Energy of the Threshold: The Space Between
Image By: Pallab Seth Collection: Flickr
Six children on a sand mound in twilight, one of them pointing to the sky ... this is an image that to one leader represents leadership. It is also an image that helped her reach the next level of leadership!
I use images to assess leaders and guide them in leadership development. The model is called Visiva Leadership®. In this blog, we explore real-life case studies of the model at work. Let’s take a look now at this image.
Wanting to move onward – and upward
This leader who chose this image is a woman. She sent me this image about ten years ago when she was a successful leader with a VP-level job. She was ambitious and wanted to progress in her career: in her mind and soul, the sky was the limit. She knew she “had what it takes” within herself and she wanted to pull it out. She also wanted to be recognized. The business environment she was in was complex: multiple business challenges – both internal and external – and organizational politics were at play, as they often are. The company was rethinking its structure to meet its business objectives, and with that came a lot of changes in responsibility and job titles. She wanted to know: what could she do to take the next step, to become an SVP?
Now, when someone sends me an image, I need to translate that image so I can understand the person. On the one hand, translating an image is straightforward: images do not hide their meaning. They express their essential qualities and connotation through their elements and intrinsic energy. On the other hand, translating an image is challenging: it requires constantly moving between viewing the elements as separate components and viewing them as a collective whole. It is this relationship between and among the elements that generates the dynamic energy of an image – and it is energy that always directs our actions.
Let’s explore the translation of this image, and the energy and insights it held for my client.
Standing at the threshold
Six children are standing in a line on a sand mound in twilight. Objectively speaking, we can immediately deduce that we are in the world of nature and its cycles. Children grow to become adults. Twilight’s brightness – the time between sunset and dusk – will eventually fade away and evening will become nighttime. The clouds, too, will transform into something new.
It is an image that in general speaks of transition; much more specifically, it is an image of liminality.
In etymology, liminality comes from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold.” In anthropology, liminality is the aspect of transition that occurs in the stage of a rite of passage when the person no longer holds their pre-status but has not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete. During the liminal stage, participants stand at the threshold in the space between their previous identity and a new identity.
Psychologically, this image speaks of significant transition. The children standing on the cusp of the sand mound are in between the worlds of childhood and adulthood. Soon, a new archetype will take over. The liminality is the space where decisions can be made and actions can be set in motion.
This image was very revealing because she was herself in a liminal space. We discussed how she was standing at her own threshold: she was holding her status as a VP, but hadn’t yet started her transition to SVP. To go from VP to SVP in her organization was a gigantic step forward and upward that was rarely awarded.
Becoming more independent
There is another key element to this image: these children are outside late in the day, when there are only a few minutes left before the night sets in. The children are not with their parents, although they are still very much in a dependent age when they must always be under the care of a responsible adult. The children are given enough range to explore, but their well-being depends on them going home to a caretaker.
As my client and I considered this element of the image, it became clear that she was in the process of becoming more independent and breaking away from the “adult supervision” of her manager. She was building an independent ego structure that was showing signs of self-regulation. It was not just that she had an ambition to become an SVP: her identity was pushing forward and outward.
This was similar to the energetic tension that exists when a teenager wants to become independent from her parents. A teenager knows much more than a child does, but still has a long road of learning ahead. In the same way, my client was a highly capable and skilled leader, but she still needed the guidance and support of her manger to reach her full potential. As we explored the need to continue learning and developing, she agreed that her manager was a great source of knowledge and experience that would be very beneficial for her and actually help her become more independent.
Relation of the opposites
Finally, this image presents the coexistence and tension of opposites: the masculine and feminine. We all have feminine and masculine aspects within ourselves. Acknowledging, embracing and managing the tensions of these opposites in a generative way is a task that, if we learn how to use it, can be very helpful.
From a psychological perspective, the “masculine” aspect in the image is represented by that part of us that ventures out into the world, the desire to go out in the evening, the structure of pointing the way, the aspect of proactively doing, and the attitude of bending the rules of the structure just enough to be able to take risks and ultimately own the choice.
The “feminine” aspect, on the other hand, is captured by the togetherness and the relationship among the children. Children do not develop well without meaningful relationships. Even if friendship is not a dominant aspect of this image, we can safely say that the children are bonded in a meaningful experience. The child pointing to the sky is among other children; she is not alone.
Bringing both feminine and masculine elements to light throughout several conversations helped my client understand how she could leverage her natural relational strengths with her manger and at the same time develop a new, much more personal and individual way of pointing to the sky. It was not an either/or proposition but a both/and proposition. She could both learn from and involve her manager and simultaneously develop her independence and unique voice. In so doing, she would be able to proactively manage the transition to the next stage in her career. With that “both/and” attitude and approach, she decided to cross the threshold and transition her way to SVP.
Transformational power
Reflecting on the work we had done together, my client felt that this approach was transformational as it gave her the power of developing personal accountability and owning control of her fate. Without these insights, she acknowledged that she might have fostered unconscious feelings of entitlement and resentment, and she might have allowed her career to be determined by an organizational restructure.
Yes, she was promoted to SVP, I am glad to report. But that was just the next step for her. In future years, she continued to “point the way” on many boards. Her leadership has had – and continues to have – a profound impact nationally and internationally.
This image captures a liminal moment and begs the questions: Where are you in the cycle of liminality and transition? What is your image of leadership?
Please contact me at letizia@letiziaamadinilane.com with your questions or comments!
