Presence Podcast - Episode 11: Moving Toward Maturity

In this last episode of Season 1 of the Presence! Podcast, John and Ali discuss the road to Ethos Maturity -- that place where you have moved beyond constant management of self to a more stable and consistent growth toward what the ancient Greeks referred to as Teleios -- my best self. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Hi there, everyone, and welcome to the Presence Podcast. I'm John Miller, Executive Director of the Institute for Optimal Leadership Presence, and I'm joined by Allie Carson, founder and CEO of Mouveir Coaching. Allie, how are you today?

SPEAKER_01 0:41

I'm doing great, John. I can't believe we're here at episode 11 of the Presence Podcast, our last episode of season one.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

That's unbelievable. It's really been a cool ride, Allie. And I just want to say thanks to you for all of your help and getting this podcast launched and for being such a wonderful discussion partner. Oh absolutely. So in this episode, we're going to put a cap, at least for now, on our discussion of Aristotle's principles of ethos. If y'all remember, we kicked off the presence podcast in episodes one to three by talking about a very special sort of leadership presence marked by the ancient Greek concept of piste. Piste represents the highest form of leadership in ancient Greek culture. When a leader was regarded as having piste, they were considered to be someone who demonstrated deep levels of commitment and faithfulness, someone who could be depended on to take care of their responsibilities with the highest degree of integrity, professionalism, and skills and abilities. And we've talked about how leaders of today really do need to have the modern day essence of paste in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century workplace and the 21st century workforce and in fact the 21st century culture. Then we talked about how that great philosopher, teacher Aristotle, gave us a roadmap that helps us understand how to capture paste in very practical ways in our lives. If you recall, Aristotle made a study of effective leadership in the Greek governing council, seeking to understand what qualities consistently showed up in leaders who were considered to be effective in developing and presenting ideas and in impacting those around them in a way that built acceptance, belief, and engagement with those ideas. What he found was that leaders who left a positive, indelible mark on others were those who actively demonstrate three qualities ethos, logos, and pathos. We've come to understand that these are the building blocks of creating a pastis-based presence. So we spent the balance of season one then talking about that first quality of ethos.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah. And when Aristotle talked about ethos, he was calling out the fact that before people can really believe in you and follow you as their leader, they first must have a high level of respect for you as a person. So the real question of ethos is this as I show up every day in this organization and for the rest of my life, am I effectively building the case for myself as a trusted, credible, and mature leader whom other people will follow to create the greatest level of value in the organization? That's what ethos is all about. It's your unique, inner-driven set of values, strengths, and behaviors that define who you are and how you authentically present yourself to the world. Our ethos guides decisions, actions, and character, transforming personal identity into a lived, observable, and consistent manner of interaction. But we discovered early on in our ethos discussions in episodes four and five that while we all have a set of strengths that move us towards success and effectiveness, conversely, we all also have some things going on in our lives that can present a real challenge to presenting our best ethos. Many of the basic behaviors and tendencies that are hardwired in our brains, both genetically and by experience, can lead to default go-to behaviors that put us at risk as we navigate our leadership journey. Beliefs, mindsets, and behaviors such as ingrained biases, emotional dissonance, jumping to conclusions, stubbornness, seeking our own agendas over everyone else's. These kinds of things can be disruptive human qualities that undermine the very good things that we all want to achieve. And unfortunately, those very same hardwired tendencies can also weaken our ethos and disrupt our presence with others around us. This mixed bag of strengths and challenges form our default, our first nature approach to life. The good news is that we can counteract these disruptive first nature, hardwired qualities and move toward building a stronger ethos by practicing sound self-management through self-awareness, self-reflection, and self-discipline. The ability to self-manage is one of the very best attributes of being human. And we also need to face a very hard leadership truth, which is that just managing ourselves is never going to get us to a place where we're demonstrating the best version of ourselves. Managing our hardwired beliefs, mindsets, behaviors, and emotions is great. But in order to achieve the highest levels of ethos, we need to move from management to maturity.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

