Strong Leaders Serve with Teri Schmidt

169. The Power of Contemplative Leadership with Patrick Boland

• Teri Schmidt

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Ever wondered how you can lead with both strength and compassion in an unpredictable world? In one of Teri's favorite conversations of the podcast, she chatted with Patrick Boland, a leadership consultant who’s blending ancient wisdom, scientific research, and the work of contemplative leader, Richard Rohr. 

We're breaking down the power of contemplative leadership—perfect for those compassionate, driven leaders feeling the weight of today's complexities.

Key Takeaways:

  • Challenge the Narrative of Control: Discover why questioning our inherent desire for control can lead to more effective and meaningful leadership, moving beyond the mechanistic mindset shaped by centuries of Western thought.
  • Prioritize Personal Reflection: Learn how inner work and understanding your personal narratives can transform your leadership style, fostering stronger team dynamics and reducing stress.
  • Embrace Non-Attachment in Leadership: Understand the concept of non-attachment and how it can help you navigate today’s VUCA world, promoting authenticity, cognitive flexibility, and building trust.

Resources:



Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teri-m-schmidt/

Get 1-on-1 leadership support from Teri here: https://www.strongertoserve.com/coaching

Set up an intro call with Teri: https://calendly.com/terischmidt/discoverycall

Teri Schmidt:

Happy December. I can't believe I'm saying that already, but here we are today. I'm grateful to be able to share with you one of my favorite conversations that I've had since starting this podcast. If you are feeling frenzied in your leadership and in your life, I'm hopeful and confident that this conversation with Patrick Boland will bring you a respite of calm and focus. Patrick is a leadership consultant, executive coach, psychotherapist, and trainer across several industries and sectors around the world. He has worked with organizations ranging from Salesforce to Lego, Google to Unilever, and Citi to the Center for Action and Contemplation. In 2021, Patrick co authored a book of reflections titled Everything is Sacred with the contemplative teacher Richard Rohr. And as you'll hear me talk to Patrick about richard Rohr has a special place in my life, as my dad, when I was a kid, used to play Father Richard's cassette tapes anytime we were driving anywhere. And then my dad and I would actually discuss them at our special breakfasts at Panera Bread. Father Richard has definitely shaped my view of the world, Patrick founded his company, Connexus, in 2013. It's an organization that coaches leaders and their teams using a combination of neuroscience, depth psychology, and embodied experiential learning. Patrick lives with his family near Dublin, Ireland, and spends much of his free time sailing or playing football with his sons. So let's get right into this rich conversation. I'm Terry Schmidt. Executive and leadership coach at strong leaders serve, where we partner with compassionate driven leaders and their teams to transform potential into performance. And this is the strong leaders serve podcast. Well, welcome to the strong leader serve podcast, Patrick. I have been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. I think I mentioned that my dad used to pop in father Richard's tapes when I was about five. So I feel like he's kind of with us now smiling down from up above in this conversation. And I was, so intrigued and excited to discover you and how you are bringing father Richard's work into the space of leadership development, because that is combining two passions I have as well. So thank you again for being here today.

Patrick Boland:

My great pleasure. Delighted to be with you, Terry.

Teri Schmidt:

Well, I did give the audience a little bit of an intro to you but I would love to hear it from you just a little bit about your journey to where you are today and how elements of that journey led to your current work and in particular to your authoring of your book, The Contemplative Leader. Yeah. Mm. Mhm.

Patrick Boland:

