Developmental Recommendations

John, you seem to have most of the qualities of the 4.0 Pluralist level but there are a few areas that may shore up the 3.5 Achiever as well as the 4.0 Pluralist areas that will make the 4.5 Strategist much more salient.

The first area that I didn't see you express in the 3.5 is an ability to focus or "zoom in" with attention. You wrote about its counterpoint, "awareness", which is "zooming out". Both of these skills are needed at the 4.5 Strategist level which you seem to be leaning into. When you zoom out, you can take a balcony view of the organization, a department, or any aspect of the organization you want to see the whole of. You can see the larger view and locate what might not be working well. However, if you are going to be able to make corrections of what is not working well, you need to "zoom into" (focus) on the detail and correct it. Then you can "zoom-out" with awareness and see whether your interventions worked. Focusing comes up most often at 3.5 Achiever, and awareness at 4.0 Pluralist. Activating their interaction is one of the definitions of adaptability--a critical skill.

My suggestion is to access something dear to you---peace---and use that as a means to develop focus.

You can do this meditation each morning. Sit in a comfortable position. Close your eyes and breathe in your nose a full breath and then breathe out by slowly blowing your breath out until it naturally ends. Notice how peace settles in. Do this four times and then just breathe normally but focus your attention on your breath. Watch your breath---and you may notice at some point that your mind wants to wander. Bring your attention and focus back to your breath and focus. Focus on the breath and peace. When the mind wants to zoom out, bring it back and focus. Concentration is a life-long skill and it will also help greatly with procrastination. If you learn to focus during this meditation, you can transfer that skill into your everyday life...become more adaptable and reduce procrastination. Begin with 5 minutes and add one minute a day until you reach 20 minutes or more.

The second area that seems to be missing is seeing your ego-states/subpersonalities/parts. This is an extension of and combination of your cognition, your emotions, and your action orientation. At the mature 3.5 level, you have metacognition--- (thinking about your thinking--thinking about your feelings, feeling about your thinking and feeling about your feelings. You will notice that when either thinking and feeling change, your impulses and behaviors change. From the recognition of the relationship between cognition, emotion, and behavior at the 3.5 level, at the 4.0 level, these three parts come together as subpersonalities. Some people call them "voices" These subpersonalities can be very helpful in terms of understanding why you do what you do.

For example, you seem to have a part that procrastinates. You might want to know why this behavior exists or continues. One thing you can do to find out,  ask this part of yourself," What is your positive intention?. I wonder what your procrastination part would tell you? Asking this question of parts of yourself and listening further can help you get to know these parts more intimately.

A great benefit can come from understanding your subpersonality parts and what you about yourself from them. The capacity to see these parts comes up at 4.0 Pluralist and can support your understanding of any part of your leadership that comes to you. That one question can get you started in knowing any part of yourself that is causing behaviors that you can't quite understand. This is the second practice I recommend: to get to know these voices inside of yourself. They can be of great help when working with shadow elements of yourself.