We all could be so much more effective... We could be so much happier at work … if only for … what?
You know these ubiquitous workplace frustrations all too well. You’ve been tolerating them for years. Ego is the primary cause. It’s the number one obstacle to workplace effectiveness and satisfaction, and it’s the source of most unhealthy conflict.
Ego is how our old, automatic and unconscious behavior patterns show up at work. It’s the ego's fears that get in the way of speaking up authentically... of truly listening, beyond preconceptions and assumptions... of seeing the larger context... of living your values. It’s ego that suppresses creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. Ego that keeps us from taking bold, intelligent risks and making difficult decisions.
For our course, we don't use the psychotherapeutic definition of ego, in which a "strong healthy ego" is a good thing. We mean "ego" in the "street" sense: "My co-worker has an enormous ego." or "My boss's ego is fragile.". This is the "ego" that wisdom traditions both east and west have concerned themselves with for millennia.
This ego is the combination of masks we wear to represent ourselves in life.
How much time and emotional energy do you waste on ego’s demands for your attention? Ego distorts what we see. Its agendas distract us from staying focused on what’s most important. Its irritations and preoccupations can be relentless.
Ego is what gets triggered when we feel reactive. It can show up as defensive or offensive. Sometimes it demands control, sometimes it contracts from responsibility. Either way, it destroys potential, ruins relationships and erodes success – mine, yours, the team’s.
It’s so deeply ingrained that it doesn’t occur to us to challenge the problem that is ego. So we continue to tolerate the elephant in every room. But there is another way...
You can access a more advanced self – with a more evolved set of motivations inside you. In this course, you will learn how to loosen the shackles of your ego and lead from that “beyond-ego” self – and help others do the same.
Whether you’re leading a company, a project team, or a group of volunteers – or you’re simply curious about how people can work together in more productive and satisfying ways – we invite you to join Leading Beyond Ego, a revolutionary nine-week online experience.
This interactive program offers a way of relating to your life and work that will help you discover higher capacities and develop stronger interpersonal connections. It will give you greater access to flexibility, flow and productivity in your daily work, and it will help lower your stress levels.
In Leading Beyond Ego, you’ll discover:
Join us for this remarkable journey into "beyond-ego" leadership.
I just really appreciate this course. It’s what I’ve been longing for, hungry for, for so long … The work is fascinating.
~ F.P.
I am truly enjoying this course! The applicability of the homework or “practices” is so enriching and I feel like every week I’m newly challenged. The exercises such as Panning for Gold, the Six Faces of Ego Survey and the Deathbed Perspective I find very useful and know I will continue to utilize these techniques beyond the course. The Q&As are great! I like having this time to process the material together and the three of you and the Q&A participants have been very supportive; I’m very grateful for this.
~A.H.
The course is well designed and organized and I am getting a lot out of the material. It is a challenging subject with a great deal of self-awareness involved and holds huge potential for personal transformation. I especially appreciate the layered approach so that it is building gradually. Grounding ourselves with stakeholder feedback so we could focus in on areas for growth was very useful. As our instructors I appreciate that you all bring your years of practice, experience, insights, personal stories/examples and full selves to the sessions. You all have such generosity and mature wisdom – individually and collectively. It is moving and powerful. I’m inspired. It is also clear that you are all continuing to work with this material yourselves and are sojourners. That really makes it rich for me.~J.P.
The course is so well done and it is such a gift to have the three of you as instructors. It has been a great experience.~ L.P.
This has been an awesome experience.~ P.B.
I have integrated your Six Faces of Ego as a lens for noticing and managing those tendencies in myself and others. I am noticing the quality of my interactions improving. I seem to have a more accurate read on dynamics with this framework and I feel I am responding to people and situations in a more attuned way. People have been asking me about this class. I asked if they wanted to hear the description of the 6 faces. It was amazing how people responded with humor but also with a palpable change in behavior in the hours after the discussion. In particular two individuals who were dominating with "already knowing” and talking incessantly almost immediately stepped back and created some space. As a result there was much more vitality in the room.~ J.P.
