Peri Chickering - Leadership Flow: The Unstoppable Power of Connection

Praise for Leadership Flow

Peri Chickering has traversed 20,000 foot peaks and major corporate boardrooms, guiding leaders across the globe through the territory of their own souls. Learn from a deeply experienced and genuine explorer what it means to venture into and master the true frontier territory of your Self.

WILLIAM ISAACS, author of Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together

Unlike any leadership book on the market! Leadership Flow is a book for every stage of your career and life. I wish I had read it in my 20s, 30s, 40s and plan to continue to review it into my 60s and 70s. It is an anchor and guidepost all in one!

TERRI FIEZ, Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation, University of Colorado, Boulder

A beautifully written book for all who want to lead in ways that enhance the common good and their own wellbeing, offered up in the form of compelling personal stories, insights drawn from nature, and a wide range of wisdom traditions. Chickerings teachings will affirm and guide you as you bring your gifts to a world in need.

PARKER J. PALMER, author of On the Brink of Everything, A Hidden Wholeness, The Courage to Teach, and Let Your Life Speak

Powerful and illuminating. Weaving experience and insight, Peri Chickering calls us to a life of listeningin all the directionsand to the intelligence, creativity, and benefit inherent in our true nature.

SARAH BUIE, Founding Convener, Council on the Uncertain Human Future

All leadership today is situated in a profound moment of disruption. When you live and lead in such a context, what is the one thing you can rely on? The capacity to access your inner knowing. In this book Peri Chickering takes you on a journey to explore seven key directions of inner knowing. Essential reading for leading and flourishing in this time of transformation.

OTTO SCHARMER, Co-founder of the Presencing Institute, author of Theory U and Presencing

Leadership Flow

Copyright 2021 Peri Chickering, PhD

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

Print ISBN: 978-1-64742-151-9

E-ISBN: 978-1-64742-152-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021906580

For information, address:

She Writes Press

1569 Solano Ave #546

Berkeley, CA 94707

Cover and interior design by Tabitha Lahr

She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals.

For my mother and father.
Thank you for giving me a
nature-filled childhood and
the space to find my own way.
Love and support always
present yet never demanding,
I grew up knowing I had a place
in the larger order of things.

The primary purpose of this book is to remind you of the intricate and intelligent web in which your life is embedded and to offer specific tools and practices to ensure you remain connected to this truth.

L eadership Flow is based on the fundamental assumption of an intricate and intelligent universe of which we are all a part. This assumption influences the kind of person you become and the work you are called to do. Your unique gifts and natural talents are intimately integrated into this whole. As you use these gifts, your leadership inherently flows out into the world and serves the health and well-being of all.

Awareness of this deep intelligence has been and still is being held by indigenous communities around the world. Out of respect for this longstanding wisdom, I have chosen to use an image known to Native Americans as the Seven Directionsseven domains of awareness and creative influence which work together to ensure harmony, balance, and respect for all living beingsas the central organizing structure of this book. These domains of awareness are universal, timeless, and interconnected. This book is based on my lived experience of these domains and is my own personal interpretation.

In honor of the wisdom traditions which are the foundations of this book, all proceeds from its sale will go to First Nations causes.

by Christine Bader

A s the gray, damp Pacific Northwest winter arrived in late 2016, it matched my mood. The job Id been working toward my entire careerthe one Id gone to business school for fifteen years earlier, the one Id packed up my family and moved us across the country for, the one consuming my waking hours and mental energywasnt working out. But I couldnt figure out what was going wrong or what to do about it.

As I realized I needed help, one person leapt to mind. I met Peri in 2007, on a Coming into Your Own womens retreat she facilitated, and in the years since, joined two other programs for which she served as faculty.

Peri radiates assuredness and wisdom to an extent that might be intimidating or inaccessible were it not shaped by her calm stillness and infused with warmth and curiosity. When I first met her I thought, I need more of that.

We all donow more than ever. As I write this in the middle of 2020, the world is in a state of breakdown: facing a global pandemic, protesting against structural racism, a looming US presidential election promising more divisiveness and chaosall in the context of a warming planet screaming for attention.

That is why I am so thankful that Peri is finally honoring her lifelong practices in these pages for all of us to learn from.

She is not about disclosing a secret code, only available to leaders of a certain stature or privilege. Peris superpower is reconnecting us to our true selves, to the core that has been there all along, but has been obfuscated by expectations and whatever baggage and circumstances weve accumulated on our travels.

I had lost sight of my center. Peri listened, she asked, she prodded, she played back. She breathed and reminded me to do the same. She never assumed or judged.

First, she helped me see that I didnt need to flail, that I actually was achieving much of what I had set out to achieve, that I really did have colleagues who were supporting me. With a clearer view of the landscape, Peri then guided me as I made the decision to leave my jobnever imposing her own views, but asking the questions that led me to the next step.

Then, once Id made my decision, we got tactical. Peri reminded me that not every idea has to be broadcast the moment it appears, and we thought carefully about the right sequence of whom I told and how. She schooled me in the lost art of keeping ones mouth shut, and the power and importance of being precise and deliberate when stakes are highskills that I wish more of todays leaders had.