The King Archetype is a Heart-Centred Leader in Your Inner Kingdom
A true Sovereign archetype is a heart-centred leader: his leadership is focused on the welfare of the people of his kingdom rather than being designed to advance his own interests. While self-serving leadership generally leads to disrespect, disharmony, disorder and eventually tyranny in the inner and outer “kingdoms”, heart-centred leadership takes into account the needs and wishes of the people.
(Your inner kingdom is the world of your mind, encompassing your thoughts, feelings and behaviour); the outer kingdom is the world for which you are responsible, encompassing family, friends, work, leisure and all the responsibilities that come with being an adult man – or woman – in the world.)
A true Sovereign will take care to consider the diverse consequences of his intentions and actions. His fundamental aim is to serve the people he is leading, and from this approach will spring all the qualities that naturally follow in heart-centred leadership.
He will have the ability and open-mindedness to act generously and to examine his own actions carefully. He will always be committed to personal and professional growth. To ensure that he stands a good chance of fulfilling those intentions, he will surround himself with people who are trustworthy advisers. These could be men in a men’s group whom he trusts, or specialists in some field of knowledge who can advise him on specific issues.
This is indeed the fullest, truest version of the king or sovereign archetype: the heart-centred leader. The leader who has a fundamental view of people as worthy of respect. He knows that, given the right support, people can, if they choose to, rise far beyond what is generally expected of them, and that they may be more fulfilled when they take responsibility for their own lives.
The king archetype, as manifested in the heart-centred leader, is not quick to judge, and so he creates an environment where people can speak freely in an honest and creative way. People feel safe with him, not least because he is compassionate and willing to admit when he has made mistakes. He does not blame and shame, but encourages other people to take responsibility when appropriate. His commitment to making a difference both in his own life and that of others is clear, not just in his words, but also in his attitudes and his actions.
Because of the positive foundation on which his worldview is based, the heart-centred sovereign archetype – whether you choose to call him the King or Leader in your life – will always seek to develop ideas and strategies that will inspire his followers to take responsibility. This allows them to play a full part in generating greater prosperity, well-being and security for themselves, and for the people and the wider world around them.
If you wanted to sum up the heart-centred king archetype’s approach to his world, you’d probably include words like vision, compassion, integrity, authenticity, kindness, truth, leading by example, awareness, presence, self-awareness, open-mindedness, supportiveness, generosity, planning for the future, and working for the benefit of all.
Management consultant Susan Steinbrecher has provided a short definition: “Heart-centred leadership means having the wisdom, courage and compassion to lead others with authenticity, transparency, humility and service.”
Such an approach to leadership does indeed require great wisdom. It requires the wisdom to know when to let go, when to hand over problems and challenges to other people. It requires the wisdom to see that jumping to conclusions or making snap judgements is not a helpful way of gaining trust or co-operation. And it requires the wisdom to see that leadership by encouragement and inspiration is a more successful strategy for leaders in any position of authority than leadership by fear and control.
You can see, therefore, that to embody this approach to life requires considerable emotional maturity. There is no easy definition of emotional maturity, although we all intuitively recognize somebody who embodies that quality. What we can say with certainty is that emotional maturity is based on a foundation of personal development work. This means finding ways to resolve any emotional wounding from childhood which inhibits the expression of our complete “360 degree” personality, thereby gaining the courage to stand up and to be seen and heard by those who follow us.
Beyond that, of course, a King needs the structures that support heart-centred leadership: formative life experience, appropriate training and experience in leadership, and an effective support system, for no King can rule successfully in isolation. Of course, a heart-centred leader, whose concern is for the welfare of all, must regard him or herself as being at least as important as those whom he or she is serving. Otherwise the shadows of overwork, perfectionism and self-neglect may begin to assert themselves. (The beliefs which underlie these shadows are, most likely, primarily about powerlessness or worthlessness.)
A true Sovereign will always recognize the importance of his own health and well-being, and take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that it is maintained – principally because that is the only way in which he can continue to work for the benefit of his people.
Video – podcast on the Sovereign Archetype / King Archetype: Rod Boothroyd & Piers Cross
The concept of heart-centred leadership originates in the philosophy of “servant leadership” created by Robert Greenleaf in the 1970s. According to Greenleaf, the true intention of a servant leader is always to serve rather than to lead. In part, this philosophy is based on the belief that an intention to lead for leadership’s sake alone suggests a man is trying to compensate for some kind of lack, such as a sense of being “less than”, or perhaps that he is seeking the ego boost of feeling a sense of power and control over others. (Think for a moment of some of the so-called political leaders on show in the world right now, and consider whether that might be true of them.)
By contrast, leading to serve, which is the intention of the servant leader, suggests that you are already mature enough to understand that you do not need the inflation of self-aggrandizement, the status accorded by position, or the rewards of power and control over others, to feel good about yourself. To put it another way, servant leaders, or heart-centred leaders, are enabling those whom they lead to evolve and grow.
This is an interesting concept, but I do see a paradox in it: while growing into heart-centred leadership, a King must inevitably traverse the shadowy terrain of his own emotional wounds, for example with “shadow work“. This might mean working on a sense of not being worthy enough or good enough. For many true Sovereigns, the way to overcome such shadows has been to step forward bravely and take leadership roles in which they may or may not have embraced the concept of true heart-centred leadership. In so doing, you can move through a whole series of stages of personal development, each of which contributes to your growing consciousness of, and capacity to embody, true leadership.
The truth as I see it is that regardless of what raw material is present at birth, good Kings and good leaders are made, not born. So I tend to regard the true embodiment of heart-centred leadership as an aspiration rather than a reality into which we can step just because we wish to do so. And this observation brings up another obvious aspect of kingship: it can be hard won. In other words, being a true King, standing firmly in your own King archetype or, in simpler terms, being a truly heart centred leader, is the outcome of a consistent commitment to self-development, particularly through the medium of shadow work.
A list of attributes of the heart-centred leader devised by Russell and Stone seems to cover all the foundational qualities that one would wish to see in a true Sovereign: vision, honesty, integrity, trust, service, modelling, pioneering, appreciation of others, and empowerment. They also listed eleven qualities they called “accompanying attributes”: communication, credibility, competence, stewardship, visibility, influence, persuasion, listening, encouragement, teaching, and delegation. There are other qualities that I could add to this such as humility, foresight, vision, and the ability to go inwards, stop and reflect, the ability to resist external pressures, and so forth. We’ll look at some of these attributes in the following sections.
One common reaction when I describe the concept of heart-centred leadership is: but why? It’s a common reaction from people who believe leadership is best embodied in an authoritarian attitude of telling people what to do and issuing orders. While this can be necessary at times, and with certain groups of people, knowing when to apply the principles of heart-centred leadership and when to be more authoritarian in approach is a judgement that a wise Sovereign is able to make with confidence.