Joy is an evolutionary model of leadership that empowers leaders into their authentic leadership presence. In other words, joy focuses on the evolution of each leader from first breath to to the last. It centers, on who one has been and still is becoming before focusing on individual goals of the moment. Consider, what does it mean to accomplish a goal if one does not yet understand who one is in one’s heart?

Guidance is all about centering on each leader’s joyful evolution. It is designed to name the authentic experiences of each leader bringing their best. It was cultivated to honor the highest luminescence of their heart with a joy brand that reflects the powerful radiance of their heart in action. The intention is to partner with leaders to identify their unique brand of joy, based on their own model of living and leading well, so that they can continuously lead from within. This model calls leaders into full energetic and psychological alignment, offering leaders the breath that they need before deciding how best to accomplish their goals. Guidance through joy allows each and every leader to live and lead from a place of knowing who they authentically are in their soul.

Now, there are a couple of things to clarify here:

Note that while guidance does encourage leaders to look back upon who they are when they are at their best it does not do so through a lens of drama/trauma. That is reserved for the work of therapists. Guidance is cultivated out of positive psychology and therefore uses very different data from traditional therapy. Remember that joy is the data from the other half of your soul. Further, the data of who one is and how one leads from who they are when one is in joy is only used to name, center, and honor each leader’s unique leadership framework for them to then apply to achieving their goals and setting aspirations, in this breath and/or the next.

This leads to the second clarification that guidance is something that occurs before coaching. Coaching is used as a process to “partner with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their potential and professional potential (International Coaching Federation).” But what does it mean to help leaders to achieve their goals if those goals are not aligned with the truest desires of that leader’s heart? Further, what does it mean for coaches to partner with leaders (not clients) if they don’t know who they are? Many leaders today are trying their darndest to achieve goals that advance their careers, their families, communities, etc. all in the name of climbing an illusory ladder of success or achieving some notion of stability, security, and or balance that is not driven by their own wisdom. Guidance is what gives leaders the model and space to come into their own authentic leadership presence. From there they can partner with mentors, sponsors, coaches, therapists, etc. to continue to become the leaders that they are designed to be.

The key is that guides offer a partnership for leaders to come into their own understanding of who they are in joy and then leverage tools (joyquiry, reflective validation, assessments) to empower leaders in a way at inspires their hearts to continue to smile back at being more them. Guidance is the future of leadership as it ensures that each leader has an accountability framework that their heart would be overjoyed to hold them accountable while providing the partnership for leaders for the full breadth of their leadership journey.