Exploring The Barrett Value Center's Seven Levels of Consciousness Model - Part Two​

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John: Welcome to another episode of The Present Professional. Today, we’re back to talk about the Barrett Model again. We’re going into how the seven levels of consciousness relates directly to leadership. So last time we talked about how these different levels, I’ll read them off to you one more time from the last episode, but one, viability, ensuring stability, So really setting up the foundation, the three foundational levels right here, viability, relationships, and performance. So ensuring stability with viability, building relationships across all areas of your life and work, and then achieving excellence. So start being a little bit more results-oriented, developing competence and self-esteem, and then moving into the evolution phase. So stage four, where you’re courageously and continuously evolving into more of a higher level and purpose-driven being that’s more self-transcendent. So not just thinking self-centeredly or self-centric, but moving to another centric focus to where you can be more authentically expressed and in alignment with your true being. And then in collaboration, cultivating communities in your life, work, and all areas where you’re interacting with others. Then you’re contributing at the highest level your contribution at level 7 you’re living your purpose future generations in mind a long-term vision being of service and like feeling really Responsible and living that as part of your core values. So that’s one through seven of the values that we covered on the last episode and how that can help really apply to all areas of your life and can apply to any place that you’re at in regards to your earnings, your seniority, your titles at work, outside of work. It can apply everywhere. And now we want to really focus in on how each of these levels apply to leadership. leadership in all areas of your life, leadership in the office, at work, in your environments, like how to show up as a leader that you want to be in the levels of consciousness, again, that we’ll talk about here. So again, Tony, I’ll let you take us through the leadership, seven levels of consciousness.

Tony: Yeah, and it’s beautiful, man, the way that the Baird values has it laid out. Starting with, like you talked about viability and what the Baird model says about viability is they kind of flip it. And we talk about leadership, they call it the crisis manager. And as a crisis manager, I mean, you’re probably in a very reactive state, whether you’re being reactive or whether you are handling reactive scenarios. And that’s what things just happen. You know, you have things happen in business, you have things happening within your organization, and you’re reacting to it and you’re dealing with it. You’re dealing with the crisis and now you are trying to transition from dealing with crisis to dealing with people as a good relationship manager, just like the individual side of the model. But with this one, you’re managing the relationships within your organization or within your business or within your community. And I love that because I have experienced going from crisis manager to relationship manager within organizations, and it is a difference. I’m in crisis is sometimes it’s new projects sometimes it’s new position i’m even if you are new to a company and your leader. You can look at that kind of is like crisis mode especially if the organization is already been operating with the hair on fire and so now you want to kind of cease the fire now you can. work with the people and really dig deep with individuals and get to know them and go to lunch with them. And it’s not a transactional lunch. Actually, now you’ve really built a relationship from there. Number three is performance manager for just like evolution in the individual model. Four is the facilitator slash innovator. I really love that. It makes me think about, you know, Simon Sinek and various Adam Grant, you know, various different leaders, thought leaders who have talked about what the power of innovation and within organizations as an innovator. This is where you start to put yourself in a situation where you may have an idea or you may come up with a solution for things or for something within your company. And it’s totally different. It’s totally left field. It’s totally not of the norm. But then how do you, how is it supported? When your performance is high and your relationships are high and your ability to manage crises are well known, now you can be even more of an innovative leader and you can transcend higher. On the other coin of number four from an evolution standpoint, You got the facilitator side, which is your ability to manage innovation. What about when someone comes to you with a new idea? Someone raises their hand and they say, hey, I want to do it this way. I want to do it that way. Or let’s come up with a new solution. How do you manage those various different ideas or the ideation that comes from a meeting? What do you do with it? Do you just let it sit on the shelf? or are you now actually implementing it within your organization? And I think that those first three levels of mastery can help you on both sides of the coin, whether you’re the one innovating or you’re the one facilitating the change that’s happening within your organization. I’ll pause right there and see what you’re thinking.

