The Art of Compassionate Command

The other day I was on a call with a client. We’ll call her Lucy. 

Lucy is FIERCE. She’s creative. She’s curious. She’s bold. She’s one of the most innovative and highly respected people in her industry.

And Lucy told me she shudders when people call her ambitious.

“Ambitious is NOT a good thing to be!" she said to me. 

What happened next might surprise you.

“I totally understand. I felt that way for years,” I said. 

Everywhere around me I saw “ambitious” female leaders who were leading in ways that didn’t sit right with me. 

While I could recognize that they were smart and strong, I also found them to be cold. They were rigid. They stepped on people to get to the top. They were authoritative and often dismissive. They cultivated a culture rooted more in fear than inclusion. I rarely saw them support other women.

In my eyes, this is what ambition looked like and I had determined that didn’t work for me.

What a great excuse to abandon the ambitious part of myself.

I began to believe that ambition could not co-exist with integrity and heart. And so, for years, I denied my ambition. I pretty much turned off that part of myself, playing small so that I didn’t have to abandon my integrity.

Lucy nodded in agreement. For both of us, ambitious was a dirty word. 

In hindsight, I have tremendous compassion for those women. They came up in a time where they didn’t know there was any other way. And, to their credit, they couldn’t deny their ambition. They would die if they didn’t succeed. And in a man’s world, they determined that they would do whatever it took to get ahead - and they did.

But Lucy? 

She’s a trailblazer who has determined that sacrificing her integrity isn’t an option. And through our work together, she has realized that she gets to define who she is going to be and how she will show up as a leader. And while there were times in the past that she may have abandoned herself for a boss, now that she’s in the driver’s seat, she is determined to create a culture where NO ONE must abandon themselves or their values to have an impact in her industry.

I’d call that ambitious. 

Lucy has learned the Art of Compassionate Command.

The Art of Compassionate Command is my newest framework for leadership. Whether you’re a leader in your business, your community or your home, The Art of Compassionate Command will teach you to slow down and get intentional. It requires that you get brutally honest about where you’re abandoning yourself and your values -- and then it shows you how to rebuild, so that you are in command of yourself, of every room you step into, of your destiny -- all from a place of compassion for yourself and for others.

When was the last time you asked yourself how you’re showing up as a leader? And when was the last time you got intentional about who you want to be in the world.