Leading from the Shadows: Tal Shavit on Bringing Depth to Corporate Leadership

- Madison Torres

Tal Shavit calls herself an organizational healer and a vision doula, titles that raise eyebrows in boardrooms more accustomed to strategy decks and quarterly KPIs. Yet in a world where burnout, mistrust, and complexity define the workplace, her language feels less outlandish and more prophetic.

Shavit, an international leadership development expert works with what she calls Full Spectrum Intelligence, building a career at the unlikely intersection of shadow work and executive leadership group work. She guides teams not just through what they think, but through what they fear, avoid, and dream of. With a background that spans McKinsey consulting to women’s leadership retreats, she moves fluidly between corporate towers and circle gatherings, insisting the most interesting transformation happens when people and organizations are willing look at what lies beneath the surface.

“It’s not just about pushing harder to perform better,” says Tal Shavit. “It’s about aligning. And when organizations and teams align, performance follows.”

What made you brave, or reckless, enough to bring shadow work into the corporate world?

Laughing: “Probably a good mix of both. Or neither. I think it’s a practice what you preach more than anything. Part of me would love to do the normal, digestible leadership development work, because it’s scary and risky to put this in the forefront. What if people don’t get it? What if they think it’s weird? But this is what I speak, facilitate, and guide, meeting the parts that are terrified along with the deepest longings.
 And my own deepest longing is to work with people who are curious about the deep work, so they can make the impact they long for. If I’m asking those I work with to be brave, then I can only authentically do this if I do the same. And I try my best every day.”

Isn’t “shadow work” just therapy language dressed up for business? How do you make it real for executives?

 “I would say shadow work is therapy language, not even dressed up. But just because we enter the boardroom doesn’t mean we stop being humans, with triggers and unconscious motivations driving us.
 For instance it allows us to see conflicts not as obstacles but as an invitation for deepening the relationship, not just with the other person but also with themselves. This view results in teams seeing clear change in the quality of conversations, in trust, in the enjoyment of working together. And we train the muscle of staying in discomfort, while getting less emotionally triggered and more able to navigate from choice and freedom.”

Can you point to a moment where full spectrum intelligence actually shifted business outcomes?

“That’s a good question. First since it’s not just about outcomes, it’s about building organizations and lives that are in alignment with life, that don’t feel like a battle for survival, significance, and satisfaction that never ends.

An example was a group where an executive was debating whether or not to let someone go. Full spectrum intelligence gives access to data you don’t usually have. Most people make pro/con lists. In business, even if these lists get very complex, but they still boil down to analysis. What is often left out is somatic, intuitive, relational, and spiritual intelligence, which too often results in analysis paralysis, maybe I should fire this person, maybe I shouldn’t, here is why I should, here is why I shouldn’t in a seemingly endless cycle.

In this example we used a body awareness inquiry, which gave the executive surprising new information. She found she felt more relaxed with the idea of letting this person go, whereas in her head she expected discomfort. Once she realized letting them go created more relaxation, she could make the decision with much ease. This doesn’t replace analytical intelligence all together, but gives a more complete way of making decisions.”

What’s the biggest wall of resistance you’ve slammed into when doing this work, and how did you break through it?
 “The biggest wall is people not interested in going into depth. It might be discomfort, or because it’s new - people aren’t used to doing this work in the business context, or doing it at all. One way to mitigate this is anchoring the work in research-backed methodologies - robustness and rigor of the scientific method makes it easier for people to dive in. Another way is humor and fun, which also defuses cynicism.

 For many, it boils down to safety. One thing that creates safety is giving people choice. At the end of the day, if someone isn’t ready to do the work, that’s perfectly acceptable. I trust that they know best. We don’t shove people over the cliff, they have to choose to make the jump when it’s right for them.

So I don’t aim to break resistance; we can work with it. It is a welcome and needed piece of the puzzle.”

If leaders don’t embrace shadow work and full spectrum intelligence, what do you think the cost will be in the next decade?

“Markets are a mirror to the world, which feels like constant warfare. In business, it’s a battle against competitors, markets, time, and sometimes even within our own teams and organizations. If we don’t embrace the deep work and commitment to inner development, it is unlikely we will be able to meet the global challenges we face. One reason we haven’t moved the needle enough is we keep looking outside, with strategies and big initiatives, forgetting we need to grow the qualities needed to navigate these complexities.

We are being pushed to find a different relationship to power, one not based on force. One that offers a relaxation of the need to prove, the fear of not being enough, not having enough, which drives mindless competition. The sense of survival is embedded in all of us.

Who doesn’t feel the pain of this now, the urgency, the sense of helplessness on the global, organizational or personal scale? It’s time for a new way.”