John: Yeah, I love the, it’s like you’re facilitating the evolution from a leadership standpoint. It’s, you know, how are you taking those ideas? How are you helping people feel autonomous in their creativity? It’s like, you know, I’ve been in an organization where there were so many different levels of approvals and, you know, it didn’t really feel like people had autonomy or were empowered to make decisions that they felt would drive the business forward. And, you know, when you would go through five different layers of approval and exhaust yourself as opposed to spending that time with the customer and moving the business forward, Man, it was dejecting. It really slowed evolution and did not foster innovation. I think that that’s a big part of being more of that leader that’s moving towards purpose-driven leadership is being able to facilitate innovation and give people the space to make mistakes. It is also as a performance manager to understand not put people in a spot to make mistakes that are going to set their career and your business back. right? It’s but still giving people enough room to stretch, to innovate, to grow, to evolve is really a key part of the dance of leadership and being able to manage that still above performance, the relationship and staying out of the crisis mode, right? It’s all going to be times where, you know, as a leader, you’re going to have to be a performance manager, a relationship manager, and a crisis manager at some point. You will have to do it again at other points. It’s the foundation that we’re always going to have to return to. But can we live in this space of facilitating innovation and continuing to courageously evolve as an organization? Again, I want to stress here like we did the last episode, that we’re talking values, not qualities. Because organizations can all have qualities for risk-taking, for agility, for transformation here and there. But are you really living that as a culture? How is that in your communication structure? How is that in your feedback loop? How is that in your annual your annual performance reviews? Are you hiring and promoting people that are exhibiting these values? Right. It’s all about how these are embedded in the fabric of what you do as an organization and how you exhibit them as a leader.

Tony: Yeah. so important because for organizations to actually grow and become what we all want them to be, you have to have a certain level of mastery in those first three parts. And not only as leaders, but as the culture is set for the entire organization. If you want an organization that is innovative, Then you gotta be good at handling crisis. You gotta be good at managing relationships within the walls of the company, or even the virtual walls of the company. You know, now companies are hybrid and remote. How do you manage relationships in hybrid and remote setups? And then you have the performance of the people and your ability to, like you mentioned, evaluate and move people up, the latter who are exhibiting the values and the culture that you want for your organization. And then for number five, once you are able to facilitate the evolution and facilitate the innovation, you want to be an authentic leader. And that is where I think the shift starts to take place between the original seven levels of consciousness for individuals and the leader. Now you’re focusing on having genuine self-expression. And the difference between genuine self-expression and authentic self-expression is that genuine self-expression has to be measured by the people that are looking at you, the people that you’re working with. They are the ones that label you as a genuine leader or an authentic leader. This is when I really saw it happen most when I talked to people about these seven levels of consciousness and people say, Yeah, I think I’m an authentic leader. And I’m like, but it’s not about what you think. It’s not about what you think you are in number five. It’s about what people or the people that work with you or the people that are under you in terms of your leadership, what do they say? You know, I was reading Nordhaus’s book on leadership and it’s just called Leadership. And in the book it talked about the difference between leaders and followers and not the difference in terms of characteristics but the fact that there are people that are identified as leaders and the people under them are identified as followers. And it’s not to call people followers like they follow you jumping off of a bridge. But followers are the ones that are able to identify whether or not you are truly a genuine, self-expression, authentic leader. It’s not you. So I just want to harp on that a bit because, like you mentioned, values versus qualities. We all think that we are authentic. but are you an authentic leader? Do people identify that in you, and do people identify you as an authentic leader? I think we all have room to grow there, especially when you think about number one on either side, whether it’s the individual viability, insurance stability side, or it’s the crisis manager side. That comes to play, especially when people are deciding whether or not you are genuine. So, just want to park there a bit and say that, and then go into six and seven, which six is The ability to be a partner leader, a mentor leader, the ability to work in collaboration with others through strategic alliances, coaching, community involvement. And seven, once again, is where we all want to be one day, which is the visionary leader. Creating new futures, living on purpose, that wisdom that exists within yourself and everybody that works within you, everybody that’s following your leadership.

