Does this sound familiar?

• "My boss gets irritated. Sometimes he dismissively pulls rank."
• "She doesn't seem to hear what the team is trying to say..."
• "Some of my colleagues hide their points of view, while others monopolize conversations."
• "That guy is often critical and defensive."
• "Those two can’t seem to get along, always bickering."
• "I’m nervous about my upcoming performance review. And to fit in at work, frankly, I have to suppress parts of who I am."

We all could be so much more effective... We could be so much happier at work … if only for … what?

Ego.

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...

"Beyond" Ego

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:

• The devastating impacts of ego in the workplace
• How to recognize ego in yourself, others, and the team (“collective ego”)
• How to avoid the traps of ego, especially when under stress
• What it means to “lead beyond ego,” and what makes this possible
• Who you truly are when you authentically move beyond the limiting structures of ego
• How to sustainably move beyond ego individually and collectively
• The most essential practices for next generation leadership

Join us for this remarkable journey into "beyond-ego" leadership.

Comments from Past Participants

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.

~J.P.

~ L.P.

~ P.B.

~ J.P.

Who is this course for?

• Anyone who desires to wield positive influence within an organization - regardless of positional authority.
• Anyone who has glimpsed the damage that individuals’ egos can do to teams, to organizations, and to their missions.
• Anyone curious about the possibilities that open up when people choose to source their intentions, their relationships, and their decisions from a place beyond their own ego.
• This course offers a radical reorientation into a depth of perspective and motivation – moving away from singular, biased, personal, ego-based, unconscious and automatic behavior, and toward developing perspective, motivation and behaviors that consistently serve “the greatest good for the whole.”

Next-Generation Leadership: The Indispensable Capacity

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.

Who is the Beyond Ego leader?

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.

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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.

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.