to tell the same story as you know yourself. I reckon two broad themes in my life have brought me to where I am today. And obviously it started when I was quite young. And these have been the themes of like excellence and contemplation. And I didn't even know that these were the themes until I look back as, as an adult in his forties. Growing up, I was brought up in an environment, in a family, in social circles where the pursuit of excellence was, was really important. There was a lot of emphasis on hard work, on dedication, on education. And within that, there was kind of a spiritual element to that. So I went to a Jesuit high school in Dublin, in Ireland here. And within that, That environment, we were very much afforded the opportunity to reflect on what's important and how do we want to contribute in the world. And there was a great phrase that was talked about from time to time from different teachers. And we even had it up in the library wall. If, if you want peace, work for justice. So there was this idea from a very young age of like, how do you bring your gifts to the world? How do you contribute? How do you do it in a way that is not just about you? And again, at home, like growing up, I would've had quite strong influences from different people around contribution. What is it that you're going to, to give and what does leadership really look like in all different facets of life? And then naturally, myself. I remember being eight years of age and thinking, I'm going to try and meditate. That just seems like an interesting thing to do. It's pretty, pretty weird thing to do for an age. Well, some of the guys from my class I think saw me and we're, we're laughing at me quite a lot the next week, but I was just interested in why do people do these things and how do we connect with who we are and with other people and with the world. So with those kinds of things as my background, I was, you know, Studying international commerce. And I was at the time on track to go into investment banking. We had the the former head of a, of a major global investment bank had gone to my school. And he'd said, look, when you're finished this particular undergraduate degree, give me a call, come to London. We'll get you trading. We'll get going on that. So there was that influence and that angle. And at the same time, I was. Running men's groups. I was running, you know, all these kind of circles for people to talk about. What's the essence of life? How do we contribute? So I had these twin tracks running all the time. So I moved into banking for a little while. I was truly awful, got out of that and moved into strategy consulting. And I was a good bit better at that. And looking at people and. Organizations and strategy and how do we get systems to work well and how do we get performance to be excellent in ways that are also really contributing to people as well as to, to the bottom you know, to, to, to the financial element. And at the same time, I was just, just curious in like, what does it mean to live A life of flourishing. What, what is the good life to paraphrase Aristotle, how do we do it? So I was reading, studying, seeking out mentors a lot of the time. And then when I was in my late twenties, I encountered the work of Richard Rohr, who you mentioned. And there was this synthesis and this integration of kind of all these different worlds and this understanding of contemplation and being present to the moment and how we do anything is how we do everything. This whole idea of moving away from, in some ways, what I'd been schooled to do, which was performance, outcomes, excellence, get results, make money, influence, contribute. And then there was this counterpoint of, well, how do we, How do we become very present to ourselves and to others? How do we focus on what's important and how do we deconstruct narratives we might have around us that might be pulling us in all these different directions that aren't actually the most important, the most valuable directions. So I spent quite a while trying to work out how do we, how do we square these circles? How do we bring these things together? How do we focus on the outcome as well as the process on where we want to go, as well as how do we get there? And then ended up. Yeah, starting a company about 11 years ago, which is coaching and leadership consulting and looking at these ways of, of working in systems and working with people and interpersonal relationships. And how does this contribute to society as well as all the stakeholders within organizations? And how do we do it in a way that's deeply honoring of each other? That's deeply. connecting from a human perspective and that's present to this moment as well as where we want to get to in the future.

Teri Schmidt:

Yeah, that there are many strings that we could pull at there, and I, I think there are many leaders listening who, like you, grew up. focused on, you know, achievement, outcomes and our current world as it is seems to be requiring more than just that. If, if we want to thrive and if we want those around us to thrive. And in particular, You know, I know leaders are facing an incredible amount of uncertainty whether that be related to politics. We just had an election here in the United States whether that be related to the environment, whether that, you know, there's a, there's a myriad of factors that lead to that uncertainty. You talk about how it's natural in that situation to want to seek to control more. I've felt that It looks like from your, from your head nodding that maybe you have felt that. I'm curious, and I know you talk about in your book, why is that? What, what, and what are the risks when we go that route? What are the risks to the leader, to the team and to the organization? When we face that uncertainty and respond by just seeking to control more.

Patrick Boland:

Yeah, I love the questions. Thank you. What is that? There's so many ways of thinking about it. I think narrative, and nervous system are two headings that I can just skim the surface of those. It's a natural thing. It's built into our, our nervous system. It's a part of developmental psychology. We, we want to exert influence in the world. We want to assert ourselves. We want to know that we have a degree of strength. We have a degree of control. So there's some element of it that's very positive, healthy, and appropriate. At a big contextual level, I think there's a piece around narrative and what's the narrative of our community. Of our society and of this particular place and time in the history of the world for, for the last few hundred years in the Western world, we've mainly used the narrative of the machine and thought about inputs, throughputs, outputs. If I just get the right inputs, if I just have the right processes at the throughputs, we'll get the right outputs. And there's an idea inherent with that. If I can control things. Lots of reasons as to why that's the case. Cartesian dualism, you know, I think, therefore I am. This idea of empirical science, and we can control things. And this is the best way of looking at knowledge. This is the best epistemology that we can use. So there's lots of, of Context and reasons why that is the case. But in many ways, a lot of our organizations particular corporations were, were formed, were structured at times when that was the dominant thinking, build the right system, put the right knobs in place, be able to pull the levers of control, but the right people in place in order to to make sure that that takes place, you know, traditional management, say from over a hundred years ago, scientific management, the first books that were written on it. And then we can control the system and then things can work. And if they're not working, then there's something wrong with the machine, with the system. So change the design. Maybe it's not hierarchical enough. Maybe we need to flatten it out. Who knows what we need to do, but it comes from this dominant idea that we can control things and things are worth controlling because if we're not in control, there's something wrong. I think there's a little bit of deconstruction of that that needs to take place in the book. I have a section on that and an exercise looking at ontology and epistemology, getting us to think about what do we think the good life is? Is it You know, making a lot of money, having a lot of influence, having all the control, making the decisions, rising to the top, being an entrepreneur or whatever it is, these are not bad things per se, but is it coming from an inner place of fear of insecurity of, I need to do that or else this is the narrative I've been given by others and I haven't questioned it. And this is what my schooling has taught me. This is what my society teaches me. And then epistemology, you know, what's the nature of knowledge? How do I know this is true? How do I interpret you know, popular culture, characters from movies, from my favorite books, sacred texts from the Bible, the Quran, whatever it is that we kind of go, that is the truth. Or from the constitution, the Supreme court, these people tell me what truth is. Therefore, this is what I know to be true. Therefore, I'm going to make these choices. And I think we, it's really helpful in the first half of our lives. To have structure, to have containers within which there is an idea of control. We know what to aspire to and where to go. And we can build block upon block, build our ego, our identities and build with other people in community. But then we get to the point where it's like, well, realistically, we can't control things. There's so many forces outside of our control, like. From whether to, is the person going to fall in love with me to, you know, there's loads of different ways of thinking about it. And then it's realizing, well, why do I feel the need to keep on? And then am I grasping more and more? Am I forcing people to behave in certain ways? My team to behave in certain ways? Am I being coercive? Am I being detached? What am I doing in there? So there's a whole piece around the narrative. And the second piece is around nervous system. There's a part of our nervous system, and I write about this in one of the chapters as well. I'm eating from our body where we get triggered and we go into a sympathetic nervous system states. We go to a fight or flight response. What happens in our brain is, you know, generally speaking, we have an amygdala hijack. The prefrontal cortex kind of shuts down to a degree. All of our. Thinking quote unquote is mainly emotional, you know, operating out of our limbic system. There's a combination of 79 different hormones and we each have a unique cocktail of these, of what we do when we're triggered, when we're stressed. And the reason that we get triggered and stressed it's different for everybody, but the reason that our body responds is because it wants to control our survival. It wants to keep us going. There's a really good desire there. Yeah. But if we just kowtow and bow down to what our body wants and to all the emotions that we experience, we can just be reactive. And we can think, I need to control things. And we do it from a place of reactivity rather than proactivity. From a place of fear, insecurity, and then there's a knock on effect on our relationships. There's a knock on effect on the people that we work with. And on many, in many ways, there's a real. Biological element of this, and we're not thinking rationally or logically or clearly, we're just, we're just reacting so, you know, wanting to have certainty, wanting to have control narratives and nervous system pieces around that, and then, you know, the second part of your question, Terry, what does it do to those around us? I think I've already begun to talk about it, but we have people who who don't know which version of us is going to show up in a meeting. We've got a difficult behaviors to manage. I was meeting this morning with the. The chairman of a company, when we were talking about the behaviors of some very senior people in his company very challenging behaviors someone who calls himself a disruptor, I'm a disruptor. This is what I do. You know, I like to, to poke and prod and as we've been working over it a few months with this particular person, it's not that he is a disruptor per se. It's just, it's an excuse to excuse the unhelpful behavior Behaviors that it displays that cause havoc within the team and are having a knock on effect on some of their clients as well So people don't know How to have quality in a relationship people don't know how they can trust us Can they trust us that we're going to do what we say? Can they trust us that we're going to communicate openly and honestly? Can they trust us that we're actually for them as a human being? Things can become quite transactional. And then the system itself doesn't get the different resources that it needs to to nourish. Communication gets shut down. Communication is the lifeblood of any organization, of any relationship. And then we kind of, we we, we don't grow. And over time we kind of fall away and fall apart. That's, that's what typically happens. That's how, that's how systems work. They're either growing or, or they're going in the opposite direction.

Teri Schmidt:

you might have someone listening that doesn't feel like they're, you know, fully, you know, a disruptor or maybe in the state all of the time. But just to even hear you talk about the forces that we have driving us in that way to operate from a place of fear, to operate from a place of a belief that we can control things, whether that be just how we're looking at everything as a machine. And I almost feel like that's, the water we swim in. I mean, I think about how I think about certain things and most of my career was focused on using data to make improvements. And it was all about, you know, what are the inputs? What are the outputs? Where are we seeing the errors and how can we correct those errors? And I never questioned that. You know, that's that's just the way that organizations are set up for the most part, and I think are expected to run. So I can see how that would float into our leadership, into our relationships. And in particular, you know, when you get to a place where you have uncertainty, where you have complexity. going to revert back to, okay, what, what can I hold on to? What can I impact toward the positive? How can I make this change? And what pieces do I need to move around to, you know, line up so that the change will happen in the way that I want it to change? Um, and so I'm not sure there's a question there more than an acknowledgement that this is difficult.

