Fostering holistic leadership through FEBI – Lee’s Story

Fostering holistic leadership through FEBI – Lee’s Story

by Jasleen Kaur and Kelly Bannister.

Meet Lee – Confident. Strong. Diligent. And not easy to please! A mid-career professional, she’s the go-to person if you want to make things happen, like develop a project plan or improve a process. She will get the facts, create the system, and perfect the plan–especially if she is in a position of authority. She’s kind of a know-it-all, do-it all personality. In her heart she always puts people before work but she comes across as the opposite. In fact, Lee might unknowingly step on others toes in her efforts to be correct. Highly accomplished, she knows she probably works too much and (like a few of us!) admits to not having the work-life balance figured out yet. 

Lee’s FEBI profile reveals her easy access to Organizer and Driver energy patterns, consistent with her orderliness, dependability and drive for results. Her weaker Collaborator and Visionary energy patterns explain why she doesn’t feel as much like a free-flowing, fun-loving spirit or outside-the-box thinker. 

Knowing her FEBI profile is more like a mirror to give her live feedback rather than a photograph of fixed personality traits, Lee is excited to explore the information her FEBI assessment offers! With a bit of coaching from a FEBI certified coach, she quickly realizes the flipside of a strong Organizer energy that sorts the world into “this or that.” While she enjoys the focus (and high!) of Driver energy, her body wisdom tells her she can’t stay in that energy indefinitely if she seeks a holistic way of being. Lee senses into the kind of joy she is missing out on because her easier-to-access patterns, although key to her success, have become default, somewhat limiting habits.

Lee considers the information from her FEBI assessment, including the suggested physical exercises and practical suggestions offered, to turn her life around.

Lee’s strong Organizer-Driver energy style is part of her superpower. Yet, she realizes through her FEBI assessment that her tightly established ways of doing things are also limiting.

With her newfound goal to shift to a more holistic way of being, and with awareness that this involves strengthening her Visionary and Collaborator energy patterns, Lee sets an intention to move away from her ‘zoom in’ way of working and develop more capacity to ‘zoom out’ and be part of a bigger, more interconnected picture. Gaining information from her FEBI report, combined with some light FEBI coaching support, Lee learns how to draw on her stronger energy patterns to help her gain easier access to her weaker ones. 

Lee chooses a set of micro movements to bring conscious behavioral changes through her body to support her journey. She decides on some simple ways to attract more fun, lighten up a bit, and let things flow. She agrees to intentionally look for some out-of-the-box solutions and even practice making some spontaneous choices! She finds different genres of music can help her move between energy patterns (e.g., from Organizer to Collaborator) when she feels stuck. 

Realizing the fuller potential of life change available through the FEBI approach, Lee deepens her meditation practice to cultivate more Visionary energy and expand her vision. She begins using this broad vision to sense out-of-the-box solutions at work. As she lets herself get more curious, she feels more open to see where her curiosity leads. 

Lee’s growing capacity for blue-sky field-of-dreams thinking is shifting her sense of possibilities for both professional life and achieving personal goals. As she begins to realize her goals in her work and relationships, she decides to become a FEBI certified coach, to support others in their discovery and to share her story. 

Lee’s story is true and based on the real journey of one of our IZL instructors to foster holistic leadership. It is shared with you, as part of her commitment to living her change–and as an invitation: What change would you like to live into through the FEBI approach?

Jasleen Kaur and Kelly Bannister are Zen Leadership Instructors and FEBI Certified Coaches.