Psychosynthesis is a well established approach to personal, professional
and spiritual development. Indeed, it is Psychosynthesis which inspired
the coaching and mentoring model which I use and which is described elsewhere
on this web site. One of the few books published on the application
of Psychosynthesis in business is Inner Leadership: REALize Your Self-leading Potential (People Skills for Professionals)
Inner Leadership treats leadership as a journey of discovery rather than a set of competences to be learned. It moves away from the idea of the hero leader to bringing out the leader in each of us. A central part of inner leadership is knowing ourselves sufficiently well that our personality becomes a resource which we can use rather than a tyrant that controls us.
One of several ways of developing our inner leadership that Smith discusses
is through working with our "constituents". These are like miniature
personalities - each has its own world view, self image, set of body
postures and gestures, feelings, words, habits and beliefs. Transactional
Analysis uses an approach which focuses on just 3 constituents - Parent,
Adult and Child. Smith's approach provides the flexibility for people
to choose the constituents most meaningful to them - they might have
names like Attila the Hun, the wise man, the pleaser, Donald Duck, the
controller, Lilith, the critic, the perfectionist and so forth. Working
with the parts of ourselves can be a hugely creative process whereby
we transform a group of warring and fractious constituents into an integrated
and aligned personality which supports us in our journey. Inner Leadership: REALize Your Self-leading Potential (People Skills for Professionals)
