Jackson: Most leadership books tell you what to do. This one argues that's the wrong question. The real question is: are you leading from a place of curiosity or from a place of fear? The answer changes everything, and you might not like what you discover. Olivia: That is the perfect way to frame it, Jackson. It’s a gut-punch of a question, and it’s at the heart of the book we’re diving into today: The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Warner Klemp. Jackson: A title that sounds both very serious and very... Californian. Olivia: (Laughs) It can feel that way, but what’s fascinating is that these authors aren't academics writing from an ivory tower. They're seasoned coaches who have worked with over a thousand top executives and CEOs at some of the biggest companies in the world. This book is a distillation of what they’ve seen work, and fail, in the highest-stakes environments imaginable. Jackson: Okay, so it's field-tested. I like that. So if it's not about what you do, what's it about? You mentioned curiosity versus fear. Let's start there. Olivia: It starts with a single, simple image. Imagine a horizontal line drawn on a whiteboard. That’s it. The authors argue this is the most important model in all of leadership.

Jackson: A single line? That's it? I've seen leadership models with more charts and acronyms than a government agency. How can one line be the most important thing? Olivia: Because it represents a binary state. At any given moment, you are either leading from above the line or below the line. There is no in-between. Jackson: Okay, that sounds a little too simple. Almost like 'good versus evil.' Is life really that black and white? Olivia: It’s a great question, because it’s not a moral judgment. It’s a description of your internal state. When you're above the line, you're open, curious, and committed to learning. You see the world as a place of abundance and possibility. When you're below the line, you're closed, defensive, and committed to being right. You see the world as a place of scarcity and threat. Jackson: Ah, so it’s not about being a good person, it’s about whether you’re in a defensive crouch or an open posture. Olivia: Precisely. And being below the line is our default state when we feel threatened. It’s your amygdala, the most primitive part of your brain, hijacking the system. The authors tell this fantastic story about presenting this very model to a room full of skeptical Wall Street investment bankers. Jackson: Oh, I can just picture that room. All ego and expensive suits. Olivia: Exactly. They draw the line and ask the execs, "Right now, are you above or below the line?" Of course, everyone wants to be 'above the line' because it sounds better. But then the authors define it: Below the line means you're committed to being right. Above the line means you're committed to learning. Suddenly, you could feel the tension. These leaders, whose entire careers were built on being right, had to confront the fact that they were almost always operating from a defensive, below-the-line state. Jackson: So it's our caveman brain showing up to a budget meeting. It sees a threat in the quarterly report and reacts like it’s a saber-toothed tiger. Olivia: You’ve nailed it. And to make this even more vivid, the book introduces us to two archetypal leaders: Tim and Sharon. Tim is the classic unconscious leader. He wakes up at 5:15 AM, grabs his phone, and the first thing he feels is a jolt of adrenaline and anxiety from his emails. His day is a blur of caffeine, back-to-back meetings, and putting out fires. His team’s motto is literally, "If you don’t work on Saturday, don’t bother coming in on Monday." He unwinds with a couple of drinks and a sleeping pill. He’s successful, but he’s running on empty, totally below the line. Jackson: I think I’ve worked for Tim. I might be Tim on a bad week. Who is Sharon? Olivia: Sharon is the conscious leader. She starts her day with meditation and a mindful connection with her partner. She has a no-devices breakfast with her kids. At work, she prioritizes what the book calls her "zone of genius"—the work only she can do—and delegates the rest. Her team has mottos too, like "Nothing is serious. If it seems serious, SHIFT." She fosters play and laughter. Her company has sky-high engagement and low turnover. She’s operating from above the line. Jackson: The contrast is stark. One is a life of reaction and struggle, the other is a life of intention and flow. But it feels aspirational. I mean, I get it. I'm 'below the line' a lot. My caveman brain is running the show. How do I get out? Is there an escape hatch? Olivia: There is. And it’s built on the first two, and most important, of the 15 commitments.

Jackson: Okay, lay it on me. What's the secret password to get above the line? Olivia: The first commitment is Taking Radical Responsibility. And they mean radical. It’s the commitment to seeing yourself as the source of all your experiences. You are 100% responsible for your life, full stop. Jackson: Whoa, hold on. 100%? What if a vendor did send the wrong parts and it torpedoed your quarter? What if a drunk driver hits your car? How can you be 100% responsible for that? That sounds like self-blame. Olivia: It’s a crucial distinction. It’s not about blaming yourself for the event. The event is neutral. It’s about taking 100% responsibility for your response to the event. The unconscious leader, the one below the line, immediately looks for someone to blame. The book has this painfully relatable story of an executive team meeting at a place they call "Common Corp." Jackson: Let me guess, sales are down and everyone's pointing fingers? Olivia: You know it. The VP of Sales blames Manufacturing for missing deadlines. The VP of Manufacturing blames Sales for setting unrealistic timelines and a vendor for sending the wrong parts. The President blames both of them for not being a team. It's a masterclass in the victim-villain-hero triangle. Everyone is pointing a finger, and no one is learning anything. The problem never gets solved because they're all stuck below the line, in the drama. Jackson: That is every dysfunctional meeting I have ever been in. So what does the 'above the line' version of that meeting look like? Olivia: It looks like Athletico, one of the real-world companies the authors coached. Their CEO, Mark Kaufman, created a culture where the standard response to any problem is, "Hmm, this is interesting. What can we learn from this?" When a manager was underperforming, his first question wasn't "What's wrong with her?" It was "What can I learn about my leadership from this situation?" He realized he'd been avoiding a candid conversation. He took responsibility for his part first. Jackson: So it's about shifting the core question from 'Whose fault is this?' to 'What's my role in this, and what can I learn?' Olivia: Exactly. That’s the escape hatch. And that question is powered by the second commitment: Learning Through Curiosity. You have to genuinely value learning more than you value being right. For most of us, especially successful people, that is a massive ego-shift. Being right feels safe. Being curious feels vulnerable. Jackson: It feels like you're admitting you don't have all the answers, which can feel like career suicide in some places. Olivia: It can. But the authors argue it's the only way to grow. They tell a story about a brilliant executive, Sarah, at one of their retreats. She was a Yale and Harvard grad, a successful founder, but she was completely closed off. When people gave her feedback, she’d just brush it off, get defensive, and spend all her energy proving why the feedback was wrong. Jackson: She was deep below the line. Olivia: So deep. The group felt her defensiveness sucking the energy out of the room. Eventually, she was asked to leave. In contrast, one of the authors, Diana, received some harsh feedback from Sarah. Instead of getting defensive, Diana got curious. She asked, "What's the 1% of truth in this for me?" And that tiny sliver of curiosity led her to a major personal breakthrough. Sarah, committed to being right, learned nothing. Diana, committed to learning, transformed. Jackson: Okay, so the path is: Notice you're below the line, take responsibility for your state, and then get curious. That makes intellectual sense. But it feels like there's a piece missing. What happens when the threat feels real? When you're genuinely angry or scared? You can't just intellectually decide to be curious. Olivia: You are pointing to the engine room of the whole system. And that brings us to what might be the most challenging and powerful commitment of all: using your feelings as intelligence.