That's right, Ellie. So what exactly do we mean by maturity? And more specifically, what do we mean by having a mature ethos? Maturity is a cultivated, intentional process of self-development where an individual consciously replaces reactive first nature behaviors, those that are generated by impulsive, hardwired, and often ineffective beliefs or mindsets, with proactive second nature behaviors such as humility, empathy, resilience, collaboration, active listening, and engagement in the ideas of others, behaviors that become automatic through consistent practice, repetition, and refinement. Maturity is not a destination or an age, but rather a continuous process of unlearning old patterns and learning new, better ways of responding to situations. And as you might imagine, the Greeks had a word for that journey. That word is teleos. Telios signifies completeness and fulfillment of a purpose or goal. It indicates that something or someone has achieved the specific goal or function for which that something or someone was created. A person with teleos believes that life is at its core serious business, colored and brightened by times of enjoyment, to be sure, with pleasure and even fun. But at its core, the goal is to accomplish what we've been called to do. Teleos maturity is a conscious, continuous choice to move beyond a passive life where we take what comes in the moment and then move on to whatever the next moment is, and instead take ownership and responsibility of our life, our growth, and our outcomes. Now, to be clear, we can't cover all aspects of individual leadership maturity in one 30-minute episode of a podcast. I'm sure there'd be some sort of a award for that. But as we move through future seasons of the Presence Podcast, we'll have plenty of opportunities to explore this topic in depth. For now, though, we would like to share five fundamentals of approaching maturity that can help us begin to cultivate the mindset of growth from first nature present state towards second nature maturity. These five fundamentals include purpose, principles, passion, practice, and potential. So let's start with purpose. First, here's some sobering statistics. Sociological research tells us that generally speaking, most people do not live their lives with a clear, overarching sense of purpose, but rather live day to day with a significant portion of the population reporting they lack a strong sense of meaning. While many people desire to live with a purpose, the reality for most is a more aimless approach to life. One analysis in the New York Times found that only one in four American adults identifies as having a strong, clear sense of purpose, while nearly 40% feel neutral or they say they don't have a purpose. Other research indicates that only 10% of us have purpose, and only 5% are actually following that purpose on a regular basis. That seems sad, and yet it's definitely fixable. Defining and articulating your purpose is critical in the journey toward maturity because it moves you from drifting through life to living with intention. For most people, purpose doesn't begin as a clear statement, it begins as a fog, a loose collection of thoughts, concerns, interests, and convictions that quietly live in the background of our lives. We may sense that certain things matter to us more than others, that some issues consistently pull at our attention, but most of us rarely slow down long enough to understand what those signals are trying to tell us. Left unexamined, purpose stays internal, emotional, and undefined, and that makes it difficult to live from or to be guided by. The first step in clarifying purpose is simply bringing those thoughts into the open. One way to do that is to journal your thoughts without editing or judging. This allows us to see patterns that are otherwise hard to notice. As those ideas begin to take shape on the page, something important is happening. We find that certain themes carry more emotional weight than others. Some ideas provoke a sense of urgency, responsibility, or conviction. That emotional pull matters because purpose is not just an intellectual idea, it has gravity. If it doesn't carry emotional energy, it won't sustain us when the work becomes difficult or inconvenient. As clarity grows, discernment becomes an essential focus. Not every good idea is your idea. A true sense of purpose sits at the intersection of what you genuinely believe matters, what you actually desire to give your energy to, and what you are equipped or willing to become equipped to do well. When one of those elements is missing, purpose turns into an obligation or frustration. But when our beliefs, desires, and capabilities align, purpose begins to emerge. As this alignment happens, you start to understand what will become the central theme of your purpose and the important aspects of that purpose. For example, for some people, purpose has a spiritual significance to it. It joins a matter of soul searching for what I want to become with the idea of soul searching for why I was created. Our purpose becomes intertwined with reason for living and being and connecting that to divine purpose. In that way, purpose becomes much higher and broader than what I want to accomplish in my career. It becomes about what I want to accomplish with my life. This spirituality-driven sense of purpose became the case for me in my personal journey. When I was a freshman in college, I began to understand that I was wandering aimlessly in my life. And then I was introduced to a God that I thought I had already known. As my faith grew, I knew that the overarching purpose of my life was to seek God in relationship, submit to his will over mine, and find my way to serve him. That's the central theme for my life. And then there are important aspects of my life that provide the subtext to that central theme. But spirituality may not be the central theme of your purpose. Your purpose might be focused on altruism, to provide directly for another person or groups of people. Or that altruistic purpose might be directed towards something that benefits the entire human race, like cancer research or other disease eradication. Your purpose might be focused on education, becoming a teacher either formally or informally. It might be arts focused with a purpose to entertain others and provide enjoyment or riches and culture. Any of these can become the central focus of your purpose. It might be something that you accomplish inside your business or outside your business as a volunteer or member of an organization. But either way, the purpose landscape is large and very individual to what you believe you are uniquely qualified to contribute as a human being. Aspects of your purpose are those key features, different components of importance, if you will, that become the Roman numerals under the key theme of your life. Examples of aspects of purpose can include family and personal relationships, career, service to community, lifelong learning, or other things. And any individual might actually move one of those examples of aspects of purpose to the position of central theme in their life. That's a matter of personal choice. And we need to understand that some aspects of our purpose are a matter of obligation, while others evolve from personal priority or interest. For example, if you're a parent, it seems almost certain that your children should become a focused aspect of your purpose, that, at least in my view, would become both an obligation and a true labor of love. Similarly, if you're a formal leader at work, one of your obligations of that role and a definite part of your purpose as a leader would be to understand what the needs and the frustrations are of those who report to you, not just to simply nurture your own career. In fact, it's probably not a bad idea to separate leadership and career as two separate aspects of your purpose. They both have different aspirations and different obligations. And if you want to become a leader with besties-based presence, you might want to consider making the five commitments of a mature leader that we covered way back in episode three as subpoints under the aspects of leadership. The point of all this is that for most people, purpose has a central theme, and then it has aspects that develop the context and the subtext for that central theme. From there, purpose starts to move from insight into action. A meaningful purpose doesn't just describe values or aspirations, it points you toward contribution. It begins to answer questions like who am I meant to help? What am I trying to build, protect, or change? How am I called to show up? At this stage, purpose begins to take real shape and form in your life. Eventually, purpose reaches a point where it can be sharpened and honed into a strong purpose statement that clearly calls out the central theme of that purpose. The purpose statement doesn't need to impress the rest of the world, but it does need to guide you. A strong purpose statement is simple, durable, and demanding. Yep, I said demanding. It should be clear enough to influence your decisions, specific enough to narrow your focus, and strong enough to hold you accountable. If it doesn't shape how you prioritize your time, what you say yes or no to, and how to evaluate your choices, then it isn't finished yet. When purpose is articulated this way, it becomes more than an idea, it becomes the reference point for your life, it becomes the source from which principles are formed, the fuel that sustains passion, the focus of daily practice, and the foundation for unlocking potential. Purpose clearly defined and intentionally lived is not just something you believe, it's something you become. It's a broad purpose of serving God, which has a lot of subtext to it, obviously. And then more specifically for me, I want to turn that purpose into helping people that I deal with become more effective in their lives, both with what they do and with how they impact others.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Yeah, I love that. And that's very similar to what I've identified as my purpose, which I have it very simplified. It's very simply to make a positive impact in the lives of others. And there's a lot of different ways that I strive to do that, obviously through, you know, obviously serving God and serving others and making workplaces where people can thrive and helping leaders be the best version of themselves and having that impact. So thank you for humoring me there because I think it's helpful for others to kind of hear some examples of what purposes could be, right? If they're one of the one in four people, or three in four people rather, who don't really feel like they have that defined sense of purpose. These are some examples of what they might start to think about.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

