We Are Not Alone: Ginny Clarke on Conscious Leadership and Finding Your Soul at Work

Laura Gates
3 days ago
8 min read

A conversation about energy, truth-telling, and leading from wherever you are

There are moments in a conversation when someone says something so true it shifts the entire room. Ginny Clarke has a gift for creating those moments. Whether she's speaking from the stage to a room full of executives, posting on Instagram to over half a million and growing followers, or sitting down with Brené Brown for an interview for Brown's latest book, Strong Ground. Ginny cuts through the noise and speaks a truth people are starving to hear: you don't have to leave your soul at the door when you walk into work.

My friendship with Ginny feels like one of those ripple moments - chance encounters that keep bringing us back to each other for what Ginny calls "fortification and expansion." I keep telling her, "I can say I knew you when, Ginny," but what strikes me most isn't her growing online platform. It's that she’s reached a place in her life where she’s able to fully be who she is, unapologetically. Ginny speaks her truth from a place of freedom, using her words carefully, "I studied French and linguistics in college, so words carry a lot of meaning for me," Ginny explained. "I'm very deliberate with my use of words."

Ginny is a conscious leadership expert, speaker, and creator of Fifth Dimensional Leadership™. She was a Senior Partner at executive search firm Spencer Stuart and Director of executive recruiting at Google. Brené Brown was so impressed after meeting Ginny at a conference, she went down a three-hour rabbit hole watching Ginny's Instagram videos and then devoted an entire chapter of Strong Ground to Ginny’s thoughts on leadership. Ginny is that compelling. Words matter.

The Emergency of the Soul

Ginny's journey into conscious leadership started with crushing loss. Both her parents passed when she was in her thirties, within four years of each other. At the same time she was a new mother - her son was one year old - and her marriage was in trouble.

"It was just devastating really, and it was an emergency sort of soul thing that I had to lock into," Ginny told me.

She was introduced to a man who became a very close friend and her spiritual guide. She started doing deep work into her own spirituality, her own consciousness. Soon after she joined Spencer Stuart.

"Spirituality was something that was so personal to me and helped me through," she explained. "Then linking that to what I started observing in the workplace, I thought, we're really missing something."

Only 18% of Leaders Are Good at Leading

Ginny spent 12 years at Spencer Stuart and five years at Google, assessing leaders, placing them into major corporations, watching them up close. She was looking at engagement levels, burnout rates, and leaves people were taking.

"We've lost our humanity," Ginny said. "We've lost so many elements of what it should mean to lead people."

Then she told me a statistic that stopped me cold: a 2016 Gallup Poll said only 18% of leaders are considered good at leading.

"That was almost 10 years ago. It's tragic," Ginny said. "You've got roughly 5% of most workplaces who are people in leadership and managerial roles. So 82% of them aren't good at leading and managing, overseeing 95% of the workforce."

Not only are we not necessarily choosing the best leaders, Ginny believes, it's because we haven't assessed them properly. "Not that they're not smart. In many cases they haven't been strong leaders. There's a lack of accountability up and down and between. The boards of directors are not holding leaders accountable for really good behavior."

The Five Dimensions of Conscious Leadership

At the urging of some Googlers who had heard her speak, Ginny created the Fifth Dimensional Leadership™ program. She thought about what is the fifth dimension - we're in the third, the fifth is less ego-based, more soul-based, love-based, an expansion of consciousness.

She came up with five dimensions of conscious leadership:

Know yourself
Speak your truth
Inspire love
Expand consciousness
Activate mastery

Your Energy Precedes You

One of the things Ginny and I talk a lot about is energy. How we show up, how we manage it.

"I almost take it for granted because I've become so adept at managing it," Ginny said. "I might sit in the car for an extra five minutes - to help me get my act together. Your energy precedes you when you walk into a room, before people see your face."

The overarching field that Ginny projects is love. "I have a fundamental love for humanity, for animals, for life. I can be a complete hard ass, make no mistake. But it's coming from a place of love and truth and honesty and integrity — the things I learned from my parents. The best leaders are those things. Not everything can be learned or assessed by a resume."

Stop Trying to Please Everyone

One of Ginny's strongest messages is about people pleasing, which she believes has become an epidemic at every level.

"They make some of the worst leaders," she said. "If you're trying to please everybody, you're not going to be a good leader. Full stop. Because you're making decisions based on what you want - that you want other people to like you - versus based on what you think is best for the organization and your team. This isn't about you."

When you have confidence, Ginny said, you can tell somebody where to get off if they're behaving in a disrespectful way. You're not walking around on eggshells, not wanting to call out the truth.

"That's all I'm saying. The truth of who I am. Honoring the truth of who you are. Setting up systems that honor the truth of other people. Be truthful with each other. Give them feedback that's gonna help people grow versus, oh well I didn't wanna say anything. Well, how are they gonna know anything?"

Trust has been eroded in the workplace at every level, Ginny believes, because we're not speaking truth. "It's just that simple."

