What if work could be the place where we felt most juicy, vibrant, honorable, graceful, powerful and alive?
We are sensing the awakening of a deeper, more alive way of not only living our lives, but also leading and collaborating. As you know, these increasingly complex, unpredictable and fast-changing times require new ways of leading and doing business. We, Fanny and Pontus Grace, have spent the past decades passionately exploring and supporting the emerging digital, agile and participatory way of business, which is generally assumed to be the answer to today’s complexity. Throughout this exploration however, we are repeatedly seeing tensions and challenges emerge, such as:
- How can we have a sensitive, caring culture and gett kick-ass results?
- How can we generate a flourishing bottom line and a at the same time purposefully contribute to the world?
- How can we unleash the potential of decentralized agility and at the same time sense and understand the whole?
- How can we be data driven in the technological forefront and also human centric?
Many are beginning to understand that the key to success in the internet age lies in moving beyond the idea of tensions between opposites and into the lived synergy of polarities. In other words, transitioning from“either.. or..” to “both... and..., more”
The question is "how"?
Fannys breakthrough came when she started understanding the dynamics within Feminine and Masculine leadership. “Realizing how most polarities can be traced back to these polarity clusters, and how unleashing them, almost magically, resolves many common tensions and creates space for emergence”. In Pontus Grace an awakening happened when he realized that what he feared the most in himself was at the same time connected to a longing for inner qualities not yet integrated.
Navigating the Feminine and Masculine can be difficult. It is easy to get stuck in historical polarisation connected to gender. A core issue is a lacking understanding that there actually are polarities within the Masculine and within the Feminine; the wild Feminine and the caregiving Feminine qualities are in polarity, and so are the Masculine qualities for space holding and driving progress. The key is to realize that none of them are superior, rather, they all play crucial roles in different phases of a project or in a developmental journey. When any of the expressions is either suppressed or overly dominating, in an individual or a team, we struggle and tend to get stuck. Sounds familiar?
In our experience, the leadership practices most commonly lacking are the awakening of the wild, turned on and empowered Feminine, which sources the life force, and the honoring of the holding, listening, grounded Masculine that serves by holding space for that which is emerging. These two expressions are key to initiating and creating energized and aligned clarity during the initial phase of any adventure. When they are missing, we are left with watered-down and/or toxic expressions of both Masculine and Feminine leadership, which often is the root cause of the above-mentioned tensions and challenges. In contrast, when we succeed in unleashing all expressions in synergy, we unlock the full exquisite and fruitful human potential of creativity and co-creation.
Pontus has been supporting leaders and organizations in integrating polarities and exploring how we can lead with an understanding of emergence and complexity for more than two decades.
Apart from her consulting experience, in the past 4 years Fanny has experienced the potency of practicing the principles described above as CMO in one of the Nordics’ largest e-commerces.
In this workshop, we will share and explore fresh perspectives on how Feminine and Masculine leadership, when showing up with love, empowerment and in collaboration, can make businesses thrive in the Internet age.