And you know, Allie, I really love what you said about, you know, having a positive impact on people because that's a purpose that can continually evolve over the over the pattern of your life. So absolutely that's that's one that helps you make choices in a wide array of areas in a way that can really be meaningful in that moment and just help you to even more clarify what it is that you've been called to do.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yeah. And what's wild is if you look back over the course of my career, even going back into like college and grad school, that has been the consistent theme. The thread that has pulled through all the work that I've done has been around how I've been in service to and helping others thrive. So it's cool to be able to look back and see that. So once you've clarified and created a purpose statement for yourself, it's time to consider the next piece of the maturity puzzle, which is defining the ethos principles you want to weave into your ethos behaviors. Once purpose begins to come into focus, an important question that naturally follows is how will that purpose actually show up in the way that I lead? This is where principles come into play. Many people talk about their values. Values represent what we believe is important. They describe what we care about at a personal level. But values by themselves are internal. They live largely in our intentions. And intentions, no matter how sincere, are invisible to the people who are watching us lead. Principles are different. Principles are values translated into behavior. They are the specific commitments that determine how we show up when leadership pressure is real. While values describe what matters to us internally, principles describe what others consistently experience from us externally. In that sense, principles are the behavioral expression of ethos. They are how credibility becomes visible. A mature leadership ethos is not built on what we say we value, but on what we repeatedly do. And principles function as the guardrails that guide our decisions, shape responses, and govern conduct that aligns with our purpose. That definition might sound a little bit familiar to you if you've been listening. We used very similar terms in our definition of self-management. Self-management provides the guardrails to keep us from ineffective behaviors, those behaviors that can give in the way of our effectiveness. Principles, on the other hand, provide the guardrails that move us into alignment with our purpose. The difference is subtle, but it is important. And we'll expand on that difference in a few minutes. Principles ask us questions like: how will I treat people when I disagree with them? How will I handle authority, conflict, success, or failure? What behaviors will others be able to count on from me consistently? And it's important to call out here principles aren't aspirational slogans, right? They are chosen disciplines. They are observable, repeatable behaviors that signal maturity, reliability, and self-governance. When a leader says, one of my principles is respectful challenge or thoughtful preparation or owning the impact of my decisions, they're making a claim that invites verification. Over time, people either see those behaviors in action or they don't. This is why principles play such a central role in establishing a mature ethos. They make leadership presence predictable in the best possible way. They allow others to trust not just our competence, but our character. And in that sense, principles become the bridge between our inner purpose and external credibility. When our principles are thoughtfully chosen and consistently practiced, they begin to define a leadership persona that others recognize and rely upon. A little bit of your leadership reputation, if you will. They shape how decisions are made, how relationships are navigated, and how influence is exercised. Purpose sets direction, principles determine conduct. And together, they form the foundation of a mature, trustworthy ethos. Your strong leadership principles tend to be concrete, observable, and repeatable. They describe how a leader will act when things are difficult, when pressure is high, or when choices are costly. Over time, it is these lived out principles that shape the leader's ethos maturity. They allow others to know what to expect, how decisions will be made, and what kind of character stands behind the authority in the role. In that way, principles become that behavioral bridge between what leaders care about internally and the credibility and trust they build externally.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

