Self Leadership Backbone at CDTM with Bridgingpositions

We, as Centerlings, are invariably occupied and handling countably many responsibilities at once. Studies, projects, work, and our personal life ask for our attention every day. We are constantly running from one appointment to the next, while our daily routine leaves no space to contemplate whether our endeavors will lead us to our purpose. But how about standing still for one weekend and reconsider, whether we are actually heading in the right direction? On May 1^st to 3^rd, Julian Geuder and Vittoria Piattelli, founders of bridgingpositions, offered our Centerlings the opportunity to engage in standing still… and contemplating:

• When did I feel happy or unwell in my life?
• Where do I want to be in the future?
• Which values are important to me?
• What is my purpose?

These questions are only a hint to the many questions, Julian asked the Centerlings during the Self Leadership Backbone. This journey over all three days ultimately enabled the Centerlings to anchor its own qualities, values, purposes, and ambitions, in order to stand grounded for upcoming challenges. But before we get further into the peculiarities of this elective, bridgingpositions should be presented: bridgingpositions are catalysts in transformation and change processes. Their specialty is, that they are very much value-driven and experts on the human side of change management. Their goal is to support people on individual, team, and company-level by helping people to achieve their full potential and value-driven life. Due to COVID-19, the elective, normally full of personal contact and group meetings, was arranged online. In the picture below, you can see, how our classroom looked like! For more personal talks, we were parted into groups of two or three, which enabled deep conversations via video-call, in defiance of the circumstances of a virtual environment. During the first day, we started the Self Leadership Backbone by assessing our history and insights of our unconscious self. These insights were the necessary foundation to build upon for the next days. The second day introduced the purpose and guided us towards finding our own purpose. The purpose, which can also be called noble cause, is the truth which we seek by our actions and which serves all [our greater context]. Julian and Vittoria encouraged us to acknowledge our purpose by reflecting, recognizing moments of “truth” in our lives, and eventually feeling and being aware of our purpose. During the second day of Self Leadership Backbone, we further assessed our values, which were called human qualities by Julian. The retrieved values, which we as Centerlings identified for ourselves, included equality, curiosity, authenticity, honesty, fairness, tolerance, humbleness, and many more. During the last day, the journey continued by the exploration of our individual ambitions. We learned, how to set our ambition, namely as high as possible, while still maintaining a realistic spread between our ambition and reality. During the following “forcefield analysis”, supporting and restraining factors in our environment and ourselves were identified to help us accomplish our ambitions. During the second last step, we identified our goals. Goals, which are essential choices, need to be determined along with strategies on how to implement them, in order to achieve purposeful actions. In the last stage of our journey with bridgingpositions, we talked with fellow Centerlings to reflect about the Self Leadership Elective journey and the resulting learnings. Julian and Vittoria guided us through this journey to get to know our deepest cores better and to understand our purpose and values. As a result, knowing ourselves leads not only to improved self-leadership but further significantly ameliorates leading others. In a nutshell, what Centerlings could take from the Self Leadership Elective was prosecuting one´s goals with integrity, higher purpose, and maintaining one´s authentic selves and thereby achieve an improved base in leading others. This journey will be kept in mind for three reasons: impactful, connecting, and necessary for everyone, who wants to live by his or her values. Thank you very much to bridgingpositions for the great experience, this workshop will lead to more conscious and purpose-driven Centerlings!