“This is the most significant event in our industry since Co-active Coaching began.”
Leading from the DeepMiddle
Featured Pathway: DeepMiddle: Evolutionary Leap for Leaders and the World. Leaders: Linda Krantz, Melinda Abrams, Rod Miller, Jing Ye. Rod Miller discusses the definition of DeepMiddle and explains why it is valuable for active leaders and those who would lead.
What do we mean by DeepMiddle? Deep refers to the place within and between people where they come into awareness of the essence energy within, between and around them and everything that is. And Middle is where we all live fully alive and are fundamentally connected to each other and to what holds us. DeepMiddle is a place beyond words that everyone knows when they experience it. Spaciousness, timefulness, resourcefulness, freedom and love characterize DeepMiddle. While not something to be grasped, it is experienced individually and in groups. It is a place people yearn to go and from which they learn and grow. DeepMiddle is a container and an understanding which includes the common essence energy experience of people today.
When leaders invite groups to enter DeepMiddle together, time expands, space opens and awareness heightens. Leaders and groups find their way in the present and are responsive to the nuances and hints that make all the difference in what actions are taken. The reality is that leaders do and do not know what is needed in groups. Leaders work best when they come from a place of humility in recognition that what takes place is not all about them. Leaders serve. Leaders actively wait. Leaders listen. Leaders trust the group. Leaders ask. Leaders give. Leaders offer and let go. Leaders invite others to co-imagine, co-discover, co-create, and co-fulfill. Leaders are aware that it is and it is not all about them. There is more. Leaders know that and invite groups into DeepMiddle in order to allow it to immerge and emerge as it will.
Creating spaces that are safe for people to go deeper is the most critical leadership function that leaders face. DeepMiddle space is entered in community through dialogue when the environment is opened for it to come into play. DeepMiddle space is created by assertions offered, questions asked and by the time that is opened for observation, silence, and dissent. To go deeper involves connecting at the soul level of individual energy essence; often through a right brain experience. In the realm of the soul, which is often described as shy and elusive, we learn what essence energy wants to share and divulges when asked and in unexpected ways.
DeepMiddle space is like and unlike other spaces created by leaders in that it assumes that there is a group essence energy or soul that is waiting to be uncovered and explored. The corporate essence is more than the sum of their individual essences. Uncovering and exploring together what comes up can lead groups to further understanding and expanding possibilities. Leadership that comes from the DeepMiddle adds incomparable new dimensions to how leaders think and what they do.
