QUOTES from ONE: The Art and Practice of Conscious Leadership

By: Dr. Lance H.K. Secretan

  • Whenever we experience pain or sadness, it is because we have become separated from what, or whom, we love. And whenever we are inspired and joyful, it is because we are one with what, or whom, we love. All human challenges and successes can be explained through this awareness.
  • For 6000 years we’ve become specialists in separating our thoughts, ideas and beliefs. Think about healthcare, education, religion, labor/management, politics, departments, competitors, markets, customers/suppliers and the way we think about everything – dividing everything into separate parts in order to understand the whole. But separateness is failing to inspire us – when one separately disrespects another, we fail as ONE. Today, we are yearning to return to and achieve a feeling of being whole again and becoming inspired by the possibility of our ONENESS.
  • Technology is just one of many forces teaching us the reality that we are all connected, guiding us, sometimes reluctantly, onto the glare of transparency and fairness.  We are interconnected and interdependent in ways that seem more obvious than ever before.  And technology is accentuating the transparency by helping to connect and reveal theses connections as never before.
  • Why is there an emerging interest in conscious leadership?  One of the reasons is that our expectations of leaders and leadership are changing as we become more aware of the shortcomings of separateness thinking and the imperative of oneness.
  • Over the past 500 years and during the past 100 in particular, we have sharply accelerated our adeptness at listening to science, reason, rational argument, logic and analysis.  But what have we stopped listening to?  Our unconscious, our intuition, the myths of our heritage and our times, the mysteries of life, and the magic around us.  These voices have largely been lost, because they are generally considered to be an inferior source of knowing compared with quantifiable data.
  • Indeed, Machiavelli’s separateness method of observing people and life helped to reprogram our brains, rewiring as it were, our biological processes for interpreting life…With the introduction of Machiavelli’s new way of thinking, people were being encouraged to analyze decisions by breaking them up into discrete, separate parts.
  • Descartes’ theory, and the thinking of the new contemporary scientists, gave rise to the scientific revolution, ushering in the beginnings of the paradigm based on analysis and logic.  The scientific revolution completely eclipsed the special nature of myth, mystery and magic and the notion of oneness began its full retreat.
  • …our contemporary scientific era has its roots in the earlier transformation.  We find ourselves today at a place where science determines our belief system.  If something is logical and rational, and if it can be analyzed and captured in an equation and charted on a spread sheet – if it is measurable – then we believe it to be real.
  • As leaders, we become whole when we see that our focused, singular commitment to making the numbers and the metrics cannot be effective on its own, but only when it is part of the whole picture—only when we see that it takes more than metrics to make up the whole.
  • But great leaders… have a holistic approach to life and work, one that encompasses both science and the ability to measure things on the one hand and the capacity and willingness to appreciate myth, mystery and magic, and the values they hold for us, on the other.  This pragmatic holism is one of the reasons that leadership is so difficult to teach and that context is so vital for understanding great leadership and the effectiveness of an inspiring leader.
  • Quantification alone cannot inspire people; it does not create the magic we are looking for. People are much more than robots that go to work to make their numbers every day, based on a pseudo-scientific theorem of rational, self-interested, utility-maximizing, shareholder-pleasing homo economicus.
  • At some stage in our lives—even if only on our deathbeds—most of us will come to realize that there is more to life than breaking down our activities into the separateness of numbers that must be met each quarter. Somewhere, most of us believe, at an inner level of knowing, there is something bigger, some myth, mystery, or magic that connects us to a larger whole—oneness.
  • Of course, running an organization, or any community of people for that matter, and being a responsible leader require us to pay attention to the numbers and to act prudently on the information revealed by the metrics. But we can grow our successes in leading organizations, through a greater awareness of the importance of myth, mystery, and magic. This is what inspires the people who work there, because inspired people have a way of making their numbers. But that's not the only point of the exercise, and this is where the greatest potential for inspiring leadership lies. We are yearning to find our way again and become attached once more to what is real and what stirs our spirits in contemporary organizations and life. We want to move beyond relying only on science or the measurable to the feeling of oneness that comes from also embracing myth, mystery, and magic.
  • While the per-capita GDP of America has tripled during the past fifty years, and although the U.S. is the undisputed leader of the world by economic measure, it stands sixteenth out of sixty-five countries in the world in terms of happiness, according to the World Values Survey.
  • Science sometimes falls short when trying to fathom the depths of our essence – and our inspiration comes from that essence.


