Awakened Leadership: Beyond Self-Mastery [Hardcover]

Alan E. Shelton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 7, 2012

Transformational leadership books and processes have delivered us to the era of self-mastery. But how do we move from being effective leaders to being awakened leaders? By situating leadership in the nest of the seeker's journey toward truth, you can now stand on the shoulders of the visionaries who have come before, and become conscious of your own position within Source. Leaving behind charts, maps, and graphs, Awakened Leadership is a portal to direct experience via pointers and personal stories that will help you recognize the gift of being who you really are. Then your leadership essence will effortlessly manifest not only in the boardroom, but in all facets of your life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

If, as Alan Shelton, asserts, awakening is akin to enlightenment, then every business person (and even those not in the corporate arena) should read this book. Awakened Leadership represents a bright new day in an otherwise dark world.- Marshall Goldsmith - million-selling author of the New York Times bestsellers MOJO and What Got You Here Won't Get You There

Don't think for one second that this is just another leadership book. Alan Shelton has broken new ground with Awakened Leadership. Alan leads us by his own example - sharing his journey so we can better understand our own, and helping us experience the authentic, love-filled, awakened life we all yearn for.-Marci Shimoff, NY Times bestselling author, Happy for No Reason and Love for No Reason

Awakened Leadership is unlike any other book you ve likely read on leadership. Trekking through his own life experiences as both a business leader and spiritual seeker, Alan invites us to explore our own deep restlessness, the beliefs that are driving it, and the transforming power of presence and service to move us through and beyond it. --Dr. Paula Butterfield, author of In Our Right Mind: the Transforming Power of Women in Healthcare

[Shelton] writes with a rare combination of lighthearted personal transparency, sharp insight, and humor. The skillfully etched stories of his life provide example after example of how, believing in an illusory self-mastery, we all tend to seek fulfillment through ego-driven activities only to be frustrated again and again. For our era of radical, discontinuous change and opportunity, he offers a set of pointers to help disengage the ego mechanism that blocks the experience of awakening. Then, he says, we can be lived into our authentic leadership, not only in the business world but in any domain of life. [...] I highly recommend the book to any one of you who knows that your spiritual path is the door to an awakened life wherever you are planted. --Swami Veet Brahm (Osho Viha Information Center)

About the Author

After decades of managing and advising large multinational companies, as well as the type of early-stage organizations that launched his highly successful career, Alan Shelton migrated to leadership coaching. Having experienced his own awakening, he began to ignite others who want to live authentically in the global corporate world, supporting them to deconstruct the assumptions that conceal the doorway to living as the awakened self.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 220 pages
• Publisher: Red Hatchet Press (May 7, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 098471250X
• ISBN-13: 978-0984712502
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,894,358 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ALAN E. SHELTON, grew up immersed in the sixties' vision of infinite possibility. He began his career in 1977 at Price Waterhouse, structuring and negotiating Fortune 500 merger and acquisition transactions. After decades of managing and advising large multinational companies, as well as the type of early-stage organizations that launched his highly successful career, Alan migrated to leadership coaching - working with clients like VF Corporation, the University of San Diego and Celgene.

Having experienced his own awakening, he began to ignite others who want to live authentically in the global corporate world, supporting them to deconstruct the assumptions that conceal the doorway to living as the awakened self. Alan shares his story in the groundbreaking book "Awakened Leadership" (May 2012).

Stephen Covey taught us the habits of effective leaders. Eckhart Tolle exposed us to the land of awakening. Now, Alan Shelton integrates these two worlds and sheds light on the hope of a life of leadership that encourages authentic living for the greatest impact.

As a thought leader, Alan is in demand as a leadership speaker and workshop facilitator. In addition to his corporate coaching practice, he holds gatherings for seekers who have the courage to take a dip in the pool of intense experience. He lives in Oceanside, California, with his wife and two beloved dogs.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Why and how to "allow leadership to arise in you as you really are in any moment when leadership is called out" May 16, 2012

By Robert Morris HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

The core thesis of this book is that within each person, there are potentialities that are dormant, if not asleep. This may be what Whitman had in mind in "Song of Myself" when he asserted, "I am large, I contain multitudes." As Alan Shelton explains, "Who you really are bubbles up continuously to form the intuition that initiates the seeking. And the seeking that you undertake [during a journey of self-discovery] can indeed eradicate your identification with who you think you are. Moving toward recognizing the truth is a transformational journey in which the `you' that you believe yourself to be will be lost and something [someone] entirely new will take its place."