That's right. When purpose is clear and principles are intentionally chosen, something else begins to emerge, and that is passion. In the context of ethos maturity, passion is the emotional energy that sustains commitment to purpose and principles over time. It is what fuels consistency when leadership becomes repetitive, difficult, or even discouraging. True leadership passion is not loud or performative. In fact, it often looks steady rather than dramatic. It shows up as resilience when outcomes are slow, as resolve when decisions are unpopular, and as perseverance when the pressure to compromise values feels real. Leaders who are grounded in purpose tend to experience a deeper, more sustainable form of passion, one that doesn't depend on external praise or momentary wins or ideal conditions. This kind of passion allows leaders to remain invested even when the work becomes routine or when progress feels incremental rather than inspiring. By the way, when your passion is running low because you're dog tired or perhaps even a bit burnt out, the way to refuel that passion is to go back and spend some time immersing yourself in the central themes and the different aspects of your purpose. It's that purpose that serves to rekindle both your principles and your passion. Over time, people can sense the difference between emotional spikes and purpose-driven passion. Passion that is continually rooted in purpose and guided by principles creates a stabilizing presence. It signals that a leader is not simply reacting to circumstances, but is internally anchored and emotionally available to the work at hand. In that way, passion becomes a visible extension of ethos, quietly reinforcing credibility, strengthening trust, and sustaining the energy required to lead well over the long haul.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

