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The Soul of Leadership - Deepak Chopra

Most people visualize the Pope, the Dalai lama or another religious leader when it comes to the soul of leadership. My father GBHS already told us already at a very young age about the soul of leadership as he interpreted it from the Vedas. Deepak Chopra always reminds me of my father: an oriental being able to build a bridge between East and West. With his book The Soul of Leadership this bridge has been consolidated again. In previous work Chopra has always managed to use the mysticism of the number 7 as a guide. Chopra's love for great poets is well known and a love he shares with pleasure through social media. Perchance the art of poetry has inspired him to write this book by presenting the content of the book with an acronym:L-E-A-D-E-R-S. In the Dutch version 'De ziel van leiderschap' maintaining the acronym was not succesful.

In the First part of the book based on the acronym the 7 essential characteristics the soul of leadership is being described.

Look and Listen: By looking and listening within yourSelf and outside yourSelf in an impartial, analytic, heartfelt and impregnating manner with your body, heart, mind and soul you are able to define your own vision.

Emotional bonding: This principle shows the essence of emotional intelligence by enjoying emotional freedom, sharing enthusiasm, genuine caring for others, willingness to build a relationship, reinforcing the strength of others, increasing the self-esteem of others, nonviolent communication and conflict resolution. This kind of intelligence provides a leader the possibility to connect with the true needs of your surroundings.

Awareness: Chopra describes very beautiful that this principle - awareness - is the birthplace of possibilities. 'As a new idea arises, it must gather power and influence.' And gathering power and influence is possible by being aware of the many levels your awareness is silently functioning: centeredness, Self-motivation, coherence, intuition/insight, creativity, inspiration and transcendence.

Doing: Doing is an obvious principle in my point of view. History of mankind has not shown me a leader yet achieving a lot by doing nothing. The only leader I know of who is able to exercise His leadership in sleeping condition resides in divine echelons and has divine capacities: Shiva. A leader never knows what kind of surprises he will meet on his way manifesting his vision. Dealing with these kind of surprises requires several aspects of leadership: for every situation a different leadership's outfit.

Empowerment: 'Empowerment is the fruit of successful action'. The harvest can only grow when the leader is prepared to keep motivating in a positive way. The book gives examples for the leader to recognize situations of empowerment and situations of disempowerment.

Responsibility: Responsibility goes beyond meeting the needs of others. A true leader feels responsible for the personal growth of others. 'Leading with the soul means that evolution is your top priority' so a leader takes responsibility in every aspect of his life.

Synchronicity: Synchronicity sounds quite mysterious, some refer to Serendipity when it comes to synchronicity. It just might be like that. If all aforementioned principled would be used properly, there might be a big chance that people and happenings fall in to place in the flow of principles towards the realization of the leader's vision. Very often I hear from people around me how miraculous certain happenings are, but I think that the best way to explain synchronicity is 'when success knocks on your door, be prepared and be on time'.

In part 2 Chopra gives two examples of soul leadership and as an extra Chopra gives 10 principles of leadership in part 3 in a template for awareness. Deepak Chopra did not tell me something new, but his style of writing always gets my attention. Though nothing new is given to me, it always reminds of insights collected in the past and is for sure a boost of empowerment.

For whom: For everyone who wants to be introduced to the leader within himself or anyone who wants to evolve the leader within himself.

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