The Virtual Leadership Legacy: The “Virtual Way” to Personal Leadership Excellence!
Leadership is a journey, not a destination! However, few leaders embark on the type of journey that leads to a place that fosters greatness. That type of journey is best described as a pilgrimage, a Leadership Pilgrimage. Fewer leaders still, have the opportunity to gather on an actual pilgrimage site to retrace the steps of an ancient pilgrimage route.
A pilgrimage is a sacred journey with a purpose, one that requires vision, focus and perseverance to complete. During the pilgrimage, pilgrims share a common experience: Enlightenment through solitude and sacrifice.
The Camino de Santiago is such a journey. It is also a powerful metaphor for a Leadership Pilgrimage: a self-reflective journey leading to insights and leadership enlightenment.
In the ideal setting, I would take actual leaders out on ancient pilgrimage paths, like the Camino de Santiago in Spain. In ancient times, pilgrims traveled on pilgrimages of sacrifice and reflection to gain enlightenment, to answer some of life’s BIG questions, such as Why Am I here? What is my purpose in life? What do I need to do to achieve and maximize my full potential? Likewise, on the Leadership Pilgrimage, leaders seek answers through sacrifice and dedication to the BIG leadership questions: Who am I as a leader? Why should others follow me? What is my leadership purpose? What do I have to do to magnify my talents and abilities? What is and how do I achieve my leadership legacy?
I created the Virtual Leadership Pilgrimage to expand the reach of the Leadership Pilgrimage. This is the ideal tool and setting for individuals, groups, intact teams or entire organizations to travel virtually on the leadership pilgrimage, tracing pilgrimage routes virtually as they learn about the five parallels between lessons learned by me on my pilgrimage travels and my the author on his Jacobian pilgrimages and his 20+ years in corporate leadership development.
The Virtual Leadership consists of:
8 weeks of learning about the 5 leadership parallels experienced by pilgrims on actual long-distance journeys like the Way of St. James. These lessons include:
Know Thyself – Who you are, how others perceive you, your core values, etc.
Focus – What is your desired/optimal leadership destination? What do you hope to accomplish as a leader? How to achieve your goals while staying true to your core values? How to create and achieve a meaningful Leadership Legacy.
Perseverance – How to foresee and overcome obstacles or barriers on your way to creating and achieving your goals and aspirational Leadership Legacy. How to have the “grit” necessary to accomplish and achieve greatness.
Inspire – How to motivate and inspire others to join you in your goals. Creating a symbol that motivates and inspires you. How to create a speech/platform to communicate and inspire others.
Magnify – How to magnify your strengths and the strength of those you influence. How to continue your Leadership Pilgrimage successfully in the future.
Weekly Virtual Leadership Pilgrimage activities and reading assignments in eBook format.
Weekly 1 to 2 hour Zoom meetings where you will meet with lead facilitator, James Gehrke, to discuss your concerns, each week’s assignment, to preview concepts related to the 5 Leadership Pilgrimage principles, to review progress non your “virtual pilgrimage” and to receive your assignment for the following week.
A Learning Journal.
A Virtual Leadership Pilgrimage Passport (used to track learning progress).
DiSC Workplace Assessment and Report (Personality Assessment)
DiSC 363 – A 360 assessment evaluating 8 key dimensions of leadership.
Weekly exercises/activities to stimulate self-discovery about the 5 Leadership Pilgrimage Principles. These activities include:
Discover Your Strengths & Talents
Values Cards – to identify core values that drive and motivate you to action.
Life Journey Exercise – to explore key moments in your past that have contributed to your strengths, talents, and values and to plot your future toward your Aspirational Leadership Legacy.
Future Perfect Exercise – to discover and define your Aspirational Leadership Legacy.
Goal Setting
Leadership Pilgrimage Symbol Exercise – Create a symbol, Coat of Arms and T-Shirt to help you focus on your values and Aspirational Leadership Legacy
A strategy board game – Review and practice Leadership Pilgrimage key concepts like values, focus, perseverance, planning, flexibility etc., in a fun gaming format (use it online with other Virtual Leadership “Pilgrims” or on “game night” with your family and/or friends.
