12-week course
This course represents a “spiral” of learning new skills and mindsets within the Conscious Leader Program. It is embedded in a structured learning process over three (3) months which includes these elements:
Weekly 80-min live, facilitator-led sessions
Structured resources in an online Course Portal and Course Workbook to support learning
Structured practice activities with feedback and coaching in group practice sessions
Mutual peer coaching
A conscious learning community of people learning together and offering mutual support in a multi-level cohort
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” –Viktor E. Frankl in Man's Search for Meaning survivor of WWII concentration camps psychiatrist 1905-1997
This course helps you navigate that "space ... between stimulus and response." For most of us, it is a space where we can easily be triggered into the reactive "fight, flight, freeze" area of our brain. When we think and act from that fear-based place, our effectiveness and impact are diminished, especially as leaders within an organization.
In our values-based leadership assessments, this behavior shows up in our "personal entropy" score, where personal entropy is defined as the amount of fear-driven energy that a person expresses in his or her day-to-day interactions with other people.
Needs-Based Communication* (NBC) is a potent process that stimulates new insights and gives us new tools to bridge the space between unconscious reaction and conscious response. It invites us to "stop playing the blame game," by enhancing our self-awareness and self-responsibility. At the same time, it enhances our ability to communicate and collaborate with others in challenging conversations, when emotions are rising, even when we seem to be heading into conflict.
This is a foundational course in the Conscious Leader Program. It is essentially a course on "Leading Yourself" ... and so it's really a course for anyone ready to enhance self-responsibility for their own life. And while there is a workplace focus on these sessions, participants are also invited to use personal or family situations in terms of applying the process if they choose. The skills and the mindsets are the same no matter where they are applied.
This course is a prerequisite for most other courses within the Conscious Leader Program.
* Needs-Based Communication (NBC) is based on the work of Marshall Rosenberg, which he called "Nonviolent Communication™" or NVC.
I have chosen to call the process Needs-Based Communication (NBC) for two reasons:
Human needs are the heart of the process.
I have wanted to avoid the common initial reaction from people in business that "... we're not a violent place."
Within this website and in related materials, any of these names or acronyms may be used, and they all refer to the same process.
Theme 1: Own Your Own Reactions: Observations
Increase awareness of when I am reactive — notice my somatic indicators and name my reactive thinking
How I blame others for my reactions
The PAUSE — breaking the unconscious reactive loop
How I take ownership of my reactivity, thoughts & perceptions
Understand the importance of observations that are free of evaluations
Theme 2: Own Your Own Feelings: Self-Connection
How I blame others for my feelings
Enhance my awareness of the body sensations & feelings within me
Understand feelings as the guiding tension to meet needs
How I take ownership of my feelings — expressing feelings without blame
Shift my attention to "what matters" — the vital role of human needs
Differentiate needs from the strategies to meet needs
Learn to be aware of my own feelings and needs in any moment through self-connection
Theme 3: Own Your Own Needs: Authentic Expression
How I blame others for my unmet needs
Holding needs tightly, but the strategies to meet them lightly
How to express what matters in a way that is likely to be heard
Exploring the power of requests rather than demands
Using requests that lead to connection & understanding
Using the "training wheels" of authentic expression
Theme 4: Invite Others to Own Their Own Reactions, Feelings & Needs: Empathic Listening
How to listen to others without hearing blame
Embracing the day-to-day, human need of empathy — a need that is rarely named, rarely seen and rarely met
Noticing the "weird" ways we ask for empathy
Understanding the broad spectrum of empathy: from being heard ... to deep, healing empathy
What empathy is ... and what empathy is not
Theme 5: Own Your Own Choices: Self-Empowerment & Autonomy
How I blame others and avoid responsibility for my choices
How I can harm people and blame them for my actions
How to take ownership of my choices
Learn from my choices rather than blame myself for my "mistakes"
Learn the process of self-compassion
Theme 6: Self-Responsibility: Being Accountable for Myself
Taking responsibility for my own life - Moving from "victim" and "blame" to empowered and connected
How can I enhance my self-awareness?
What are my reactive patterns that derail self-responsibility?
Where does "blame" or "victim" live in me? ... when is it healthy? ... when is it unhealthy?
What are my strategies to develop my own self-responsibility?
What next steps do I want to choose in my self-development?
Recommended Prerequisite
Event 104 | How am I Showing Up as a Leader: An Introduction to Needs-Based Communication
Note: You receive a 100% discount on Event 104 upon registering for the Conscious Leader Program
If needed, we will teach an abridged version of Event 104 on the first day of a cohort for those who are unable to attend this Event