« Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. » Lao Tzu (6th – 4th century BCE).
After many years of experience leading, managing, teaching, and coaching for transformational change and flourishing in organizations and people, we have developed an innovative sustainable leadership program, that integrates evidence-based science with the most advanced flourishing, coaching, and mind cultivation practices, resulting in a sustainable increase of well-being and performance in the people we accompany.
About Sustainable Leadership
Leadership is a process of influence for directing behavior toward accomplishing goals; having an impact. Leadership is also a character strength that can be learned and developed.
Effective leaders know themselves and manage their inner states and processes. They self-motivate, self-improve, and proactively exhibit behaviors toward their aspirations, vision, intention, and goal accomplishment.
To lead others, we must be able to lead ourselves and also water the seeds of leadership in others. Sustainable leadership means influencing and directing ourselves and growing leadership in others to achieve our common transformational and flourishing growth aspirations. By developing our sustainable leadership skills, strengths and processes we determine the outcomes we produce.
Sustainable leadership is based on science. The theoretical foundations are social cognitive theory, self-determination theory, self-regulation theory, self-management, positive psychology, and ancient Buddhist psychology.
Cultivating Sustainable Leadership
Practical and informal learning accounts for 90% of the total learning of any practitioner. In addition, 90% of the knowledge that is not applied a short time after people are taught is easily lost.
For these reasons, our sustainable leadership program is accompanied by active learning in the form of self-assessment, self-reflection, developmental relationships (coaching, mentoring, and networking), and practical learning experiences (teamwork projects, teaching, and volunteering).
Some Sustainable Leadership Processes
Our Sustainable leadership program is mainly based on the following processes:
- Knowing oneself: mindset, personality, character strengths, purpose, goals, and balanced priorities.
- Recognize in oneself the power for transformational change and flourishing, and feel responsible for it (self-leadership agency),
- Cultivate the capacity for transformational change by observing and inquiring with openness and curiosity, and appreciating positive resources and inner strengths.
- Envision the ideal future with a solution-focus and act upon such a positive purpose, with intrinsic motivation and service orientation,
- Made such vision actual with self-awareness, self-knowledge, sustained self-regulation of attention, self-management, perseverance, perspective, and meaning,
- Choose what to focus on, engaging with life watering wholesome mental strengths seeds, and contacts,
- Pay attention to efficacy and effectiveness, building self-confidence and self-esteem with critical thinking, successful experiences (accomplishment), and a positive outlook.
- Sustain growth and resilience with courage and authenticity, building and broadening the mental capacity for flourishing with wholesome habits: physical exercise, good sleep, balanced nutrients, and positive emotions and relationships.
- Keep learning with agility, calibrating strategy, purpose, and actions to feedback, new challenges, and experiences.
A Case for Sustainable Leadership Development
The World Health Organization has recently identified common challenges and vulnerabilities among bachelor students: anxiety, depression, stress, relationship issues, attention and focus deficits, loneliness, procrastination, etc. The current public health crises make this languishing situation worse.
Other known issues are unresolved trauma, burnout, transition challenges, lack of motivation, lack of leadership and teamwork competency development, and lack of emotional intelligence, to name just a few.
Sustainable Leadership Program Benefits
Looking at the experiences of countries where the promotion of sustainable occupational health is mandatory, like in the UK, and recent evidence-based studies, we know today that sustainable leadership interventions, together with the practices of coaching and integrative awareness, result in improved well-being, engagement, meaning, and health, as well as higher productivity and retention rates.
Our program is unique in the integration of sustainable leadership science with the most advanced flourishing, coaching, and mind cultivation practices, resulting in a sustainable increase in well-being and performance in the organizations, people and teams we accompany.
Geneva School of Business Administration (HEG)
We have developed and currently offer a self-leadership program at the International Business Management Bachelor of the Geneva School of Business Administration (HEG).
This program enables the students to develop self-leadership competencies and processes, and cultivate personal self-leadership strengths and practices through a mix of factual, conceptual, procedural, and meta-cognitive levels of knowledge, strategies, and creative applications.
The conscious cultivation of integrative self-awareness, emotional intelligence, self-regulation, and hope strengths during a semester, results in self-confidence, optimism, resilience, and self-leadership effectiveness (self-influence and self-impact), as a pathway for self-realization and psychological flourishing of the bachelor students.
SHIFT
In what world will we live tomorrow? This question is at the heart of the SHIFT business and the reason for the SHIFT alliance.
SHIFT was born in 2020 from the encounter between Roberto Camarasa, an engineer specializing in building energy and bio-sourced materials, and Pascal Oulevay, an architect passionate about construction sustainability. Their common aspiration is the desire to act in a very concrete way for more sustainability and ecology in the construction industry.
SHIFT’s commitment materializes through a holistic service offer: the use of bio-sourced materials and renewable energies in sustainable, contemporary, elegant, and intelligent architecture.
The transition to an ethical, sustainable, and socially connected world is only possible through a profound, fully conscious, and engaged inner transformation of aspirations, beliefs, and values.
Such whole flourishing comes hand in hand with thriving, collaborative, fair, and transparent organizations, made possible thanks to creative, inclusive, and harmonious teamwork, as well as sustainaable and insightful leadership of everyone at all levels.
Gallifa & Partner LLC’s engagement with SHIFT serves and aims to manifests this vision.