While passion supplies emotional energy, it is practice that makes that energy visible. Passion, no matter how sincere, only becomes meaningful to others when it shows up in what a leader repeatedly does. This is where leadership moves out of the realm of intention and into the lived experience of the people around us. Practice is the day-in, day-out, often unnoticed expression of purpose-driven passion through consistent action. It's how leaders demonstrate that what they care about is not situational, but stable. Leadership practice does not usually appear in dramatic moments. In fact, it's most clearly revealed in the very ordinary ones, in how a leader prepares for meetings, how they listen during conversations, how they follow through on commitments or respond to mistakes, how they make time for people amid competing demands. These small, repeated choices communicate far more about a leader's ethos than occasional big gestures ever could. Over time, practice turns principles into patterns. It creates a rhythm of behavior that others begin to trust because it's predictable, disciplined, and grounded. For instance, employees know that they can come into my office and talk to me when they're frustrated or confused because they know from the way I've practiced leadership that I will listen without judgment to what they have to say. Ultimately, practice is where credibility is built or lost. Passion without practice fades into rhetoric, but passion expressed through mature practice creates alignment between words and actions. When leaders consistently practice what they care about, especially when it's inconvenient or unremarkable, they signal maturity. They show that their leadership presence is not driven by the mood or the moment, but by an intentional commitment to live out their purpose every day. That is how ethos moves from a concept to credibility and from aspiration to impact.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

And Allie, when purpose-driven passion is expressed consistently through practice, something important begins to happen. Capacity expands. Practice is never just about maintaining standards in the present, it's also about shaping what becomes possible in the future. Over time, discipline practice compounds. It sharpens judgment, strengthens relationships, and builds a leader's credibility in ways that can't be rushed or shortcut. This is where we begin to see the connection between daily leadership behaviors and long-term potential. Potential, as Aristotle understood it, is not wishful thinking or untapped talent waiting passively to emerge. It's the more potent future reality that becomes available when consistent action aligns with purpose and principle. Each act of discipline practice stretches a leader's capability just a bit further, expanding influence, resilience, and effectiveness. Leaders who practice well over time find that they are trusted with greater responsibility, sought out for guidance, and able to operate with a broader scope of impact. In other words, their ceiling rises. He or she who is faithful in a little, definitely you know the rest. This is the essence of ethos maturity. Purpose sets direction, principles shape conduct, passion sustains engagement, and practice transforms intention into habit. When those elements align over time, potential is no longer some abstract concept, it becomes the natural outcome of who a leader has consistently chosen to be. That is what it means to move towards teleos, not simply doing more or achieving more, but becoming more, more grounded, more capable, and more effective in creating value for others. So as we close this conversation, it's worth stepping back and contrasting what we mean by leadership maturity with something we've talked about a great deal over the last episodes, which is managing ourselves. And Ali, you touched on this a little bit earlier. Self-management is essential, especially early in our leadership journey. Self-awareness, self-reflection, and self-discipline help us identify behaviors that get us into trouble, patterns that undermine trust, and reactions that work against the leader we want to be. In many ways, self-management is about putting guardrails in place so we don't derail ourselves or damage those around us. But maturity represents a shift. As our etheros grows and stabilizes, leadership becomes less about constant correction and more about direction. We don't abandon self-awareness, self-reflection, and self-discipline. They remain vital, but we begin to use them differently. Rather than scanning ourselves primarily for missteps or risks, we use awareness and reflection to stay aligned with who we are becoming. Leadership maturity moves us from managing behaviors to embodying beliefs. We lead not because we're trying to avoid failure or consequences, but because our actions increasingly flow from deeply held convictions and a clear sense of purpose. At that point, we are no longer merely managing ourselves, we are leading ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Yeah. And you know, John, I think this shift from managing ourselves to leading ourselves is a defining marker of pastis based leadership presence, right? So when leaders operate primarily from self-management, their energy is often focused on containment, right? Monitoring reactions, correcting missteps, and staying within their acceptable boundaries. And while necessary, this posture can sometimes subtly communicate caution or defensiveness, even. Maturity changes that tone. So as a leader's ethos matures, behaviors become less about control and more about coherence. Others begin to experience a steadiness that does not depend on constant effort or viligence, but rather flows naturally from a deeply internalized purpose, principles, and conviction. This is where pastise really begins to take root because people sense that the leader is not performing leadership, rather, embodying it.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