The Gift of Remembering Who You Are

Ginny's favorite compliment came from a client recently who said, "Ginny, you have helped me remember who I am."

"I thought that's the best compliment I could ever get," Ginny said. "Because when you remember your essence, that will always be with you."

"I think people need to stop wanting to please other people," she said. "Stop trying to be something that we're not inside of these organizations. But love yourself enough to know that there's more for you to learn and grow. At your core essence, you're enough. You're beautiful, you're lovable."

She paused. "When are you going trust your own gut and your own knowing? How have we gotten to this place where it seems in vogue to doubt yourself, to have imposter syndrome? What are you waiting for? Who are you waiting on? Own it."

Lead From Where You Are

Ginny's message isn't just for people in leadership roles. She wants the 95% of the workforce to wake up and understand the agency they have.

She coached someone recently who was struggling to manage up to a difficult boss. Ginny told him to forget about that. "I said, I think your best bet is to manage across. You become the best leader of your team that you can be. When your people are telling other people how good you are to work for, that will get back around."

Deliver results, have high expectations, set high standards and be someone that other people want to work for.

How It All Comes Back Around

The story of how Ginny ended up as Chapter 9 in Brené Brown's book is a perfect example of what happens when you speak your truth and lead from your essence.

Brené and Ginny met at a speaking engagement. A few months later, Brené reached out and said she was working on a book, could they sit down on a Zoom call? It was June and the manuscript was due in September.

"Little did I know that it came out the third week in September," Ginny said. "She had taken the entirety of our conversation, transcribed it and put it in as a chapter."

What created that instant connection? "There was a resonance between us. We see eye to eye around these things."

Ginny didn't wake up with a plan to get in Brené Brown's next book. She was simply following her truth, speaking it publicly, showing up as herself. The ripple effect took care of the rest.

We Need to Come Together

Ginny believes we're at a really interesting point in our civilization as a species.

"I think we need to come together to reground to what really matters before we can move forward," she said. "Our collective ego is way out of alignment, and I think we're gonna be humbled in the next 15, 20 years."

She's aware of what's going on in the world, she reads the news, but she's not going to let that influence how she feels every day. She manages what she consumes.

"People are suffering in ways that are quite insidious," Ginny said. "Workers are suffering. You got bad leaders and managers overseeing people in ways that are destructive to their person and their mental health. Part of what I'm saying is I want the 95% to wake up and understand the agency that they have."

Accountability goes in every direction, but it starts with you holding yourself accountable for your mindset, your behavior, how you treat people.

Fortified by Ancestors

And we're not doing it alone. Ginny meditates every morning to feel close to her parents, to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King who she can feel is guiding her, to those on the other side she can't see, but feels.

"Brené Brown is one thing, but Dr. King, I'm sorry, that's next level," Ginny said. "So I feel very blessed and honored to be whatever kind of a mouthpiece I can be. It’s more about what people need to hear, how we need to get back to some of these things to find ourselves as a civilization."

When I told Ginny I was bussed into Dr. Martin Luther King Elementary School in third and fourth grade, that we sat on the gymnasium floor holding hands singing "We Shall Overcome," she understood immediately. Even at that very young age, I felt like I was on a mission for social change.

"I'm fortified by all my ancestors, my guides," Ginny said. "It's not just me, it's not my ego. This is what I have to do, and it's with great joy and great commitment that I do it. We are not alone."

My Thoughts

When only 18% of leaders are good at leading, the 95% of the workforce who aren’t in leadership roles can't afford to stay silent.

Ginny is teaching us that we don't have to wait for permission to lead, to speak our truth, to be fully ourselves. When she walked into Google at 50, she knew who she was and wasn't willing to compromise that for anyone. What happened? She became more effective, not less. Her team trusted her. Her energy preceded her. Brené Brown devoted an entire chapter to her. But Ginny didn't do any of this to get recognition. She did it because "this is what I have to do at this stage of my life. This is what I'm guided to do."

That's the difference between ego-driven leadership and soul-driven leadership. One asks “How do I get ahead? the other asks “How do I serve?” And when Ginny talks about being fortified by ancestors, by Dr. King, by guides she can't see but can feel, I'm reminded that this work isn't just urgent, it's sacred. We're not trying to fix broken systems alone. Lead from where you are. Remember who you are. Trust your own gut and your own knowing. Stop waiting for permission.

As Ginny says: what are you waiting for? Who are you waiting on? Own it.

Listen to the episode to hear more about Ginny's work at Spencer Stuart and Google, why she believes we're at a critical moment as a civilization, and how to start bringing consciousness into your workplace today.

You can follow Ginny’s work and connect with her at:

https://www.ginnyclarke.com/

Instagram @‌ginny_clarke

TikTok @‌GinnyLeads

YouTube @‌5-DLeadership

Facebook @FifthDimensionalLeadership

LinkedIn @ginnyclarke