I share Shelton's affection (passion?) for metaphors but wary of them when in danger of excessive use, a form of abuse. However, I am comfortable with "journey" because it has several relevancies insofar what this book is about is concerned. First, with regard to man's lifelong quest for knowledge and understanding on a personal level; next, as a progression through various stages of employment (including self-employment) that require rigorous scrutiny in terms of perils and opportunities; and finally, the process by which (hopefully) we improve our ability to answer questions and solve problems.

For Shelton, if I understand his key points correctly (and I may not), progress is best measured in terms of the nature and extent of increased [begin italics] awareness [end italics]. His objective is to provide the information, insights, and counsel his reader needs to experience the multi-dimensional reality of "the highest form of awareness."

Here are a few of the several dozen passages that caught my eye:

o The significance to Shelton of the song, "Puff, the Magic Dragon" (Pages 29-30)
o His inability to believe in a God others believe to be "unseen and unfelt" (Pages 36-37)
o His difficulties with graduate school education (Page 76-77)
o The significance of his firm's success during his absence (Pages 83-84)
o What he learned during an extended residence in an ashram (Chapters 9 and 10)
o The significance to Shelton of the Systems Dynamics Theory (Pages 187-188)

While reading Chapter 18, "Doorways to Awakening," I was reminded of this passage in Alan Watts's book, The Book, in which he discusses an especially serious threat to self-discovery and self-fulfillment: "We need a new experience -- a new feeling of what it is to be 'I.' The lowdown (which is, of course, the secret and profound view) on life is that our normal sensation of self is a hoax, or, at best, a temporary role that we are playing, or have been conned into playing -- with our own tacit consent, just as every hypnotized person is basically willing to be hypnotized. The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego."

No one can duplicate Alan Shelton's journey of self-discovery and self-fulfillment, nor can he duplicate anyone else's. But he and (yes) we can embark or remain on that perilous journey, encouraged by others en route while encouraging them to stay the course with patience but persistence. Wherever we are, wherever we go, we are always alone...and together.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Shifted My Jaded Thinking of Corporate Leadership August 20, 2012

By Mary Brigger

Format:Hardcover

Alan Shelton sheds new light and meaning on self mastery and ego. Alan's book has shifted my jaded thinking in regards to the corporate world I fled from. Alan's book had me hooked from the beginning with these words"Spiritual Seekers are looking for truth while corporate types are looking for authenticity."
Not all leaders of the corporate world are the ruthless people many of us dealt with or see in the media. What touched me are the leaders who Alan has worked with who realize they must experience their own awakening in order to effectively lead heartfully in this New Age. Alan's own personal journey from the corporate world to his own enlightenment which took him back to the corporate world is an amazing story of honesty and spiritual awakening that has truly inspired me.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Awakened Leadership- Beyond Self Mastery May 15, 2012

By Jim Estill

Format:Hardcover

I had the privilege of reading an advance copy of Alan Shelton's new book Awakened Leadership - Beyond Self Mastery.

I love the title because I seek self mastery. As the title implies, the book is about the soul of leadership. It speaks of spirituality in leadership (not as in religious - as in soul)

Shelton weaves stories through the book. Each interesting on their own and if read thoughtfully, each inspiring thought and providing challenge. The book move chronologically through Shelton's life starting with fond childhood memories. He often reflects back to his youth throughout the book.

He ends to books with stories of his coaching. His coaching style seems unique but also intuitively obvious as effective.

Shelton offers many challenges to leaders to examine themselves. To keep growing.

I love the book and would suggest it to any leader or coach.

It reminds me of a line from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. "In the end, it will all be well and if it is not well, it must not be the end".