  • This awareness is causing us to look for something more than just the science and metrics.  We want to find something that recognizes our connection to the bigger picture.  We want not just a measure of the smallness of our little lives, but a measure of the oneness of everything to which we are intimately connected.
  • The conscious leader practices the CASTLE Principles. CASTLE is an acronym for six attributes that help us to reach ONEness in our lives: Courage, Authenticity, Service, Truthfulness, Love, and Effectiveness. Like all fundamental, life-changing concepts, these are simple ideas—well known to us all, yet easier to talk about than to live. The successful application of the CASTLE Principles has led to exceptional personal growth and organizational performance for thousands internationally.
  • COURAGE is:  Being brave enough to reach beyond the boundaries created by our existing, often deeply held, limitations, fears, and beliefs. Initiating change in our lives, of any kind, is only possible when we are courageous enough to take the necessary action.
  • Nothing happens until we are courageous. The first step required for any bold action or idea is courage, because without it, nothing else can happen, especially not anything new, daring, different, contrary, challenging, or innovative.
  • Courage has its own rewards, and very often they are high. In fact, there might be a universal law at play here: “The amount of inspiration and mastery gained is directly related to the amount of courage invested.”


  • Martin Luther King Jr., said “Cowardice asks the question—is it safe? Expediency asks the question—is it political? Vanity asks the question—is it popular? But conscience asks the question—is it right?  And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right. That is how we become whole again—we become ONE.
  • Courage, then, is the place where change begins. As Katharine Butler Hathaway wrote, “If you let fear of consequence prevent you from following your deepest instinct, then your life will be safe, expedient and thin.” Courage is the first requirement to start a new life, enter a new relationship, inspire rather than fire an employee, lose weight, kick a habit, tell the truth, or be authentic.
  • AUTHENTICITY is: Committing oneself to showing up and being fully present in all aspects of life. Removing the mask and becoming a real, vulnerable, and intimate human being, a person without self-absorption who is genuine and emotionally and spiritually connected to others.
  • When we are authentic, our minds, mouths, hearts, and our feet are one. We think, say, feel, and do the same thing in complete alignment. This is how we become real: by ensuring that what our minds think, what our hearts feel, what our mouths speak, and where our feet walk are one and the same. Gandhi said, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
  • We will remain inauthentic as long as we practice separateness between what we think, say, feel, and do.



  • Being authentic sometimes requires us to be humble, to reveal our foibles or imperfections.




  • Authenticity, then, is complete oneness in our thinking, speaking, feeling, and doing. It is head, mouth, heart, and feet all communicating and living the same message. This means that we consciously think, say, feel, and do the same thing in all aspects of our lives—as leaders, of course, but also as parents, children, friends, and spouses. Any relationship is enhanced, and often made whole, through authenticity. Indeed, it is the alignment of all these aspects that enables us to experience this longed-for sense of oneness.
  • People want to know whether organizations made their numbers legitimately or did so by buying back stock or withdrawing funds from employees’ pension funds or capitalizing expenses or engineering bankruptcy in order to avoid liabilities.
  • Evidently, the pressure to perform has caused businesses to take risks of integrity and prudence that have compromised their authenticity and principles and therefore their future. 


  • Mother Teresa…had no doubt about what she stood for.  It was just the way she showed up.


     
  • Inspiring people in these new and different business and social environment depends on a new level of transparency and authenticity.  This is how enlightened leaders are earning back the confidence of employees, shareholders, and customers.  In some cases, this may take a long time and much effort.
  • SERVICE is: Focusing on the needs of others by listening to them, identifying their needs, and meeting them. Being inspiring, rather than following a self-focused, competitive, fear-based approach.



  • Service is the purpose of life. We exist in order to make the world at least a little better than we found it. Our lives relate to the world in terms of how well we serve, and the legacy of each one of us will be measured accordingly. When we serve others, we become one with them.

  • A non-serving relationship leads to a competitive relationship, in which I'm trying to beat you, or you're trying to trick me. This is separateness. It is not inspiring to either party. What is inspiring to followers or customers is a leader who serves, because they know that you and they are one, and their purpose is to make the combination whole.
  • If you ask corporate leaders to describe the attributes of a good leader, they’ll say it’s all about being visionary, increasing shareholder wealth, delivering the numbers each quarter, beating the competition, and having a great strategy. But if you ask the followers, they will tell you that they want leaders who, among other things, are compassionate and caring, just, fair, authentic, vulnerable, and truthful. They want leaders who have the courage to keep their promises and honor the people who work for them, who hold them in some form of sacred relationship, and who share information and rewards with them in a way that inspires them.
  • And so we have leaders and followers with a completely different idea of what’s important in a leader.



  • How does servant-leadership translate into better performance for the company?  The answer is surprisingly simple: when we serve others, we inspire greatness from them by being one with them and adding to their wholeness.

