Spiritual Intelligence and Coaching
By Georgina Bastidas—During the CSB Annual Business Symposium, four remarkable professionals gathered in a breakout session to discuss Spiritual Intelligence and Coaching.
Panel of Speakers
Cindy Wigglesworth, President and Founder of Deep Change Inc., began the session talking about Spiritual Intelligence. Mrs. Wigglesworth explained that spiritual intelligence is the ability to behave with wisdom and compassion while maintaining an inner peace regardless of the situation. In this context, spirituality is an innate human need to be connected to something larger than ourselves, something we consider to be sacred or noble. She pointed out that religion is a structure that can help us meet our spiritual needs.
Second, Kim Moore, President & Founder of KRMoore & Associates Inc., continued the session speaking about Coaching Purposeful Leaders. In her presentation, Mrs. Moore pointed out that coaching is not advising, is not teaching, is not diagnosing, is not prescribing, or training you in someone else’s best practices. A coach uses a discovering process to identify what is going on — both inside and outside the individual — in order to help you become your best self. Coaches believe that people are completely capable of discovering their own solutions. Along with the coach, people can generate the ideas, comparisons, planning and actions to accomplish their goals.
Defined as an inside-out process, coaching reinforces the connection between internal beliefs and external behaviors, which is the way to stay connected. Coaching is the place when leaders have an opportunity to reflect on and discover what they truly want. In this way, coaching can accelerate what you want in your life.
Coaches support purposeful leaders who are up to something bigger than profit or power. By helping “leaders of lasting impact” coaching helps refocus our spiritual lens and distinguish between intention and impact and manage action and reaction. Coaches assist individuals to harness the gifts of spirit, vision, courage and community.
Next, Dr. Sean Fitzpatrick, Executive Director of The Jung Center began his presentation talking about The Jung Center’s mission, which is to support and development self-awareness, creative expression, and psychological insight—individually, in relationships, and within the community. In his experience working with forensic investigators in Harris County, Dr. Fitzpatrick mentioned that the most difficult experience for this group is the human experience of grief and suffering when they are in contact with parents who have lose their child. Forensic investigators, including firefighters and policemen, have a tremendous burnout rate. They are considered an isolated population, sometimes with no psychological, spiritual or emotional support.
As part of his work with the Harris County group, Dr. Fitzpatrick conducted a workshop dedicated to ethics and self-care. One of the dimensions of self-care discussed was the meaningful spirituality. In this context, spirituality grows when experiences have meaning and when people actively take care of themselves, through exercising, and connecting with their love ones.
Dr. Fitzpatrick concluded his presentation upholding that meaning matters. If spirituality is a difficult word to approach, especially in business environments, as a leader, encourage your employees to live and have meaningful experiences.
Our final guest of this breakout session, Dr. Rod Magee, an Independent Leadership Consultant at RMC, talked about his work with top executives and high potentials employees in organizations. Ethical leadership and how people do the right thing all the time when nobody else is watching, and in his view, is one of the biggest challenges for organizations today.
Conclusion
Spirituality, or the search for meaning, is a core aspect of leadership. To develop ethical leaders within an organization, it is important to ask for help. Certified coaches can help top executives to grow, change, and become their best self. High potential employees in organizations are the ones in who companies invest time and money, training them to be the next generation’s leaders. Through coaching, this group can develop not only their fully potential, but also
become the ethical leaders that organizations require.
I consider myself privileged to have attended this breakout session and have learned more from our four outstanding guests about the influence of spirituality and coaching on the develo
Univ. of St. Thomas, CSB
MBA- candidate