Hi there, I’m Franzi.

My mission is to impact millions by impacting a chosen few.

AN INVITATION TO A NEW WAY OF LEADING YOURSELF, YOUR PEOPLE, AND THE WORLD

by Franziska Gonder

For the Future of Leadership

Our collective human nervous system is in chronic overdrive.

Humanity is eager for deeper understanding, sense-making, and healing.

People want leaders who can bring them this.

In the boardroom, in stockholder meetings, in investor negotiations, in co-founder conflicts, in political election cycles, in our minds when our alarm clock rings in the morning, and yes also when we think about setting our children up for a productive future, it’s always the same theme: Up and to the right.

“Up and to the right” has inspired human progress and technological innovation. And it seems like we’re reaching a natural point of saturation. A moment to actually integrate and use the progress and innovation to tackle the big problems in our lives and world. Because constant competition at all costs to see who can push the hardest, go the fastest, and grow the biggest has left many of us feeling like nobody and nothing is ever enough.

The number of clients I’ve encountered who’ve gone their entire life feeling that they’re not enough–and who’ve never learned to love themselves–is alarming. Not because self-love is necessarily the antidote to “up and right at all costs,” but because it’s the only thing that protects us from sinking in a world that measures our worth by the numbers we can produce.

That is culture. Do we want that culture?

I encourage you to stop reading here. Adjust your posture. Take a really deep breath. And hold that breath.

When was the last time you felt “enoughness” in your chest as a leader in your life, at work?

When was the last time that you calmly, confidently, and powerfully entered the meeting or boardroom and said: I am comfortable at not being the best person for this task/role, and here is what I am going to do about it. Here’s who I am going to hire. Here’s who I am going to ask for help.

It took me years to truly embody ideas like ”go slower to go faster,” “move into your zone of genius,” and “expanding my leadership capacity instead of pushing myself harder to perform.”

And it’s one of the hardest things for the folks who I decide to work with. To have the patience and commitment to consciously witness their own transformation when everyone around them is still on the treadmill of immediate gratification, status games, and fast exits.

Leaders usually come to me for help solving a practical business problem.

”My co-founder and I keep clashing, and I somehow always end up with the shorter stick.”

”My Head of Sales keeps making rogue decisions that irritate our product team. But she’s fantastic at her job.”

”I used to be such a productive person. Somehow I can’t get it back. Can you help?”

”It feels like nobody is listening to me, which makes me raise my voice more often. Am I losing respect?”

“I am the founder. This is my company. I’m the only one who knows what to do.”

Sometimes what a leader needs from their coach is help forming an immediate action plan: which emails to send, how to prepare for a high-stakes meeting, how to reallocate their time or energy to be more effective. And my clients get plenty of this in our work together.

But the true power of coaching is in guiding the leader to transform and evolve at a deeper level so that things like “immediate action plans” become easier to produce with confidence, grace, and precision. Once the deeper alignment is there, the execution is just a matter of showing up and getting it done.

I guide leaders to evolve three aspects of themselves:

Their
Embodiment

Are they truly embodying their chosen narrative, beliefs, values, principles, and personality through their posture, their breath, and their stance?

Their Centeredness

Are they firmly grounded in the present moment, conscious of their own desires and needs, strengths and physiological limits, as well as the environment and the people around them? What takes them off center? And when can they explode from the center (in a good way :))?

Their
Capacity

Are they coming into the day from a place of abundance, generosity, broad perspective, stamina, and self-belief? What are the recurring life themes and behavioral patterns that drain their capacity?

When I work with clients, I’m able to quickly identify which of these areas need work.

Through a combination of tools and methods shown below in this graphic, we’re able to make leaps toward leadership that’s more embodied, centered, and capacious.

Besides the coaching skills you’d expect, the three main tools I use with clients – and also as self-healing methodologies available to my broader community Bravespace are:

Somatic Intelligence

Somatic Breathwork

Radical Self-Inquiry

Let’s take a moment to center on the meaning and definition of those words:

Somatic Intelligence

Few things in life are as subjective as how one feels in one’s body. Somatic Intelligence is the ability to understand and use the body’s felt sensations and inherent wisdom to understand what enables us, what triggers us, what stifles our creativity or presence, and what allows or prevents us from showing up as our best selves.

Neurological science has proven that the body keeps the score: emotions from past events and trauma get trapped in our physical bodies. Somatic Intelligence is the process of understanding, releasing, and reprogramming these stored emotions. Through conscious movement and cognitive exercises, we can rewire our nervous system and renew our inner reality.

Somatic Breathwork

Somatic Breathwork is a targeted method of stimulating, triggering, and calming the nervous system to release old trauma and stuck energy. It can rejuvenate the nervous system and return leaders to a centered, clear-headed state from which to make better decisions.