Your Teachable Moment – Create and practice a speech that will teach, motivate and inspire others to join you on your Leadership Pilgrimage
The Books
8 Dimensions of Leadership
The One Thing
Grit
The Conqueror Way of St. James Virtual Mission (used to track physical progress in meeting your way along the pilgrimage route in Spain (virtually). See https://www.theconqueror.events/camino/
Customized Fit Bit Inspire with Virtual Leadership Pilgrimage Logo/reminder to track your distance on the Virtual Mission (above)
Two Month complimentary membership with the Wellness Buff (Food coaches to help maximize your fitness and relationship with food while participating in the physical exercise related to the Conqueror Virtual Mission (above). See https://thewellnessbuff.com/
A Virtual Leadership Pilgrimage sports shirt (to use while walking, riding, or exercising on your Virtual Mission.
A Virtual Leadership Pilgrimage Credential – used to remember your Virtual Leadership Pilgrimage, your core values, your aspirational Leadership Legacy, your symbol,
All of the above is used as a way to teach the 5 Leadership Pilgrimage Principles while you virtually travel on the Way of St. James. On an actual Leadership Pilgrimage Adventure, you would walk each day along the trail while reflecting on the lessons learned during each day’s workshop assignments. As Henry David Thoureau said about walking in nature, “I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.” There is a transformative experience of waling deliberately with a purpose of self-reflection that happens to a pilgrim while walking in nature. While you will not actually walk on the pilgrimage sites as you would on an Adventure Leadership Pilgrimage, we will do our best to recreate that journey virtually. As you explore each of the five Leadership Pilgrimage principles, you will also be asked to walk, run or ride, or exercise in the way that suites your abilities and interest to recreate the effort/sacrifice and focus that an actual pilgrim makes as he walks across the solitary paths of the Way of St. James across northern Spain. Through the magic of technology, we’ll mark your progress using an exercise tracking tool like Fit Bit and a map that you’ll find on our website www.theleadershippilgrimage.com that tracks the progress of all current Virtual Leadership Pilgrims as they travel on, and learn about the 5 principles of the Leadership Pilgrimage.
To mark their success along the way of St. James, pilgrims collect a series of stamps from the different places they stay along the Way of St. James. By the end of their journey, most pilgrims have collected dozens of stamps on a passport that demonstrates their progress along the route. So too, Virtual Leadership Pilgrims collect stamps on a Virtual Leadership Pilgrimage Passport that serves as a reminder for the numerous activities they complete on their journey to their Leadership Legacy.
The pilgrim’s passport is used as proof that the pilgrim has met the requirements of the pilgrimage to achieve the Compostela, a certificate that states the name and purpose of the pilgrim, their chosen pilgrimage path and serves as a lasting reminder to the pilgrim, along with the shell, the symbol of the pilgrimage, of the lessons learned and the self-discovery achieved during the pilgrimage. Likewise, Virtual Leadership pilgrims will convert their symbolic Leadership Pilgrimage Passport into a Leadership Pilgrimage Certificate which will serve as a reminder and inspiration of what they have achieved and learned on their pilgrimage, including the miles traveled, their core leadership values, their Aspirational Leadership Legacy, their daily/monthly and yearly goals to achieve their legacy, their chosen Leadership symbol, all to serve as a lasting reminder of the journey of self-discovery and growth they have accomplished on your journey!
I hope that you feel inspired to “magnify” your potential by embarking on your own Virtual Leadership Pilgrimage. Let me be your guide as you travel virtually on your journey of self-discovery. Please click on the link below should you have any questions, would like to join our newsletter, or to sign up. On the Way of St. James fellow pilgrims wish each other a “Buen Camino” or Good Journey. In this case I wish you a Good Leadership Journey! Click below to start your Leadership Pilgrimage!