That is so true, Allie. The real difference between self-management and maturity is that management is a factor of the behavioral triggers inside our psyche. You remember them, our values and beliefs, our emotional blueprint, our intellect, communication style, our view of other people, and our motives and motivations. Maturity, on the other hand, is a factor of the heart, soul, and spirit, where the real us is located. That package of purpose, principles, passion, practice, and potential are played out at the deepest levels of who we are. At that point of maturity, that deeper level self begins to influence and take over the hardware of the behavioral triggers and produce consistently high degrees of pastise-based presence. So, as we've said, ethos maturity consists of purpose, principles, passion, practice, and potential. But these concepts are not just knowing about them and doing them. There's a real need for working these things out through reflection and discussion and then more reflection and really figuring out how they flesh out in our lives. And that's exactly the kind of experience that we try to provide in our presence program for leaders. I think it's one thing to talk about these kinds of concepts in a podcast setting. It's quite another to go through a process of ingraining them into your heart, soul, and spirit, which is the real classroom of work like this. So if you're interested in helping the leaders in your organization really hammer these things out in their lives, I'd love to talk to you about how we can bring the presence program into your organization. So, Ali, do you have any final thoughts or observations before we put the podcast into resting mode over the summer?

SPEAKER_01 33:47

So I just really love the conversations we've had. And it makes me think of some of the work that I do with my clients, where I do a lot of work with assessments and helping people discover their strengths and things like that. But I tell people all the time that awareness is just step one, right? If you don't go and actually do something with this information and begin to put it into practice, which comes into play with the self-reflection and the self-discipline pieces, you're not actually going to see the changes that you might want to see. And so I think we've done a really good job of connecting the dots and explaining some of the why we need to focus on all of these pieces. So I'm just really happy with everything that we've had a chance to talk about over these several episodes.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Yeah, I am too. And you, as we've discussed these things and as we kind of loop all of these things back to leadership presence, it just really impacts my thinking about how many, many leaders across organizational landscapes just don't take the time to think about these things and work through these kinds of things, which is why I think they really need the guidance of Move Air Coaching or the Institute for Optimal Leadership Presence, because many people just on their own don't, as you just said, connect the dots. They just, you know, they want to be good leaders, they are doing some good things, but they really don't tap into that potential that we just talked about because they're just so immersed in the details of the day. So I'm hoping that the conversations that we have had will help stimulate people to think about those things and really spend some time really trying to connect those dots and sort of create the journey that they need to to become that leader that they really have the potential to become.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

So I just wanted to say thanks to all of you out there for tuning into the Presence Podcast. We hope this has got your leadership juices flowing, and we hope that you will tell your colleagues and friends about the podcast. Season one episodes will be up on all the platforms that we're out on all summer long. And Allie and I will be gearing up for season two, which will premiere sometime in late summer, probably late August. And just to drop a hint, in episode one of season two, we'll pick up with the next framework that Aristotle gave us for achieving Piste-based leadership presence, and that's the principle of logos. Until then, be sure to head on over to the Institute for Optimal Leadership Presence website. That's iOLP.net, and we can begin a conversation about what the presence program might look like in your organization. Until next season, take care of yourself and the first time.