The most essential internal move a leader can make is the shift from leading with ego – with all its limitations, blind spots, defensiveness and drivenness – to leading beyond ego. This is the master leadership practice for our time; the path toward overcoming the #1 obstacle to meaningful success.
In this course you will discover that the perspective you lead from is a choice. Making that choice will radically enhance the quality of your leadership.
Your shift in identity from ego toward beyond ego will change how you experience yourself, others and the world. Your willingness to face everything and avoid nothing in these three domains of relationship can transform both your leadership and your life.
Your ability to lead from beyond ego is driven by one significant capacity – the quality of your awareness. This begins with self-awareness, then widens to your insightful understanding of coworkers, customers and other stakeholders, and finally expands to the larger context in which you lead.
Your beyond-ego awareness is naturally grounded and adaptive – always present, alive and responsive to whatever happens. Your awareness and the resulting quality of your presence are always in a state of flux. But when you consciously and authentically bring that beyond-ego awareness into your interactions, your coworkers know it – in your tone of voice and your body language, which transmit far more than words.
A core truth about beyond-ego leadership is that you cannot fake it. For the ego this is scary. For your deeper Self, your beyond-ego Self, authenticity is a huge relief - no more need for pretense.
In Leading Beyond Ego we focus on you – the person who is leading – your sense of identity, your core motivations, and the inner source from which they arise. This is the terrain where the perspectives of both ego and beyond ego reside.
There is no doubt, our times are calling for leaders whose humanity and perspective are large enough to accurately see the biggest possible picture and to lead from that place.
YOU when you’re at your best... when you’re fully present, available and responding to the needs of the moment. Leading beyond ego is the critical shift in perspective that precedes all others.
The skills required of you as a leader today are extraordinarily complex. You have no choice but to face into accelerating change and constant uncertainty. And yet, within uncertainty lies enormous potential. But how do you navigate when the emerging territory is unknown? Here, effective leadership requires a far more enlightened perspective, healthy and transparent motivations, and a strong, grounded vision. As a leader holding that vision, you can’t afford to let your ego lead. The motivations of the ego are self-serving and narrow. Egoic behavior is habitual and reactive – the exact opposite of the creativity, flexibility and emotional availability you need to effectively collaborate with others. Pry ego’s fingers off the steering wheel of your life and your leadership, and a new world of possibility arises. This is where we start.
It's much easier to see ego in others than in ourselves. “She’s a control freak.” “He’s afraid to speak up.” “They’re constantly bickering.”
In this session, we’ll put ego under a magnifying glass. We’ll explore the different “faces” it presents, and we’ll take a compassionate look at its universal and impersonal nature. From this more objective vantage point, we can more easily acknowledge the adverse impacts of ego – especially our own.
When you learn to keep your ego in the passenger seat, you liberate yourself from the effects of your ego – and in the process, benefit everyone around you.
There is another place from which our motivations can be sourced – a mindful way of relating to leadership and life, free from the narrow and self-serving conditioned behavior patterns of the ego.
This fresh perspective comes from a far more inclusive, more enlightened worldview. Once you learn how and then practice, you can choose to shift into this alternate perspective in any situation.
In this module, you’ll learn what it takes to consciously respond to the demands of leadership from this larger context.
The ego is a cunning shape-shifter. It takes courage, humility and wisdom to notice and challenge your own ego. In this module, we’ll dig deeper into the many ways the ego warps what we see, distorts our meaning making, skews our behavior, and undermines our relationships.
When leaders become skilled in recognizing the various faces of ego, it transforms the way they lead. It allows them to make choices that focus on doing the right things for the right reasons and less on the personal need to be right or be in control.
This shift can transform the way you experience yourself – and the way others experience you. Leading beyond ego will enhance your ability to be compassionate and feel true empathy with others.
Like it or not, our egos program us to see ourselves as the center of the universe. Our behavior is shaped by ego’s conscious and unconscious motivations. But when our perspective changes, everything changes – including our motivations. And our perspective is something we can choose to change.
