awareness and ability to be resilient and creative, we’re able to develop ourselves better and lean-in to showing up with our whole selves.
There are some great behavioural science tools from Lumina Learning, which are designed to give you clarity on how you’re doing right now and any areas that might need development. If you would like to explore this for yourself and/or your team, send me a mail and we’ll arrange a time for a conversation.
Q: I would love to hear your thoughts on The Future of Work what it means to lead into the future. What is and isn’t working for you, your team and your stakeholders?
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Until next time, take good care of yourself.
Best, Louise