Our somatic breathwork and centering sessions rapidly accelerate my clients into states of consciousness that would otherwise take years of traditional coaching (or therapy) to achieve. The insights resulting from these sessions can supercharge both the Somatic Intelligence and the Radical Self-Inquiry work that we do and fuel months of coaching sessions. After all, the integration of it is the most important part.

Radical Self-Inquiry

Radical Self-Inquiry is the ability to witness oneself from the “mental balcony” and ask constructive, challenging questions from that place of perspective. It requires a high-performing leader to balance their audacious imagination with a healthy and realistic acceptance of where they are on the maturity curve as a person learning and practicing the skill of leadership. Radical Self-Inquiry is the ability to make decisions, drive conversations, listen actively, hold space, and honor complexity and nuance with grace.

Some of the most powerful prompts
for radical self-inquiry are basic:

How am I, really?

In what ways am I daring to show others that I’m human?

What kind of CEO/manager/founder do I want to be?

What kind of company culture do I want to build? Why?

What happens when you put them together.

Practicing Radical Self-Inquiry in combination with Somatic Breathwork and Somatic Intelligence expands the space between the moment of stimulus and the moment of response. It’s during these moments of pause that we regain conscious control over our subconscious thoughts and behaviors, as well as the ability to choose differently.

It’s during these moments that we can choose to—for example—embrace our blind spots, ask for help, speak honestly, listen deeply, and trust our teammates.

This approach can feel uncomfortable because it challenges the ego-rewarding systems of the modern hustle culture to which we subscribe. But it doesn’t take long to realize that the type of enlightened leadership I’m advocating is a more direct, fulfilling, and enjoyable path toward building companies that last, and cultures where people feel seen and heard.

We all know deep down that this is what we need. An end to our worship of the centralized power systems that had us believe numbers were more important than health or relationships. A de-stressing of our societal and individual nervous systems. And a re-membering of our fundamental human enoughness. These changes are what reconnect us with our deepest inner power, and unlock performance beyond imagination. I see it with my clients, and I envision it on a global scale.

When leaders show up embodied, centered, and capacious, they:

Stop hesitating and start deciding.

See the big picture and all the details.

Reclaim their right to attitudinal free will.

Manage their psychology in a mature way.

Communicate with honesty, clarity, and sensitivity.

Give others permission to take care of themselves.

Act with immediacy but reserve urgency for true emergencies.

Inspire cultures of trust, loyalty, innovation, collaboration, and healing.

Retire the role of icebreakers because joy and laughter become the norm.

With every client I’ve served, I’ve seen some version of this story play out.

A Bigger Vision.

I want leaders to remember that when we feel like we belong to each other, we become more relatable to our employees, our partners at home, our children, and our communities. I want leaders to be visionary and grounded in a commitment to belonging, safety, and dignity. I want to inspire a movement of Leadership that Heals the World.

1:1 coaching is one of the most effective containers for leaders seeking transformation. But my vision for Leadership that Heals the World bigger than any impact I can make through my 1:1 work alone.

I’m writing this on October 21, 2022 and this is just the beginning.

It’s just my team and I, and all my clients working intentionally on the methodology and setting the foundation to bring all of this alive. Every client engagement is a chance for us to refine our methodology and impact the world.

If this excites you, here’s how to get involved:

Work with me as an individual client to unlock your leadership potential.

Bring this to your company for a workshop or transformational engagement.

Become a collaborator in designing and advancing this methodology

Become an ally in helping bring this work to new spaces and organizations

One person should not hold change; we all need to.

A client recently told me that she sees me becoming the Esther Perel of new leadership theory. I was flattered and uplifted by this compliment but quickly felt that I don’t actually want that. This vision for Leadership that Heals the World can’t live inside a personal brand. This task will take longer than any one person’s lifetime and requires a multigenerational movement to achieve.

With that being said:

All the love, all the power.

We got work to do.

FRANZISKA GONDER

Hi there! I am

I’ve been in the boardrooms with billionaires, at the fancy political fundraisers, and featured in the media. I’ve advised Fortune 100 clients and raised millions in capital. I’ve helped create VC firms and I’ve turned around companies in crisis. I’ve led international management research and have the master’s degree.

But after my dad died in 2013, I hit rock bottom. I realized that my lifelong obsession with hustle and performance had left me emotionally empty and out of touch with my own humanity.

So I embarked on a long and uncomfortable journey towards belonging, safety, and dignity. Today, this is a key part and key concept of my work.

I want us to co–create a way of leadership that heals the world. We are all just here to walk each other home.