Smart Power and Authentic Leadership with Dr. Sylvia Rhode-Liebenau (Part 2)

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🎧 Episode 166: Smart Power and Authentic Leadership with Dr. Sylvia Rhode-Liebenau (Part 2)

In Part 2 of our conversation with Dr. Sylvia Rhode-Liebenau, we go deeper into the embodied aspects of leadership and explore what the future holds for effective decision-making in an AI-driven world. Sylvia shares practical techniques for internal alignment, reveals the most dysfunctional "organ" in today's leadership ecosystem, and discusses her provocative new book "Who's in Charge?"

We explore:

• The ABC technique for embodied leadership: Awareness, Balance, and Core relaxation
• Why setting clear intentions transforms every interaction and meeting
• What power-hungry leaders consistently misunderstand about true influence
• The "heart" as the most neglected vital organ in organizational leadership
• How to distinguish between genuine intuition and "pseudo-intuition" in decision-making
• The multiple layers behind the question "Who's in Charge?" in our chaotic world
• Why the future of leadership depends on creativity vs. reactivity with AI
• Essential human skills that AI can never replace in leadership

🔑 Key takeaways:

1. The ABC Practice: Use Awareness (feel your whole body), Balance (find your center), and Core relaxation (release tension) to get present before important interactions
2. Intentional Leadership: Always clarify your purpose before meetings - Do you want to influence, gather information, or create connections?
3. Control vs. Influence: Power-hungry leaders fail because they try to control everything instead of building influence through relationship and trust
4. The Heart Dysfunction: Organizations suffer when leaders believe emotions don't belong in the workplace, missing the fact that most decisions are emotional first, then rationalized
5. True vs. Pseudo-Intuition: Real intuition assesses capability objectively; pseudo-intuition is just favoritism disguised as gut feeling
6. Sovereignty in Chaos: Being truly "in charge" means self-awareness and sovereignty, not external control
7. Human-AI Partnership: The future belongs to leaders who use AI as a tool while maintaining creativity, critical thinking, and human connection

💡 Quotes to remember:

"When I relax, I can be even more present because where I'm tense, I'm not really present."

"The heart, the emotions don't have a place, whereas they have a very important place... most of our decision makings are actually emotional. And then afterwards we rationalize what's going on."

"It's really just the distinction between creativity and reactivity... I can remain in creativity to first be a creative human being to say, what is the purpose? What do we want here?"

Final wisdom: "Feel the gratitude of life each moment and every day - it makes such a difference."

📚 Resources mentioned:

• Book: "Who's in Charge?" by Dr. Sylvia Rhode-Liebenau
• Website: https://www.smartpowerm

A rising tide raises all ships, and I invite you along on this journey to Evoke Greatness!
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Chapters

1. Welcome to Evoke Greatness Year Three (00:00:00)

2. Smart Power and Authentic Leadership Part Two (00:01:57)

3. Embodiment Practices for Internal Alignment (00:03:14)

4. The Fallacy of Intimidation Leadership (00:06:32)

5. The Heart: Leadership's Most Underutilized Organ (00:09:58)

6. Who's Really In Charge? (00:14:47)

7. Future of Leadership: Beyond AI (00:19:47)

8. Gratitude and Closing Thoughts (00:25:00)