Three Ways Being A Conscious Capitalist Helps Elevate The Leadership Mind From Egocentric To Unitive
Greetings *|FNAME|*,
At the beginning of each year, I create a vision board and identify the one concept that defines my business focus. In the face of a changing political situation, I have identified hope as my word for 2025.
Through much time spent reading, thinking, learning, and planning, during the holidays I came across an intriguing term I am currently exploring called conscious capitalism. It's a philosophical approach to how we do business that calls us to address societal challenges through the medium of our work. It's rooted in the 1960's corporate social responsibility movement. This three-part idea has really re-emerged during the past 15 years, and been proven through research to lead to higher profits.
We all face a P&L reality that maximizes profits while minimizing risk to drive bottom-line value. But there is also something called the "Double Bottom Line," or 2BL, which examines a business' level of social impact in congruence with financial performance. An effective conscious capitalist approach aligns Social and Economic Equality, Sustainability, and Social Cohesion, to revenues and expenses to identify short-term incongruence to long-term strategies. Here are some questions for consideration from the Harvard Well-Being Assessment, Bamboo HR KPI Test, and Kaufman's Ideal Vision to relate against your organization's current financial performance:
- Are my employees thriving?
- Do my employees live in positive, safe, and satisfying environments?
- What are our Employee Net Promoter Scores?
- What are our employee turnover rates and average longevity of employment?
- What contributes to employee decreased productivity, tardiness or absenteeism, personality or behavior changes, and lower quality of work?
- Do our employees trust their manager, the C-Suite, or even CEO leadership?
When there is strong social cohesion individuals in your organization feel a sense of belonging, trust, and shared values. The fragmentation in our community points to a very sick society. But do not be daunted. Small contributions through our business activities might initially seem to be minor in the whole scheme of things, but these kinds of proactive leadership go viral. We're tough, we're resilient, we work hard, and we believe in what we do. So that shines through because leadership leads the way.
Through extensive research and integration of theory, Leadership Circle developed a Universal Model of Leadership. It is comprised of tasks and relationships described between five domains (relating, self-awareness, authenticity, systems awareness, and achieving), 18 creative leadership behaviors, and 11 non-appealing leadership traits. This helpful model can help you identify where leaders fall on a five-part leadership mind scale, and target opportunities for their growth:
- Egocentric Mind: Leaders focused on immediate impacts, close to home.
- Reactive Mind: Leaders who structure impacts in a comparative way.
- Creative Mind: Leaders who draw insights from all available sources.
- Integral Mind: Leaders who value sustainability and the long-term common good.
- Unitive Mind: Leaders who are driven by vision and congruence.
Employees look forward to working under leaders who perform further down the scale to unitive, because there is ready evidence they are valued and appreciated. These employees know that they are part of something greater than themselves, which has external spiritual, professional, familial, and social implications. Dare I say, that kind of company feels kind. And such a company attracts employees or contractors who are like-minded, and who appreciate this thoroughly thoughtful approach.
But this kind of conscious capitalist intentionality takes time, and likely more time than many business leaders prefer. A native American principle encourages us to plan and prepare for seven generations going forward. And my former business coach hammered me – gently – for years, to get more done with less. So, why would you want to become a conscious capitalist? Because scarcity is a human condition, and a reality businesses face each day. That is especially true when it comes to the market of talent.
Ask yourself whether you prefer to have 30 decent employees who are constantly coming and going, 20 good employees who periodically turn over, or 10 rockstars who you can rely on when you face real adversity? There is no one-size-fits-all answer, because each organization is different – so the key is knowing what will best suit your vision for the future. But if you are seeking success measured by legacy impact, rather than calendar period, your organization should shore up its best investment: the people.
Consciously yours,
Sue
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