We’ll discover what it takes to loosen the ego’s grip and choose conscious leadership. We’ll actively practice shifting our perspective in different workplace situations to reveal the emergent possibilities obscured by ego. This helps us to more accurately choose the “right thing to do.”
Leadership – like life – is all about relationships. But frustration and unresolved conflict can infect your interactions. Relationships are too often distorted by ego – by fear, anger, or defensiveness. Ego's need for control can lead to either dominant, avoidant, or passive-aggressive behavior.
These are all expressions of the ego’s limited perspective and compensatory behavior. But the depth of our listening and the quality of our beyond-ego intention and presence can change the conversation.
Imagine challenging relationships vibrating with possibility and inspiration. Imagine rebuilding trust and acting from shared purpose rather than self-protection or self-promotion. In these ways beyond-ego relationships become innovative, collaborative and powerful.
In Module 6, we’ll practice essential skills that create and sustain relationships beyond ego.
Unrecognized or unacknowledged dynamics and norms affect how every group functions, limiting its effectiveness. These dynamics are surreptitiously driven by individual egos as well as the team’s (and the larger organization’s) collective ego.
Once we see the damage created by these unconscious shared agreements, we can choose and reinforce behavioral norms that are sourced beyond ego. We free up creative energy; we foster healthier relationships and enhance job satisfaction. Innovative, inclusive and adaptive solutions emerge between us from this shared beyond-ego awareness.
You can take the principles and practices of this course into your life to sustainably elevate your game as a leader. Choosing to lead beyond ego is simple, because it’s a choice, but it’s not necessarily easy.
The choice must be made moment by moment. We need practice. We need practical tools and techniques to recognize the subtle games the ego plays and to resist the momentum of ego.
This session will deepen the practice and strengthen your new habits of responding from beyond ego.
Learning to live and lead beyond ego will take your experience of work and life to a new level. As your perspective evolves, your ability to creatively meet the challenges of our time will continue to deepen and expand.
This maturation of capacity, connection and flow will foster your lifelong hunger to lead from beyond ego.
In this final session, we’ll focus on how to continue to build your beyond-ego capacities by taking the insights and practices of this course into the rest of your life. You will not do so alone; you’ll join an emerging worldwide shift in human consciousness - a shift already underway and well-documented. This is leadership worthy of the challenges and opportunities of our time.
During each workshop you will:
We offer optional, but highly recommended, weekly Q & A’s to address your questions about Leading Beyond Ego principles and practices, and to support you in taking on new beyond-ego leader behaviors. In other courses we have noticed these sessions are often as valuable as the workshop sessions. There is space for you to explore your “real life” issues with course faculty and fellow participants.
During each Q & A session you will have the opportunity to:
You can know all about the principles for Leading Beyond Ego and nothing may change. What matters is embodiment. We are not talking about perfection here. We are talking about your intention and practice.
Even when imperfectly expressed, clear intentions about what matters most transmit to those around you far more than ego could ever know or understand. You can experience what these principles offer only when you practice them - wholeheartedly. And the more you do it, the more obvious the benefits become.
For each Power Principle you will:
Ego is most dangerous when you don’t see a difference between who you are and your ego. When we realize that ego is not who we are but rather something we have – that’s when ego begins to lose its power. Meditation is the most effective practice for cultivating the ability to make this distinction.
Furthermore, regular meditation helps lower stress levels, and stress of course clouds our judgment. So meditation helps us make wiser decisions. It develops “big-picture” thinking and the capacity to take the perspective of “other” – the key to better relationships.
This expanded inner awareness helps you recognize ego in yourself and others and act less reactively to both. This benefit accrues to self-aware teams as well as to individuals.
During this course you will:
There are many forms of meditation. The meditation approach we will suggest is simple, straightforward, practical, and focused on expanding your inner awareness.
Each Study/Practice Guide will include:
You will have a single online location for access to all course materials including:
We want you to have an excellent experience of this course. If you have questions about any aspect of it, please contact us at support@leadingbeyondego.com and one of our team will get back to you. We strive to respond to all inquiries within 24 hours, Monday through Friday.
