Being a Yoga student and a teacher equanimity is my personal favorite and keeps me sane in an insane world. It doesn’t mean that I seldom loose my balance rather I loose it often and am aware about it. I have my journey and my own lessons. There are personal rituals that help me reinstate my balance every time I drop it and take little long at times to reclaim it. Since the space of equanimity is sacred to me I by default begin to coach my clients too to achieve the balance and equilibrium. We all have polarities within and we naturally embody duality from the moment we are born. The conscious qualities become our first nature and the subconscious ones remain in the shadow. Together they make us whole. One of the principles in coaching is wholeness. The client is whole and is constantly moving towards a fuller experience of their wholeness. Coaching taps the power of being in a place of wholeness honoring all that is present, while holding the space for all that is yet to emerge.

Likewise there are many traits within us as we thrive in the material world. So there is praise, there is blame and one can’t escape the two. What does one do? We are always seeking praise and running away from blame and so on and so forth. The behavioral or circumstantial dichotomy in everyday life is an indispensable part of daily juggle.

Well, there is an answer and that is to develop a mind of equanimity. Yoga certainly helps in developing the sense of balance. The numerous body functions and mechanisms work in harmony to keep our balance. The balance allows the stillness which when practiced consistently brings enhanced focus, clarity and joy. The consequences of imbalance are also obvious and known to all.

A hard working leader with deep-seated values and intense focus on delivery might develop an antagonistic mindset. This may bring tough engagements with peers and can become a ground to compare area of work with others. Such attitude might present one distant and intense, not easy to relax with. What if someone carries a strong belief that the workplace focus should be on fulfilling responsibilities and delivering successful outcomes ? And also believes that home life and friendships are separate and private. Such a person may accidentally make the peers feel inferior and incompetent. Then a perfect imbalance at play can give rise to unpleasant ambiance making it difficult for all involved.

Developing a sense of balance to enrich working relationships so that one remains authentic, true to own self can be just win-win for all. The insights and experiences that may stem from the space of balance helps a leader  navigate troubled times, guide others, and choose intentional transformative changes in one’s own lives, lifting the lives of others, organizations and structures one lives and works with. Becoming one is not easy. It takes efforts to develop habits to give energy to those around, to inspire them with a performance mindset. Effective leaders are very purposeful and balanced in the way they approach work and life.

The balancing qualities and how they could strengthen the leadership:

• Decisive and Inquiring: Staying curious about what the decision meant for others in the room
• Perceptive and Goal-focused: Reading the room, and picking up the agenda from there.
• Connective and Competitive: Staying connected to own level of performance, and looking for ways that could contribute to lifting the overall performance of the team keeping the external competition in mind.
• Responsible and Empathetic: The sense of responsibility on how the team performed collectively and using empathy to tune into the anxieties that were experienced or are currently faced.

These balance and counter balance cues may open up a deeper conversation about balance in leadership and appreciate a more meaningful engagement with people. By accessing the qualities that are the conscious manifestations in oneself and the ones that were lying latent in the shadow in day-to-day leadership may come to fore through the intentional change in active role playing bringing the wholeness in its full glory. 

A good leader leads by example. Whatever the leader does, the team imbibes it consciously or unconsciously. Thus it is important that a leader remains balanced in all his interactions with his team and people in general.