  • In our relations with others, we have two choices. We can be aggressive, competitive, dominating, and wounding, all of which use negative, separating energy. Or we can serve, out of positive, inclusive energy that leads to oneness. We can invest our energy—and therefore lose it—in defeating someone else, making them separate. Or we can invest it in serving them and thus enhancing the sum of us both, because we are one. The ruthless, adversarial, competitive energy destroys; the inclusive energy builds, heals, and leads to a sense of personal wholeness—for all of us.
  • The leadership with which we are all too familiar is mainly informed by the ego that tends to separate—separation thinking. Can my ego dominate your ego? It doesn't matter whether you're an employee or whether you're part of another company that provides the same services as mine. My job as a warrior-leader is to impose my will on all these other aspects of my domain: my politicians, my representative in Congress or Parliament, my lawyers, my accountants, my insurers, my customers, my suppliers. I need to win!
  • The servant-leader transcends these ego-based issues by shifting to soul-inspired thinking that is based on the awareness that we are one, asking questions such as, How can I serve you better? Or, How can I support you in a more loving way? The servant-leader has shifted emphasis from the ego to the soul, from the world viewed as separate parts, to a world viewed as one. Although the personality remains part of who they are, it is not where they're anchored or where their primary focus resides. The servant-leader leads from the soul.
  • Inspiring leaders are servant-leaders who serve their followers, by inviting feedback and advice from them about how they would best like to be served….whether it is listening, compassion, caring, coaching, intuition, or vision, the conscious leader provides support to followers to enable them to realize their full potential….The self-serving nature of unconscious leaders – their commitment to their ego or ambitions – are what followers greatly resent in a leader, because they reflect the pursuit of ruthless competitiveness and aggression.  What, then, is the leader’s responsibility? It is to serve followers, and the dynamic of inspiration based on service leads to oneness between leader and other team members. This is what guides a team to greatness. It seems logical, therefore, that leaders should listen to the needs of their followers. Members of a team often have a pretty good idea of what they would like to achieve in their organization. And if you ask them to dream and to stretch and to expand beyond their usual performance, they will often do just that. In fact, I have found that leaders most often underestimate the potential and aspirations of followers. We serve best when we listen.
  • TRUTHFULNESS is: Being truthful in all thoughts, words, and actions, and listening openly to the truth of others and refusing to compromise integrity or to deny obvious or universal truths, even when avoiding the truth might, on the face of it, seem easier, especially in testing times.
  • Telling the truth could be the single greatest profit generator in corporate history.



  • Truth is a powerful economical tool. In fact, there is probably no single initiative that could boost profits more than a radical commitment to truthfulness—not Kaizen, Six Sigma, cost-cutting, TQM, or any other of the popular “profit improvement programs.”
  • At the Secretan Center, we assume that everyone is truthful….Our philosophy is that if a trusted colleague (that is, all colleagues) needs time to look after personal affairs, then they should have that time.  There is no need for them to lie…We are asked sometimes if people abuse a system that trusts them unconditionally.  But the experience has been that people don’t abuse systems in which they are trusted.
  • LOVE is: Embracing the underlying oneness with others and life. Relating to and inspiring others and touching their hearts in ways that add to who you both are as persons.


  • I think of love as the place where my heart touches your heart and adds to who we both are as persons. When we connect with others heart to heart, it doesn't mean that we are weak, and it does not require anyone to "submit" to someone or “give up” anything. In a dialogue that comes from the sweetness of your heart to that of another, there are only winners, not losers—there is, simply, oneness.
  • Conscious leaders who have the courage to be humble, forgiving, and loving—and therefore authentic—are much more inspiring and effective leaders, because they use their hearts to engage the hearts of others. There is deep wisdom and power in opening our heart and using it to relate to others. These are the relationships that inspire, because they are heart-to-heart and cause us to feel and connect as one.
  • Considering that the greatest human need is to love and be loved, it is disconcerting that so many leaders have themselves lost their connection to myth, mystery and magic and therefore to their hearts. Rediscovering love could inspire them and others.

  • EFFECTIVENESS is: Being capable of, and successful in, achieving the physical, material, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual goals we set in life.

  • True effectiveness begins with a dream—a vision drawn from myth, mystery, and magic. Realizing the dream then rests on the gritty details of mastery for effective implementation—engaging data and metrics to achieve the dream. After we successfully realize the dream, we celebrate the creation of new myths, mysteries, and magic. All dreams are realized that way—that’s how we put a man on the moon.
  • Think of effectiveness as a data sandwich, with two outer layers of myth, mystery, and magic—one for dreaming the dream and another for realizing the dream. Between these, imagine a layer of mastery—data, as well as metrics, implementation, and execution—drawing deeply from the intellect and reason. The outer and inner layers combined, represent the marriage of science and myth, mystery, and magic.
  • But how will we measure effectiveness?  Clearly the heroism of the warrior-archetype leader is no longer the best, or even the most relevant, benchmark with which to measure the effectiveness of leaders.  Nor do the metrics of revenues, profit, margin, market share or shareholder value, so dry on their own, measure enough.  Leadership is about unlocking the potential of humans, and that means all humans, not some of them or just the financial parts of them.
  • There can be little doubt that Arthur Andersen would be thriving today if its leaders had, at the time, been more courageous, more authentic, of greater service to others rather than themselves, more truthful, and more loving.  And if they had been all of these, they would have been more effective – they would have survived.
  • Any business (or family, church, hospital, school, fire department, city hall or country) that practices the CASTLE principles will become more effective, which means more successful, viable, masterful, inspiring, and loved.  Thus, when we are effective in this way, our work is affirmed.  We are a more inspiring and inspired community.  And we are therefore able to increase our investments and continue to grow.