John: And again, just like I mentioned in the last episode, this is a place where you can be at any stage of your life. You don’t have to be a near retirement executive to be a visionary leader. You can be a visionary leader right now in your school. You can be a teenager and be a visionary leader. You can be making $20 an hour or 200K a year and be a visionary leader. It does not matter. These are qualities that you start to embody in your life that become values. So are you living your life from a sense of I value creating new futures? I value having a long term perspective and becoming wise. And then it’s what does that actually look like in your life? So when I’m working with clients that want to embody these things, want to embody their core values, and that want to move forward authentically, it’s how does that actually show up in your life? What practices are you putting in place day to day to exhibit these values? When a crisis comes up, How do you still remain in a visionary leader space and manage the crisis? Like that is, these can also exist together. So each of these levels of consciousness can exist simultaneously in my eyes. And I don’t think you need to go down to the crisis manager headspace necessarily to go manage a crisis. I think you can still be in a collaborative mindset and living more purposefully with others in mind and go down and the problem is still going to be the same problem. Yet, the energy that you approach it with is going to show the difference in the level of consciousness that your leadership is at.

Tony: That’s good. And I love how you mentioned that it’s not just about where you work and what you do and how much money you make. Because when I was thinking about that visionary leader and I was thinking about the most impactful ways or some of the most impactful positions in the world that can exemplify all of these, I think about educators. I think about teachers. I think that educators need, if they don’t already, I cannot assume that they don’t have this particular model or any type of model similar in their coaching or their performance measures, but wow. Imagine if our education system adopted something like this, where we focused on taking teachers and educators from crisis managers to visionary leaders. And you talk about not having to be at a certain level of seniority, this is the perfect example because you can be teaching second graders as a visionary leader, and watching them graduate high school a few years later, because it happens very quickly, and watching them continue on and live their life and creating the futures that you may have planted a seed in second grade. I know for a fact that there has been educators in my life that have sparked various different points and things that have triggered me to operate in a certain way for the better, you know, in positive ways. And it’s not all just education. Sometimes it’s conversations about life. Many times that’s what it was. And then sometimes it’s on the flip side, a certain way to learn, a certain way to lead, you know, pointing out that, you know, you’re a leader, Tony, you know. act like this or you’re a leader, be like that. And those kind of reminders is when you talk about long-term perspective and creating new futures and being a visionary leader and living on purpose, I cannot not value the importance of educators and being able to impact so many young minds at very critical, pivotal times of their development.

John: I’m so glad you brought that up. I think it should be such a high esteemed position to be an educator. I think it should be one of the highest paid, on a pedestal positions that are out there. I think it’s so critical and a space where being, wow, talk about a long-term perspective, creating new futures. If we have visionary leaders across all of our educators, Imagine the future that that would ensue. Oh, my gosh. I mean, talk about having a long term impact. So I don’t know any educators out there. You want to work with us from a coaching perspective, share this podcast around the school, around your faculty, whatever. Take this as a sign that let’s get to work. So I’d love to have some kind of program that’s tailored towards education and working from a coaching perspective with a lot of leaders within education. I think that would be amazing, actually. So any educators listening, we will step in and do the best that we can and know that this podcast is a resource to share with your students, with your co-workers, and anyone that you feel could learn, that could get something from this material. So we’d be happy to help and share. I think that is just such a huge, huge area that. Needs improvement that needs more attention and.

Tony: We’re happy to support them for sure, because there’s no other profession that impacts such a massive amount. of the future and does it in a way where you have their time and attention for hours and hours and hours and hours for the most, for some of the most critical times in their life, you know, before, between what? 5 and 18. That’s wild.

John: That’s wild, man. I complete aside from the education conversation, but I’d say when I met you, Tony, the visionary leader qualities that that you exuded were just incredible. And I know you were, you were leading the, the startup charge to the nonprofit at the time, you know, not even, not even as your main job, right? Like these were all of, our side jobs and when I showed up at that volunteer event and we’re talking through the different issues that are there in the millennial think tank, man, we were just going at it. I’d say your long-term perspective and what you were looking at in even calling yourself the social entrepreneur, and talk about the social responsibility there, what do you think set you up? to step into that leadership role as a visionary leader? Because I’d say that you were at that, not that you’re not now, but when I met you, you were at that six and seven level. What helped you get there and live there at the top of that organization?

