Blog Author
Christina Kuenzle is one of the leading executive coaches in Switzerland. She is not only very skilled at bringing out the best potential in people, but also at helping her clients through crises and challenging situations. She holds an MBA from INSEAD and and M.S. from HEC in change psychology and has more than 20 years of experience in coaching executives and leadership teams.
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/christinakuenzle
Clear-minded leadership follows the same routine as our growth from child to adult. First of all, we need to wake up to our full authentic self. When we are young we are still embedded in the value systems of our parents, mentors, teachers and bosses. We embrace these and live up to their expectations. Thus, our first task is to find our true self and our purpose of what we want to give to the world and why.
The second task is then to grow up. Just as children, we need to learn different skills and to polish our talents. A learning mindset is to view the world and our environment with the eyes of a beginner. This allows us to grow and to realize our potential beyond what we think is possible. This can – and probably should – go on for our entire life. However, in the long run it is not enough just to take from our environment and our teachers and to learn. Sooner or later - and in this day and age rather sooner than later - we shall want to give back: we need to show up and play our part in the unfolding of the future and in leading others to create the future together.
In showing up, we create our legacy. What is it that we want to give back to the world? How do we want to be remembered? What do we want to leave behind? These are vital questions that cannot be answered easily. Often reality shows us what we really do versus what we think we do. More often than not the impressions we create with our fellow human beings divert significantly from who we think we are.
In our “Urban Gurus” retreat we bring leaders together to focus on the process of detecting their authentic selves – beware that realizing it takes a lot more time than the week-long retreat – free of fears, beliefs and restrictions. We then proceed to identifying the skills and attitudes the authentic self needs to express itself properly in order to create what we intend to happen. The retreat ends with a commitment to show up with courage, persistence, determination and honesty to live up to the felt purpose, because only when we finally show up as who we really are, we create trust and value.
