CORE SELF

The InterStrength CORE™ Approach is a set of practices for fostering self-leadership in all kinds of situations. Self-leadership is fundamental to effective leadership, teamwork, and the agility required in today’s complex, rapidly changing world. By realigning with who they are, at their CORE, self-leaders operate with high levels of self-awareness and personal self-management. Once realigned at their CORE, they become self-determining, managing their lives so they are intrinsically motivated.

The practices guide individuals through a process of:

• Centering—Recognizing, realigning and connecting to the unconscious operating systems that are driving our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. We all have a constant core that is at the center of who we are. It has always been there even as it has evolved over time. The InterStrength CORE Approach™ helps you uncover this constant core using multiple lenses and frameworks that provide a rich level of self-awareness and understanding. Once you have this self-awareness, you can come back to it to center yourself and realign.

• Opening— Opening to new situations where we can use our own strengths and to perspectives and approaches other than our habitual ones. Once we become aware of the strengths of our core, we realign with ourselves and we can better manage our lives to get those core needs met in ways we hadn’t realized were possible. We also become aware of how overusing these strengths can be counter productive. While our constant core provides us with talents to get our needs and drives met, it also sets up blind spots. Our early tendencies are to come from this core in every aspect of our lives, yet the habitual perspectives or approaches may not be the right ones for the situations we find ourselves in. We need to open up to the value of other approaches and perspectives.

• Relating—Increasing our capacity to connect with others and to relate to the various contexts we are in. Once we have opened to the value of the strengths and perspectives of others, we can make space for others to apply their strengths and appreciate them for who they are and what they bring to the relationship. We can also learn to take the perspectives of others and shift our language and behaviors to connect with them as well as to better match needs of the situation. This will improve the quality of our relationships, reduce unproductive conflict, and improve teamwork.

• Expanding—Increasing our capacity to sense beyond our blindspots into what is needed and what is emerging. When we are stuck in our own unconscious operating systems, we limit what we can see and how much complexity we can manage. In some situations we need to expand our skill levels to realign and better engage our strengths. In others, we need to expand our skill sets to better fulfill our purpose. Sometimes expanding involves removing roadblocks to our development by facing our darker sides and doing shadow work. As we expand, our capacities to bring forth what needs to emerge will increase.

Personality typing usually refers to the use of the personality type code developed by Isabel Myers in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® instrument. It most often involves taking an instrument, getting feedback and receiving some kind of report. Sometimes it involves a process of self-discovery with or without an instrument. The goal of personality typing is for the individual to identify a best-fit personality type. Too often the learner is left with a type code that may or may not have personal meaning and a report that gets filed in the drawer- no realignment process occurs. Personality typing often focuses on parts since people can’t hold 16 types in their heads. These parts are the dichotomies that can be misleading when taken out of the context of the whole.