Patrick Boland:

it is because we just think, you know, a good leader is someone who's a good puppet master and they can just pull all the strings and move things properly and get what you want. And I think we need to change our narrative. We need to change the context of, you know, look at ecosystems and nature. They're able to sustain. Many different organisms some things haunt others, some things live off the detritus of others, some things flourish and grow, there's a seasonality to it. When any one part of an ecosystem starts to dominate, the whole ecosystem gets destroyed over time. So there's a piece around going, well, How do I move away from, you know, this Newtonian idea of physics, you know, the, to paraphrase this, the third, what's it called, the third the third law of motion, I think it is. For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. How do we move away from that to going, how can I participate? How can I be present to what is here and to what is unfolding? How can I not be present? Just think that this is, I'm a clock maker and I can just press things, but get involved. How can I get involved and allow conditions to emerge and have cognitive flexibility as psychologists tell us and be open to adapting, to changing, to growing. And for that to happen, we need to learn to be non attached which over time, Creates, you know, lower ego in us and there's ways of doing that, but it's At the start of our career and when we're young that that is difficult And it's appropriate to want to be in control. It's highly appropriate my first leadership experience I ran a big charity event when I was a teenager and I was so stressed and I was I was losing at the run of myself and one of the really big bouncers at the door, who was essentially like a rugby equivalent of a linebacker. He just grabbed me, took me aside and said, you can't control everything. We got this, relax. I remember thinking, wow, I really can't control everything. I want to. It feels like that is what leadership is. That was the beginning for me of learning about this. And then honestly, Terry, it was just a lot of failure, a lot of trying and a lot of things going wrong that made me realize, you know, you really can't control everything. You can do your absolute best. But sometimes things happen that are outside of your control and it's, how do you respond to that? That's important. That's where leadership really comes in. Attachment

Teri Schmidt:

how are you just being present to it? You brought up a couple of times the idea of being non attached. And I know in your book you talk about the attached. versus detached continuum and how it's really that we have to kind of shift to a new plane of non attachment. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that and how that benefits leaders and their teams.

Patrick Boland:

is this belief in this need, this biological need to be in control. I need to be in control. And what often happens is when things go wrong or we can't be in control or people don't do what we want them to do exactly the way we want them to do it, the pendulum can swing the whole other way. And we become detached. We go, I don't care. Didn't go my way. I don't care. And then we'll swing back the other way and go, well, I'm going to try again. And then we'll go, we'll become detached. Non attached. I use it in the book as a synonym for contemplation. Non attached is I'm present to what's happening. I'm present to how I'm doing in the here and now. Yeah. I'm paying attention to what's happening around me. I know what I want. But at the same time, I'm not going to force it. I'm going to see what is emerging. I'm going to connect with people and with systems and I'm going to participate because maybe there's even better stuff that can take place if I just get out of the way here. So it's, it comes from a place of humility. Realizing that maybe I don't have all the answers and maybe things could be even better. And maybe I need to give people space. Maybe I need to have conversations. Maybe what I think we're doing and where I think we're going isn't actually the best direction to go. Let's be present to what is. Let's be here. It's not totally in my control.

Teri Schmidt:

You mentioned something you said, I know what I want to start off with. Why is that important? Why is it not just about sitting back and just, you know, as a leader of letting whatever happens, happens, and, and reacting to it in a sense?

Patrick Boland:

I think it's crucially important as leaders that we have, A high degree of being assertive where we know what we like, what we don't like, what we want, what we don't want and what we need and what we don't need to the best of our knowledge thus far from, from how, where we are of ourselves, our clients, all the different stakeholders, the systems within which we operate. I think that's, that's important. That is participating. But then if we start to force that, And insist on, on our way or believe, you know, I know best I'm not going to be able to learn from others because I really know. And so there's a lack of curiosity. There's a lack of playfulness is often one of the characteristics that I find. There's a lot of seriousness in how we do things, but then the temptation is to be dualistic in our approach. So I either get it or I don't, I'm either right or I'm wrong. And. Being a contemplative, being non attached is an invitation into non dualistic ways of seeing, non dualistic ways of being and saying, well, it's both the outcome and the road that gets us there. It's about the financials and the people that we interact with. It's having the capacity to Be friendly and be close to people on my team. And at the same time, having clear boundaries as well. It's not just one or the other. It's not black and white. There's it's acknowledging the complexities of life the reality of the most things are gray. I know a few leaders who call themselves very logical leaders and they are very logical in many ways. But then we talk about. Have they managed people challenges? Have they interacted with their, their spouse? And they go, okay, maybe it's not quite as logical. Maybe I'm not quite as logical as, as I thought. Maybe there are elements of life where it's a bit of this and it's a bit of that. It's actually quite gray. And the more important thing is, well, how do I show up and how am I present? Because how I am present creates the conditions for the whole system to flourish, the relationship to flourish. You know, like I learned a long time ago going in and meeting clients or potential clients. Stop talking, Patrick. Just stop telling them all the great things you can do. Just sit and listen and hear them and give them space and be honest. And if you can't do things for them, let them know that. And if you can, let's just see can we cultivate the relationship and can it become a win win scenario. And that's another element of non attachment and contemplation. It's looking for win win scenarios. It's looking to build relationships, looking to build trust and looking to contribute rather than overly competitive. You win. I lose. I win. You lose. Trying to do a deal and try to get even more out of it. It's looking for mutual benefit, similar to an ecosystem

