Transcendent Leadership

Chapter 1 – The Transcendent Leader

“Oh, if you would only allow your heart to teach your mind all the wisdom you already know.” Roxana Jones

Imagine, for a moment, that you're working with a leader who honors the wisdom of the heart over the cleverness of the mind. Using the power of unconditional loving, this leader organizes others in a way that emphasizes operating for the benefit of humanity while continuing to accomplish the organization’s material objectives. 

In this awareness, they hold in a consciousness that naturally lifts those around them and helps unbind them from their often self-imposed restrictions. They help us “see” our filters and blind spots by facilitating insights that allow us to consciously choose our behaviors rather than mindlessly defaulting to our ingrained habitual actions. As we experience the freedom from expanding our self-awareness, we begin to challenge deeply held assumptions or habitual ways of behaving, and the possibility of our transcendence becomes real. 

Transcendent leaders connect purpose with loving, and move past the anchors of ego-centric limitations. Having deep self-awareness of being human while transcending the boundaries of humanness, these leaders guide themselves and others through a continually shifting landscape of personal, interpersonal, and organizational challenges. 

Transcendent leaders assist us in seeing organizations as mechanisms that offer meaning instead of only being vehicles for money, recognition, self-preservation, and fulfilling the lust for a self-indulgent life. 

To be a transcendent leader, one needs to be a bit of a mystic. We move from only knowledge of our human consciousness to a deeper awareness of the sacred that is also present, or a transcendent state of being. 

Using awareness of Self, leaders sort out how their projections may be blurring their perceptions of reality. Achieving clarity about our defense mechanisms used to deny our unconscious impulses or qualities while assigning them to others is seen as a significant way to rise above or go beyond (transcend) the limits of human consciousness. 

Our human consciousness operates from a limiting exclusive focus on scarcity. Transcendent leaders work from inner wisdom, precipitating an unbounded, inclusive focus on abundance. Having the courage to challenge ingrained human perspectives that are stagnant, and position this inner wisdom to be the catalyst for transcendence is critical for our evolvement as leaders. 

Connected to this focus is holding the discipline of unconditional loving. The real energy of an organization is released through unconditional loving for all stakeholders as they evolve in awareness. Leveraging loving results in a purpose-driven and meaningful organization. 

Transcendent leaders see the organization from a higher altitude and develop insight into each stakeholder's unique wisdom. Wisdom is known by one critical quality: insights gained from the experience of doing. If there are no insights from the experience of doing, then it is merely data, information, or knowledge found in books or articles posted on the Internet. 

Now imagine, YOU are this leader! 

Traditionally, books on leadership focus on what a leader should do to produce results. But there is a revolution taking place, invisible to some, that posits that being can produce more profound positive results on organizational vitality, employee engagement, and profitable bottom lines. Transcendent Leadership takes the mystery out of the idea of being as a desirable quality for leaders. What’s more, it explains what a Transcendent Leader is, how and why Transcendent Leadership works, and it lays out a practical, systematic approach to manifesting it.

"“Transcendent Leadership is a major contribution to the field of leadership so essential today, when we need more consciousness amongst those in leadership roles and those who will see the need to step into those roles. A must for any executive library.”

 John Renesch, futurist, author of Getting to the Better Future and other books.

“I just finished reading this magnificent book. It is so chock full of beautiful messages that I will reread it and continually return to it.“

Frank Peabody III, Co-Chair, “Collaborative for Spirituality in Education,” Teachers College – Columbia University.

“Contemporary leadership dilemmas require rising above the gridlocked systems in place. Trying harder has not helped us mature and evolve. Transcendent Leadership sheds light in the labyrinth of anxiety-driven quick-fixes society demands and frames questions that awaken the boldness of the heart. You have written a book worth savoring.”

Marcos Cajina, Ed.D.; D.S.S. 

Founder & CEO, Renewal.

Author of Leadership Convergence, Oxford Handbook of Personal and Organizational Transformation (Springer, 2018).

“WOW! Transcendent Leadership is a sublime integration of head, heart, spirit and all in between. It heralds this kind of leader emerging in our sights and just in time! By the end of the book I was feeling uplifted, motivated and liberated.”

Lily Cubrilo

Co-Founder, Director

Acumen Global Partners

“In the challenging environments in which organizations find themselves operating today, it is their vitality that will allow them to flourish in the future. Transcendent Leadership provides both the inspiration and the principles needed to bring forward and harness organizational vitality, along with the roadmap for applying them. It is the quantum leap forward leaders need.”

Barney Singer, JD, Ed.D.

“An amazing book, each piece discovered, questioned, tested, confirmed. For those among us who are courageous enough to lead authentically.”

Jennifer Cayer, M.A."