Tony: Well, I think first, thank you for the compliment. That’s really impactful in a lot of ways for me personally, even now. But wow, I think that Ignorance is bliss. I think not knowing, what is it? Not knowing what you don’t know, or I guess that’s the best way to say it. Not knowing what you don’t know is sometimes the best things for you. Not knowing the time and the, resources that it takes to do something like that allowed me to just kind of jump out there without really caring, you know, sink or swim, just flying regardless. And I think that being more risk tolerant at the time definitely played a factor in my why of why I was able to lead that and create that and do that. and thinking bigger than me. And as I kind of transition even now, that’s something that I’m currently kind of working on at the time of now even is how do we create those kind of environments and spaces even today? And, you know, as I think about, as I reflect on the crisis manager, the, uh, the viability, and I’ve had a lot of change in my personal life, being a husband, a dad, those things, I’m able to now, as I’ve gone from when we met to now, ensure my stability as a new leader, as a new leader of a family even. So I’m excited to get back to that even more in this space and do it differently. challenged with a question at that time from someone who heard about me and met me and really kind of put a wrinkle in my plans. He’s like, you know, what’s the long-term goal? And I explained the long-term goal and he’s like, but it doesn’t make money, you know? And I’m like, so? You know, at that time, what is it? It doesn’t matter. It needs to be able to make money. And I think that kind of It was a blessing in disguise, I guess, to hear that from an older person that has gone down a similar path. But now I think about where I am today, and I’m really in a space of equity building and wealth creation for communities. I think that the plight and the objective for six and seven levels of leadership is much different, and it’s a higher cost, and I think it takes more thought, more resources, and more knowledge to do what I’m preparing to do. And so I’m excited to take that, as you mentioned, those six and seven qualities, and I really do appreciate you saying that, and do it in a way where more people can be impacted on a mass scale as opposed to you know, bringing 30 millennials together and, you know, talking about how we’re going to change the world. Like now I want to actually implement that with policy, implement opportunities to create change for individuals to increase their median income, you know, things like that, as opposed to, you know, going to a food pantry or food bank and doing a volunteer shift, which matters. You know, definitely. But now how do we make it to where those families and individuals don’t need to rely on those resources? That’s kind of where I am today.

John: Now, listeners, I bring that up. I asked Tony that question just to show you exactly how. You can live six and seven qualities at a level of bootstrapping and going around to food pantries, cleaning out houses, and everything that we did with the millennial community and that you did as a leader of that organization, and how those qualities, when they are embedded in your values, can transition to such a higher level of impact later on. So you are exhibiting the same qualities, but because they are something that you value and that you want to live your life by, it’s moved from a group of 30 millennials, and now we’re talking about creating policies and raising median income rates. That’s the level of involvement that manifests in our physical reality, but the real place where all of that started is in Tony’s heart and mind back. How many years ago was that now? Six years? It was like eight. Eight? Oh, man. Eight years ago, right? So wherever you are in your life right now, how old you are, how much money you’re making, your level of seniority, whatever, what values do you want to live your life by? What values do you want to move forward with and grow with? Because if you hold those values true in whatever place that you’re in now and incorporate them in your life, show up in the way that reflects them day to day, month to month, quarter to quarter, No matter how many times life takes you out of them, you will keep moving along that spectrum with your level of impact. Your level of impact will increase. Your level of consciousness will remain. You’ll stay at that higher level if you start living by those types of values wherever you are today. start now move up in life and that example from Tony was just Key, key. Okay, I wanted to hammer that home. Now, visionary leaders, go out there, create something beautiful, transcend yourselves, and let’s create a better world for each other. And when we do that, you’ll start feeling that inside. You’ll start creating a better world for yourself. All right, my friends, until next time, check us out anywhere that you get your podcasts and at the presentprofessionalpodcast.com. Rate us and review us wherever you’re listening. We greatly appreciate you as listeners in the present professional community. We’ll talk to you soon.