Teri Schmidt:

know, I have to say that just hearing you talk about that and talk about non attachment it even in me creates a little sense of fear inside of me. And you know, it, it is that holding, I don't think Our leadership literature for the most part speaks to holding, holding the paradoxes, a lot of it is focused on dualistic thinking. A lot of it is focused on tips and tricks to help us succeed. How do the complexities that we're dealing with today as leaders pull us beyond that?

Patrick Boland:

Beyond tips and techniques. Yeah. Well, tips and techniques. If we think back to. The narrative and the, and the metaphor, it comes from, you know, the, the modern age the metaphor of the machine. We might today say, update the software, change up the hardware, do a reboot and let's just keep on going. So it assumes that we can control things. And then I say, you know, I just look at the world around, I look at what's happening in the world, politically, geopolitically. I look at what's happening to, you know, share prices in the last week. I, I look at, you know different currencies. I look at different wars, different famines. I look at, we, we have an election here in Ireland. We've just launched a general election. So that's coming up in the next few weeks. There are so many things we cannot control. There are so many things way outside of our control. Over the last few years I've. I've been amazed to see influencers putting posts up, knocking off millions. And then a couple of cases, billions off the share of the price of the value of companies in a day, and you have these senior leaders who worked for decades there, who worked their way up with wonderful marketing with, you know, very well road tested approaches. To essentially making sure that we're safe and that we're controlling things and that we're building successfully. There's so many things these days that, I mean, it's a cliche at this point to talk about the VUCA world, you know, but it's been around for 34 years now, this sense of the world being volatile and uncertain and complex and chaotic, there's so much that's outside of our control. So the temptation is to bury your head in the sand and to go, I will control and I will micromanage the small little details and forget about everything else. That's not going to do us Good for too long. It's kind of escapism. It's it's kind of being detached So tips and techniques Look, there's a time and a place for it. There's a time where we need to to Improve our performance where there's things around habits that we have personal habits Where there's a thing around habits around how we communicate with each other and there's there's things that are really well You Researched and great evidence around, you know, from team dynamics to sales and sales training courses. All of that stuff I think is really important. But I don't think it's at the essence. Like, why, why are we in business? Why are we leading? What are we hoping to gain? What are we hoping to give? What's the whole point of it? Is it to feel good about myself? Is it Be better than other people. Is it to, to beat a lot of people? Is it to prove my, my father, my teachers wrong? Or is there something deeper? Is there something more? And as we look around at the world, there are plenty of. Plenty of challenges. And there are plenty of challenges that need really high quality leadership, which is not about just what can I gain? But how can I integrate within myself and how can I lead, you know, For purposes and causes that are extremely important. And how can I bring, you know, commercial exchange as part of that and how that can be a force of good in the world.

Teri Schmidt:

Yeah. So if there is a listener out there who's thinking, you know, this, this sounds great, and I, I want to get there. I want to start on the journey to be a more contemplative leader. What, would you suggest? How should they get started? And I'm asking you for tips and tricks, so it's kind of ironic. but,

Patrick Boland:

I have a kind of slow to say, okay, well, well, you have to start somewhere. You do have to start somewhere. Long term change that is healthy and helpful and that sticks and that has the capacity to continue to grow means we need to do a, a deep dive into who we are and how we bring. That energy and that focus to every interaction that we have. Some of the, like the first two thirds of my book, I mean, this is the focus of it, so I might as well speak to it, is moving from our cognitive understandings of ourself, the narratives that we have, being open to question, or what are the narratives that I have what's my story? What do I tell myself? What's my self talk made up of? How does that fit into our story? So, the narratives of those in my society, in my community, and the other narratives of those with whom I don't really interact or, or even understand or know their stories very well. And then, how does that interact with me? The story you know, the, the much bigger picture of, you know, the cosmos the universe in, in which we live on this tiny blue planet. So there's pieces around narratives. And then I think moving from the cognitive then into, into the pre conscious and then into the subconscious is really important. And again, I've got. I do it sequentially in the book, looking at what are the values that I have? And I've interviewed with the CEO, the former CEO now of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, talking about, you know, values for him and things that influenced him growing up. And then identities, this is a crucial part of our ego to think of what are all the identities that I've built up built up over, over time. And an identity is, you know, I'm known as like a high performance leader. I'm known as. As a parent, as a daughter, as a spouse, as a friend, you know, there's all these different identities and it's really important psychologically that we build these up particularly during the first half of life to reference Richard Rohr and Carl Jung talking about the morning of life. And then it's really appropriate and really important that we let it go and we get out of the way. And we realized that building up our ego. Helps us establish herself in the world. Helps us to be known for something because it's what society and family and culture and friends say, you have to be this in order to be okay, to be successful, to be acceptable, whatever it is. And then we get to the point where we go, well, let's have a look at these identities. Are they all serving me now? Maybe, I mean, I've worked with people who are in their fifties and sixties. Selling their companies, very successful leaders. And when we get down to brass tacks there, they're really talking about, I've done this for a parent. I've done this out of a reaction. This is an identity that I took on. It's made me monetarily very, very well off. And I have a lot of influence and I have a lot of social kudos. But I'm not necessarily very happy about it. And I've led people in a certain way for, for a long time, and maybe I'd like to make a change now. So there's an opportunity to, to to peel back the mask and the masks and to look at what's beneath it and then to move from the full self, which is this, this term from Thomas Merton and our ego is our full self. All the things we're known for. To move from that into our true self. Who we are deep down. And then I think a big journey for us all and a very difficult and challenging journey is to See the true self and to get to the bottom of ourselves. Some people call it the soul or the, you know, the face we had before we were born or whatever our philosophy or religion call it. And to realize that we're always going to be leading. We're always going to be interacting with others from this, from this place of kind of a mixture of our false self. And our true self, you know, this is, we're not going to bring a dualistic approach to being non dualistic. That wouldn't make sense. But how can we allow more of who we really are into each moment and to each interaction? And that takes courage. Personally, I find that very scary. I was only saying it to a client yesterday when we were having like a, an honest conversation about letting people see more of who you are over time can be really difficult. But it can be really important as we get to the bottom of ourselves and as we get to the bottom of our leadership and why we do what we do. To kind of, to jump, but not too much of a tangent, Terry. Like, you know, there's a fantastic book, the, the five wishes of the dying, I think it was called. And one, one of the wishes for all the men that this lady had worked with, this nurse had worked with was, I wish I hadn't worked as hard. I wish I'd been there with my kids when they were growing up for others. The wish was I wish I'd been courageous enough to be myself and let other people see that.

Teri Schmidt:

Mmhmmm.

Patrick Boland:

And when I see organizations and teams and systems and families where you have a person who has that courage, who's done the work, it is unbelievably powerful. The impact that that has on others, the role modeling that it has. The mentoring that it has, the permission that it gives to other people to do the same, the new narratives that it brings to that system, it's, it's profound. And I, you know, as I look around You know, from families to organizations, a lot of the time, it's just a lot of people pretending to be, I'm this perfect, great leader, this perfect, great parent, this perfect, great, whatever. And we're projecting these images out. And I think what our world needs is people to be vulnerable, to be fallible to be honest. It's touching on some of the work of Amy Edmondson and, you know, psychological safety and how do we work together really well. But I think we, we need that and being non attached and going on that journey to become non attached and acknowledging I can't control everything. It's a very courageous act. But then it has such huge potential upsides for the relationships of the people we work with so that we can move from transactional style interactions to transformational interactions, where we feel deeply seen and known. And we're like, I'm going to follow this person. I want to be part of this team. I want to build something. I want to sell something that's beautiful, that's meaningful, that's important and that contributes. There's an energy about that. And there's something. deeply impactful, much more than earning a few extra million and getting an extra title.

Teri Schmidt:

Wholeheartedly agree and, you know, and a little while back when you were talking about, like, were they causes that can be worked for? I think Right there is, is a worthy cause. You know that that impact that when you do this work and you have that ripple effect on, on those around you, that that ripple doesn't stop. That's affecting people in their home lives and their families, which flows out to their communities. That it can make leading in a. business that you might think might not have, you know, a great impact on the world. You know, maybe you're making, I don't know, furniture or something but just the way that you lead, regardless of what the product is, can have such a transformational effect.

Patrick Boland:

Such a huge effect. You've reminded me, Terry, of something I've never said in public before, but I feel it's appropriate to say it to you now. As a teenager, I was, I had a year of deep depression, like really, really stark and really deep because all my success narratives were falling apart. been you know a student top athlete in different sports and music. I was ticking all the boxes of what was expected of me and it all kind of fell apart and my health fell apart. And Coming through that experience, that was my first deconstruction coming through that experience. I remember taking the vow when I was 17 years of age and I didn't have the language for it at the time, but I remember saying, I think the best thing I can do in my life is to do my work. so that I don't pass on this pain and these narratives to others. Or if I'm ever married, or if I ever have kids I think this would be the best thing. And that's in some ways how I eventually ended up doing this, this work that I hadn't originally intended to do. It kind of came knocking for me. And I mean, that's intergenerational trauma, right there. That's, that's dealing with it, breaking cycles, breaking patterns. It's laying down really healthy patterns for others and it's, it's so profound wherever it takes place, families, teams, workplaces.

