Question 1

What is the Conscious Leadership Group?

Accepted Answer

The Conscious Leadership Group (CLG) is the principal institution for the Conscious Leadership methodology articulated in Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Warner Klemp's 2014 book The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success. CLG operates as a coaching, consulting, and education organisation that trains leaders, teams, and coaches in the methodology. It is not a professional accreditation body in the ICF sense; it is a structured practitioner community built around a defined body of work, with particular resonance in venture-backed technology and Bay Area founder communities and across the YPO global network.

Question 2

Who founded the Conscious Leadership Group?

Accepted Answer

CLG was co-founded by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Warner Klemp. Dethmer is a coach, speaker, and author with several decades of experience; he has worked with more than 150 CEOs and their teams. Chapman has advised more than 700 organisational leaders, with particular concentration in venture-backed technology companies. Klemp is a sought-after speaker, executive coach, YPO facilitator, and Enneagram specialist. The three are also the co-authors of the 2014 book that established the methodology in the broader leadership development field. Each works extensively with senior leaders and executive teams.

Question 3

What is Above the Line / Below the Line?

Accepted Answer

Above the Line / Below the Line is the methodology's central diagnostic and is presented as a single horizontal line in CLG materials. At any moment a leader is either above the line (open, curious, committed to learning) or below the line (closed, defensive, committed to being right). The line is not about being a good or bad person; it is about the state from which the leader is operating in this moment. The work of conscious leadership is to notice which side one is on, then to choose, in real time, to shift back above the line when the leader has drifted below.

Question 4

What are the 15 Commitments?

Accepted Answer

The 15 Commitments are the methodology's structured practices for living and leading consciously. They begin with foundational commitments to taking radical responsibility, learning through curiosity, and feeling all feelings, and extend through commitments around speaking candidly, eliminating gossip, practicing integrity, generating appreciation, working in one's zone of genius, playing and resting, exploring the opposite, sourcing approval and security from within, having enough, experiencing the world as ally, creating win-for-all solutions, and being the resolution. They are not skills to be acquired but practices to be lived, deepened, and revisited across the leader's career.

Question 5

What are the Four Ways of Leading?

Accepted Answer

The Four Ways of Leading are four states of consciousness from which leaders operate. To Me is victim consciousness — life is happening to the leader; the cause is outside them. By Me is responsibility — life is happening by the leader; they are the source of their experience. Through Me is surrender — life is moving through the leader, who has let go of control and is acting in service of something larger. As Me is oneness — the leader experiences no separation between themselves and what is happening. The model describes states leaders can occupy in different moments rather than fixed developmental stages.

Question 6

What programs does CLG offer?

Accepted Answer

CLG offers Conscious Leadership Forums for founders, VCs, and CEOs (concentrated in the Bay Area and operating through YPO Forums and Chapters worldwide), a multi-stage Coach Training program created and led by Dethmer and Chapman, executive team workshops delivered to senior leadership teams, public workshops and online programs accessible to leaders not yet engaged with CLG directly, and the Conscious Leadership Forum online community providing book-aligned learning resources, practice tools, and peer community. CLG also delivers consulting engagements to organisations that want to build conscious-leadership practices into their culture.

Question 7

Is CLG ICF-accredited?

Accepted Answer

No. CLG is not accredited by the International Coaching Federation, EMCC Global, the Association for Coaching, or other professional coaching bodies. CLG-trained coaches who hold ICF credentials acquire those credentials independently. The CLG credential signals competence in delivering the conscious leadership methodology specifically, rather than generalist ICF-recognised coaching competency. Many CLG-trained coaches do hold ICF or EMCC credentials concurrently, but the two are independent. Coaches seeking credentials recognised across the broader coaching profession should pursue accredited training separately and treat CLG as a complementary methodology training.

Question 8

Who uses Conscious Leadership in practice?

Accepted Answer

The methodology has had particular concentration in three communities: the Bay Area founder, VC, and CEO ecosystem (where Diana Chapman has worked with founders at major venture-backed companies including Asana); the YPO Young Presidents' Organization global network; and the broader tech-industry executive community where the book has been recommended widely. Outside these concentrations, CLG works with executive teams in healthcare, education, professional services, and other sectors. The book itself has reached a wide general leadership readership and is frequently included on Bay Area leadership reading lists.

Question 9

What influences shaped Conscious Leadership?

Accepted Answer

The methodology draws on Stephen Karpman's Drama Triangle (Victim/Villain/Hero), David Emerald's Empowerment Dynamic (TED, with the Creator/Challenger/Coach roles), Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks's Zone of Genius and conscious-loving work, mindfulness and contemplative traditions, and adjacent leadership and consciousness writers including Frederic Laloux, Ken Wilber, and Eckhart Tolle. The CLG body of work is original in its synthesis but explicitly indebted to these traditions, and the founders frequently credit them in CLG materials and teaching.

Question 10

Where is CLG based?

Accepted Answer

CLG is incorporated in the United States, with significant activity concentrated in the Bay Area where Diana Chapman runs Forums for founders, VCs, and CEOs. Forums and workshops also run through YPO Chapters worldwide and through CLG-affiliated practitioners in other cities. The book and its associated learning resources have international reach; CLG itself is principally a US-based organisation that delivers programs internationally rather than a globally-distributed institution with country-level chapters. Diana Chapman, Jim Dethmer, and Kaley Warner Klemp each work internationally as part of their individual practices.

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