Dec 16 2008
Developing Leaders | Healers
This is the third in a series about developing the quality of leadership within you. These are the times that call you to bring forth the inner leader, whether you use it to enhance your family, community, country or planet Earth. Exploring different types of leaders is built around this central question: How are you going to make a difference?
The past two posts explored leadership through the archetypes of the Warrior and the Visionary, as presented by Angeles Arrien in her book The Four Fold Way. An archetype is a universal quality that is available to everyone. Today, this post explores the leader archetype of the Healer.
If examined from a time component, the Warrior Leader is in the present, taking right action. The Visionary Leader looks to the future, acting as a compass for right direction. The Healer Leader deals with the past, releasing energy that acts as anchors that holds you back. The Healer Leader then promotes right timing in all endeavors. The fourth type of leadership, which will be presented in the next post, is the Teacher. This style of leadership, represents past, present and future, as the awareness of the lessons learned from the past, affect the actions being taken in the present, which creates the destiny of our future. Optimally, we master all four types of leadership becoming a symphony, not a lone instrument, in our effectiveness in creating change.
The Positive Aspects of the Healer Leader
According to Angeles Arrien, healers have these qualities or aspects:
- They pay attention to what has heart and meaning.
- Are skilled in the art of acknowledgement, acceptance, recognition, validation and gratitude.
- Are able to sustain their own emotional and spiritual health, while uplifting others.
- Hold the four qualities of heart: full, open, clear and strong.
- Have mastered giving and receiving to themselves as well as to others.
- Have mastered the ability to connect.
- Harness the healing powers of storytelling, singing, dancing and silence.
The Challenges of the Healer Leader
Arrien beautifully speaks to the unique challenges of the Healer Leader when she says about this archetype:
“We experience the shadow side of the Healer, when we do not attend to our own health and well-being. To attend to our own health care requires a commitment to life-affirming patterns. When life-affirming patterns are not consistently present, the shadow side of this archetype is revealed by the wounded child of the South, who exhibits patterns of neediness and withdrawal and grows up to be the martyr.”
According to Arrien, healing energy that isn’t expressed in a positive fashion can become one of the four universal addictions:
- The Addiction to intensity or drama and trauma: The distortion of the ability to receive love.
- The Addiction to perfection: The distortion of the ability to express excellence.
- The Addiction to needing to know: The distortion of the ability to access inner wisdom.
- The Addiction to fixating on what’s not working versus what IS working: The distortion of the ability to trust the Great Mystery.
The Healer Leader discerns core essence that lies beneath all form. No matter what our race, gender, belief systems, or cultural mannerisms we are all connected through our 12 Universal Needs. These are: sustenance, contribution, play, rest, growth, love, safety, belonging, autonomy, reverence, integrity and celebration. By hearing what universal need is being asked for beneath the external form of expression and reciprocating it back, the Healer Leader creates empowered and whole individuals.
Contemplative Questions for the Healer Leader:
- Where am I not attending to my own needs?
- How can I deepen in my listening to what’s really being said or what’s really being asked for?
- Is my heart full, strong, open and clear?
- Can I recognize, acknowledge, accept, validate, and appreciate my own Universal Needs as well as others?
The final post in this series, will feature a healing podcast meditation for all four leadership qualities. Only you, however, can determine what actions you will take to express yourself as a leader. Feel free to share in the comments. Just think…maybe my need for contribution can meet your need for growth! (That statement came from my need for play 