Teri Schmidt:

That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And, and to think that you were there at 17 realizing that it was a priority to do your work so that those ripples were positive ripples that you were spreading. That's, that's pretty incredible. Yeah. I think we all have a lifelong worth of work you know, and, and speaking about back to your book, I, I showed you how it is so marked up my copy of it. And I am continuing to, you know, kind of revisit some of the exercises that, that you put in there because they are so helpful and we are the beginning of the work to becoming a contemplative leader. So I thank you for putting this into the world. I would love to hear, what is your hope for this book?

Patrick Boland:

It's a funny one. When you write a book about being non attached, the discipline is how can I be non attached about it? That, my favorite band is U2. It's almost a cliche coming from down the road from in Dublin, but they are my favorite band and they have a lovely song called Get Out of Your Own Way. So my hope is that I would get out of the way of the content of the book and not force it to be a thing and trust that whatever it's going to do, it's going to do. And that'll be a very positive thing. There's another part of me that goes, I hope that lots of leaders who are ready, and who are self aware, and who care about consciousness within themselves, And within systems within teams, within whole organizations, leaders from the corporate world, leaders from not for profit, leaders who are involved in politics. My hope is that they would pick it up. That there'd be something that would speak to them, that it would be just a small piece for them as, as they continue on their their journey. They will be drawn into deeper ways of seeing and being, I have a desire to include and transcend being in control and go, right, there's a, there are moments and there is appropriateness of this and knowing what I want, but also you know, to, to talk about the paradoxical theory of change, if we insist on how and when change takes place, we stop changing what's happening. we don't insist on that, if we get out of the way of it, we create the conditions for change to take place. And so I love leaders and influencers. I talk about it in the book. A leader these days, it's an influencer. It's someone who has influence wherever. It's not a positional role anymore. I'd love influencers to be leaders. To use it and to be open to it and help them to continue on and doing their work and then to bring that. And then other great things into their life. And how exactly that looks and when I'm, I'm not gonna try and predict it or, or say it has to be a certain way. Without a

Teri Schmidt:

both the non attached and and maybe a little bit more attached to answer there. It shows that it is a continual journey. To operate from a non attached place. So thank you for that. And I have one more question that we ask all of our guests because the title of the podcast is strong leaders serve. I'd love to hear what strong leaders serve means to you.

Patrick Boland:

Yeah. I love the question. I'll answer it in, in the frame of spiral dynamics, which I wrote about in the last chapter of the book when I think about service and I think about why we serve, I think a really healthy way of serving is because we don't need to, we don't, We don't need to do it for selfish reasons to feel good about ourselves, to have our name in lights or to be seen to be that, that kind of a person, that kind of leader. We've moved through different parts of our ego. We want to be seen as this. We want to be excellent at that. And essentially there's a, there's a low ego within ourself that we're We're content, we're comfortable in our skin, and we desire to contribute to the whole. And a part of that is just a very natural overflowing of, I'm going to give of myself, I'm going to encourage others, I'm going to motivate others. Part of serving, I think, is sometimes being very assertive and having very healthy, boundaried conversations. Stopping bullying behaviours. Net naming things that are unhealthy within the wider system. So when I think of strong leaders serve, I think it takes a lot of strength to do our work, to be able to serve from that place, that low ego place, with strength. And be deeply confident in that and to be courageous in that, you know, you know, the etymology of courage to act with heart, to be able to do that. Without controlling and without forcing. I think that's, it's a very difficult dance and there's a, there's always more steps to learn. But I think when, when I've seen it happen, there's just such a deep strength and such a huge impact. And I personally get inspired. So that, that's to me is that strong. And that's, that's real service.

Teri Schmidt:

again, very well said, and I said last question, but I, I would love to hear a little bit more about, you said when I've seen it happen, it, it is so impactful, um, can you give a little bit more detail about that? Because again, because we have the narrative, because we have, you know, our body working against us people might want to hear about. What's the difference? You know, what's it, what's the difference if I serve from a place of wanting to show that I adhere to particular principles or I'm doing what my parents told me or I want other people to think that I'm good? What's the difference between that and serving from a place where you are not attached? In terms of the outcome. Which again is a machinist.

