Wisdom in leadership is vital, and elephants are famed for being wise.
Packing your Exec group with wise leaders is likely to bring huge rewards because wisdom isn’t just a factor of experience, though of course that helps, wisdom is an expression of consciousness. And by that, I mean a deep sense of knowing and intuition – where there is an open channel to a ‘sixth sense’ that isn’t dismissed as something weird but is valued and built upon in how we show up as leaders, and of course as people.
Last weekend I spent several hours exploring an Art Trail of elephants painted/decorated by local artists as part of a local charity project. It got me thinking about elephant wisdom and how it brings valuable leadership insights.
We often speak about ‘the elephant in the room’ during team development sessions. This can signal something not said or an obstacle not being addressed. What if the real elephant in the room were in fact the untapped wisdom that is available to us by confronting such obstacles?
Elephants are considered to have incredible contact with ancient wisdom as well as being deeply loyal and protective of their families. The connection with ancient wisdom is about the timeless ‘knowing’ that if accessed acts as a guide – that opens us to see the current moment in time as simply that, a moment in time that when viewed in a larger context, automatically brings a new wisdom. Imagine being able to tap into centuries of such context – in some spiritual traditions this is called the ‘Ageless Wisdom’ or perennial wisdom.
Imagine if our world leaders opened themselves to civic loyalty of the national family, or even better the whole of Humanity. And what if they sought to protect all life – human and other natural kingdoms. And if, like indigenous leaders and tribes, they showed a deep respect for the wisdom of ancestors and paid that forward seven generations.
None of this is about stalling progress. It’s about defining progress within the context of something larger and multidimensional – based on an eternal wisdom and consciousness in which fundamental values and ethics guide the way.
Elephants, it seems, know about this in their DNA. I wonder how they would characterise modern human leadership…