Venus Rising

Yoga for LivingIssue: Leo 09 - The Leadership Issue

Yoga for Leaders

As a leader, one must make decisions quickly and with integrity. People count on a leader to direct the group. A leader must be able to stand by her decisions as well as admit when it is time for an alternate course.

The leader weighs others' opinions but ultimately chooses according to her evaluation and intelligence.

In order to make a decision easily and with conviction, she must be clear about both her intention, the possible outcomes of her decision, and her gut sense of what is right. There is a balance between her intellectual understanding of the situation and listening inwards to her innate intelligence.

I recommend yoga exercises to help a leader get clear about her intention, weigh the outcomes, and cultivate confidence in her decision.

Deep Diaphragmatic Breathing 

It is said that a samurai warrior makes each decision in the span of seven breaths. The next time that you need to make a decision and there are multitudes of opinions circling through your consciousness, stop. Take a few minutes to hear in your mind the possible decisions as well as their outcomes. Then let that go and begin deep breathing. The deep breathing will help you to center, gain perspective, and integrate the options. Once you feel centered, ask your self the question at hand and without hesitation, listen to the answer that arises. Most likely, this answer is the course of action that you should take. If you are not sure, try the exercise a few more times. If you are still not sure, give it some time and try later on in the day or after a good night’s sleep.

Tadasana 

One definition for alignment is the readiness to respond. As a leader one must be ready to respond to any given situation as it arises. This will happen more easily when one is present in the moment rather than stuck in a situation that already happened and is no longer relevant or jumping ahead to the future, which is ultimately unknown. Tadasana is a wonderful posture to get centered in the here and now.

Not leaning forward or backwards, we are centered in a ready position. We can move forward, sideways or back depending on what is required while at the same time stand strong and open to our experience of the present. This posture will build the confidence to carry out difficult decisions and to deal with the outcomes in a centered, action oriented way.