Patrick Boland:

That's the only thing wrong with it. It's a helpful metaphor for a time. The outcome can look similar on the surface, But beneath the surface, it feels very different. Let me answer by, by telling a short story of someone I worked with for a few years. She, she was shut out. Quite a large role in a international bank and I coached her for Three years, and then I worked with her team as well. It was so fascinating to see her. She threw herself in to, to this process. And she, you know, we were talking about deconstructing all the narratives from family. Why was she in the bank? Why did she have this role? She was able to talk about her fears, her insecurities, her doubts. There were, there were weeks and months where I'm going to leave I'm going to leave corporate life completely. I'm going to go. And then she bends back and then she go, I actually think there's so much of me here and there's so much that I have to give here. And I, you know, I'm not your typical person within this system. So she worked through so much of that. And then, As a result of that, and then working with her team, and we did big exercises on trust with the team and difficult conversations, and we had conflict, we had, we had two members in the team who hadn't spoken to each other since literally there'd been a fist fight in a bar three years earlier, like the kind of stuff you just can't script, like that's what showed up in the room and going through that process, seeing this phenomenal leader, just Deepen and grow in her confidence, seeing her make decisions and not second guess herself, seeing her at one point, let somebody go from the team who was. Very unhelpful and she'd been reticent to do that in the past, but seeing how she went about it and seeing the conversation she had and seeing the respect that was there as well as, as anger, which is very normal. Then seeing the respect from the other team members that she had actually, you know, made a difficult decision. And I'd come from a place before she was so human about it. So saying, look, I don't like this. I don't enjoy this. I don't want to be doing this. Okay. But I'm going to do it because I see the benefit to the team and that was service right there, the way she moved in and had the one to one conversations that were just great. Entirely focused on the people that she was talking to. So completely different type of one to one conversation, depending on where they were at, what they needed, seeking to empower them to the thing that they cared of. She had coders on the team. So seeking to find opportunities. She had people who were challengers on the team. So kind of going, I need you to take that energy and I need you to challenge some of the fringes of what we're doing here and empowering them. She was delegating to people. What happened was over time. Her actual job became a little less stressful because she was able to delegate. She was able to empower to others. And she had more time to, to to focus on what is important. What direction are we going in? She was able to, she's now an executive, but she was able to essentially move into an executive role of getting out of the weeds, getting into the bigger picture and understanding What is it I'm doing and why and how do I want to support people and how do I not just have a plan for them? How do I listen to them and talk to them? And how do we develop the team over a number of years? So seeing her grow was, was one of the huge privileges of the last, the last five or six years of my work. And the impact that it had on a systemic level with the individuals and with the team within the organization. The whole culture and how it stood out as a very different culture and started to kind of prod at the dominant culture within that financial institution where people started to take notice and go, what is that? As Meg Wheatley, a mentor of mine says, you know, there's an island of sanity that we can create and we can light little fires within the system. And these can be little ideas for people to go. That's possible. And then people start to move from idea into a lived experience of it and go, What if that became the norm around here? If our system looked like that? What a place to work. What a place to be. What a place in which to contribute. So seeing that happen, to me, that was like ultimate service. And she did her work and it was really difficult for the first couple of years. And her individual coaching was really difficult. And then she did it. It was beautiful.

Teri Schmidt:

that's a great illustration. I think the fact that she could have done all of that, she could have had difficult conversations without doing the inner work, but would it have lit that fire, like you said, that had the more systemic impact on everyone else? Probably not. It probably would have been much more isolated, a one time thing. It might have been laced in the sense with stress and, you know, discomfort for people more so than it was when she had done that in her work and, and it did have that impact of helping others to thrive in the way that it was done.

Patrick Boland:

Thank you. You've answered that part of the question that I totally ignored. So thank you.

Teri Schmidt:

Oh, no, no, you, you illustrated it. And I just wanted to reflect back how, how it landed on me and, and make sure that it was aligned with your experience. Well, Patrick I've, I've. thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and am very appreciative of your time. I will have, of course, the link to your book and your website in the show notes, but if there's someone out there who would like to learn more beyond buying the book or would like to, to follow your work, is there anywhere else that you would like us to direct them to? Mm

Patrick Boland:

yes. So the, the book has his website with its online course and, and master classes as well, and then there's my company's website, so that's connexus. ie. So you can direct people there if they're interested in, in thinking of some of the bigger issues as well, beyond just the

Teri Schmidt:

Mm hmm.. Excellent. Well, thank you again for your time today.

Patrick Boland:

My pleasure to really enjoy the conversation and great to be with you here.

Teri Schmidt:

Be sure to check out Patrick's book, The Contemplative Leader, and even better, his free masterclass and his online course that walks you through the exercises in his book. You can find all those links in the show notes. And until next time, lead with this quote by Patrick in mind. Over time, as we dedicate ourselves to exploring and taking responsibility for our whole self, our internal world becomes mirrored in our external world.