We are an experienced, international team, drawn together by the desire to elevate the quality of leadership at this critical juncture in time, for the benefit of all. Together we believe that leading beyond ego is the one shift that precedes and enhances all other leadership capacities.
We have been doing this work personally, as a focus of our lives, for many years – including in our collaboration to develop this course.
Co-founder of Leading Beyond Ego, Steve Motenko is an executive coach specializing in leadership development. A former management trainer at Boeing, Microsoft, and the nonprofit Center for Ethical Leadership, Steve is currently Director of Programs for Path Forward Leadership Development.
He is the co-author of the leadership primer Land On Your Feet, Not On Your Face, and co-creator and co-host of The Boss Show, a Seattle radio show and podcast offering “workplace wisdom with heart and humor for anyone who is or has a boss.”
After graduating in psychology from Harvard University, Steve went on to an award-winning career as a journalist, and then a second career as a school music teacher. Steve’s most fulfilling and most impactful work has been his coaching work over the past 17 years. He has also studied for 7 years with evolutionary spirituality teacher Craig Hamilton, a process that has turbocharged his personal development.
Coaching with you is the best money I’ve spent in years. What value can you put on getting your life back? I guess it is true that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, but I feel blessed that you are the one there to guide me. D.M.
I cannot tell you how much wiser I feel as a result of your coaching. Thank you for everything you have given me to support my work and help me succeed. You are a remarkable person. R.F.
Barbara J. Hunt is the bestselling author of “Forgiveness Made Easy” and a forgiveness specialist. She works as a facilitator and coach, with many years’ experience in leadership training and governance, serving national and international clients.
Barbara is also part of a team of therapists with Vital Detox UK, a deliberately developmental organisation and the UK’s leading health retreat specialising in emotional and physical health. She holds a BA in Combined Studies (Child Psychology & Education) and CPBAB certificate in Counselling Studies and has studied and trained in various disciplines including NLP, Integral Theory, EFT, Evolutionary Spirituality, Strategic Intervention Coaching and Journey work.
'Barbara helped me shift an old and really difficult feeling of judgment and competitiveness that I had with a female colleague. Much as I'd tried I'd never succeeded in shifting this, even after sharing with her about it and seemingly coming to forgiveness. Her 'Soul Search' process, immaculately and sensitively guided, was nothing short of a miracle. I was soon to be working with the woman in question and the transformation in my feelings towards her were incredible. I just felt warm-hearted appreciation and love. And that has lasted over the year and through another event we both worked on. What a blessing. Barbara is unusually gifted as a coach and facilitator and I would recommend her to anyone.' P.S., Event Director
Thank you very much for the processes. The forgiveness one you did with me really did cause a big shift of removing old stuff and sedimentation. A rewarding outcome.... M.R.
Rodney Dueck is a retired physician and healthcare executive with experience in a variety of leadership roles over 23 years. He served the last 9 of those years as System Medical Director at the Park Nicollet Clinic in Minneapolis, Minnesota, then a 450 physician medical center.
His passion for this course is found in questions we all face. How is it that good people, each with a felt sense of good intentions and shared purpose end up in dysfunctional relationships that limit their individual and organizational potential? Why are we humans falling so far short of our obvious potential, and what positive practical steps can we take to make a difference?
For him, this course is a summation of nearly four decades of curiosity, study, learning and practice motivated by questions of this sort.
Rod Dueck and I have been friends and colleagues since 1998. We did research and gave lectures on human transformation. Rod’s long standing interest is in transformative leadership. He is uniquely qualified to address the many guises of ego and getting past the ego. T.C.
With decades of passionate study and real-world practical application, Rod Dueck has a profound understanding of the ego’s influence in our daily interactions and its impact in the larger context of human endeavor. Most importantly, Rod’s ability to inspire others to move beyond ego is compelling. He embodies what he teaches. A.K. - Close friend of ten years