The practice of silence as a journey towards conscious leadership

Ph.D.Abstract: Today, there is a rapidly growing sense of impending crisis with dire consequences for all humanity. The way humanity currently lives on earth is no longer sustainable. The incidence and course of human misery and suffering and the likelihood of extinction are increasing significantly. Many new and existing challenges remain unresolved such as poverty, racism, materialism, greed, destruction and pollution of the air, ground, water, forests and oceans, coupled with the elimination of countless other helpless sentient beings. More recently, humanity is battling to contain the coronavirus Covid-19 global health pandemic. In all this there appears to be an acute shortage of and a pressing need for outstanding leadership. The answer lies in a new kind of leader, a conscious leader. A conscious leader’s actions are based on a profound realisation of a bigger picture, a sense of interconnectedness and wholeness, the result of the leader’s expanded sense of identity and compassion. This type of leader leads his followers on a journey, personally and jointly, towards wholeness, resulting in holistic care being reflected in all their decisions. The burning question is where such a journey in the process of growing and developing conscious leaders should start. The practice of silence appears to be such a way. Practices of silence lead to introspection, contemplation and self-reflection, and ultimately to inner stillness, thus enabling enhanced consciousness. Hence, the research question for my study: How does the practice of silence contribute as a journey towards conscious leadership? The following three research objectives were set: (1) to build a theoretical model of the way in which the practice of silence contributes to a leader’s journey towards conscious leadership; (2) to conceptually verify the model by exploring the use of practices of silence in the lives of historical conscious leaders; and (3) to empirically verify the proposed theoretical model by investigating the contribution that the practice of silence made to the lives of living conscious leaders. A combination of literature and documentary review, together with case study analysis, formed the basis of the research. After a review of the literature, a theoretical model was constructed with seven themes from which fourteen postulates were derived..