Jackson: Using feelings as intelligence? Whoa. That sounds... messy. I can't imagine my boss asking me to 'feel my anger' in a meeting. How do you do this without it becoming a group therapy session? Olivia: It’s a fantastic question because it gets at the core misunderstanding of emotion in the workplace. The book defines emotion as simply "e-motion"—energy in motion. It's physical data your body is giving you. It’s not good or bad, it just is. And conscious leaders learn to read that data. Jackson: What kind of data are we talking about? Olivia: The authors identify five core emotions, and each one carries a specific wisdom. Anger tells you a boundary has been crossed or something is no longer serving you. Fear tells you to pay attention, that there's something important to learn. Sadness tells you it’s time to let go of something. Joy tells you what to celebrate and move toward. And sexual feelings, in a non-literal sense, are the energy of creativity—they tell you something new wants to be born. Jackson: Okay, that reframes it. It’s not about being emotional, it’s about being emotionally literate. You’re reading the instrument panel of your own body. Olivia: Precisely. A leader who is cut off from their anger or fear is like a pilot flying a 747 with a dead instrument panel. They are dangerous because they are missing critical information. The book gives this incredible example of a boardroom full of senior leaders at a billion-dollar company. They were trying to make huge cost-cutting decisions. Jackson: Let me guess: spreadsheets, PowerPoint, data paralysis. Olivia: For hours! They were completely stuck in their heads, going in circles. Finally, the CEO asked the authors to step in. They asked one simple question: "What are you all feeling right now?" Jackson: I bet that went over well. Olivia: At first, there was silence. Then, one by one, they started to name it. "I'm scared. We might have to lay people off." "I'm sad. We're letting go of projects we loved." "I'm angry that we're in this position." They weren't yelling or crying; they were just locating the feeling in their body and naming the data. Jackson: So they acknowledged the emotional reality in the room. What happened then? Olivia: A complete shift. Once the emotions were on the table, they could access the wisdom. The fear told them what to protect. The sadness told them what they truly valued and needed to grieve. The anger showed them where the system was broken. Within an hour, they had a clear, innovative path forward that they were all aligned on. The data wasn't in the spreadsheets; it was in their hearts and guts. Jackson: That’s a powerful story. It’s the difference between repressing feelings, which we all do, and actually using them. The book talks about repressing versus recycling. What's the difference? Olivia: Repressing is when you stuff it down and pretend it's not there. That energy gets stuck and can lead to illness or depression. Recycling is when you get stuck in a story loop about the feeling. You tell your friend how angry you are at your colleague, then you tell your spouse, then you ruminate on it all night. You're not releasing the anger; you're just re-living the story about it, keeping yourself below the line. Jackson: And releasing is... what? Punching a pillow? Olivia: It can be! Releasing is about matching the physical energy of the emotion with an expression. For anger, it might be a growl, a stomp, or hitting a pillow. For sadness, it might be allowing tears. The point is to let the energy move through you and complete its cycle, so you can get back above the line, clear and ready to access its wisdom.

Jackson: So it really all comes back to self-awareness, doesn't it? It’s this three-step process. First, just noticing if you're below the line. Second, taking radical responsibility to shift yourself above it. And third, using your own emotions as the compass to guide you once you're there. It’s a total inside-out job. Olivia: Exactly. Leadership isn't a checklist of external actions; it's a practice of managing your internal state. And the authors argue, quite convincingly, that this state is what creates sustainable success—not just for the company's bottom line, but for the leader's own health, relationships, and sanity. Jackson: It makes you wonder how much energy is wasted in organizations every single day by people operating below the line—in drama, blame, and defensiveness. Olivia: The book suggests it's almost all of it. And that the greatest competitive advantage isn't a better strategy, but a more conscious culture. The book has been widely acclaimed for this reason, but it's also polarizing. Some readers find the concepts a bit too spiritual for a corporate setting. Jackson: I can see that. But the way you've laid it out, it's deeply practical. It’s about biology, awareness, and choice. It’s less about chakras and more about checking in with yourself before you send that angry email. Olivia: That's the perfect summary. And it leaves us with a really powerful question to reflect on. So for everyone listening, the question isn't "Am I a good leader?" but "Where am I on the line right now?" Jackson: That’s a question I’ll be asking myself all day. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. When do you notice yourself going 'below the line'? What triggers it for you? Share your stories with the Aibrary community. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.