If you’re interested in life coaching for success and achievement, one thing will quickly become clear: the most potentially powerful part of your personality is the one responsible for leadership, vision, purpose and mission in your life. This is your King Archetype or Queen archetype. In this article I will use the words King or Sovereign, but everything here applies to the archetypal energy of the Queen as well.
How Strong Is Your King Archetype In His Leadership?
When we talk about leadership in life coaching sessions we’re looking at leadership in your own life as well as how you lead other people. This could be your family, your employees, your colleagues, your friends, and so on.
Some of the qualities necessary for successful leadership are wisdom, discernment, authority, good judgement, fairness, clarity of decision-making, and an interest in the long-term benefit of all the people who fall within your area of influence. Do these qualities need developing in you? Does your King archetype need strengthening?
Mission, Life Purpose and Vision
Then there’s mission. Do you have a King’s mission? This is also called a Life Mission, or if you prefer, a Life Purpose. Something that equates to a life purpose, a reason to get out of bed in the morning which is personally meaningful? Something you would regret not having done when you die? We can work together in forming your life mission, which may change over time.
And do you have a vision for your life? A vision is necessary to plan your journey through life. It’s like a destination, constructed from your goals and your desired outcomes. You can have a vision for every area of your life: financial, family, employment, work, leisure, home, spiritual, and more.
Having a King’s vision for every area of your life is massively empowering: it provides motivation and gives purpose to your actions. Without a vision, you have no direction in life. Which raises the question – where is your journey taking you? Would coaching help?
The Leader In You Is Your King Archetype or Sovereign Archetype
I use the archetypal model for coaching men and women. In this model, leadership, vision and mission are part of the Sovereign or King archetype.
The idea of archetypes is very useful, because they serve as a simple shorthand with which we can describe different aspects of our personality. For example, we all know which qualities we associate with a good Sovereign, a good King or Queen. To put it another way, we can all identify with the concept of an archetype. It’s something we can all understand.
The four archetypes we use in coaching are the Sovereign, the Warrior, the Magician and the Lover.
The King Archetype
As we’ve seen, the King archetype is all about leadership of your own Kingdom or, to put it another way, your realm.
But whether you call this part of you “the leader in your life” or “the King” makes no difference really. Our objective in coaching is to strengthen and develop this area of your personality so that you can fully access and embrace your natural power.
In coaching, I start from the belief that we are all born with unlimited potential and personal power.
Yet, as we all know, life has an unfortunate habit of suppressing or diminishing our personal power. For one thing, we don’t truly celebrate leadership, magnificence, success or achievement in our culture. For another, few children are brought up in a way that encourages the expression of this Sovereign energy, this Kingly archetypal energy.
Fortunately, if the power of your King is not showing up fully in your life, archetypal coaching can bring it out in all its strength, power, and shining brilliance.
To make this clearer, here’s a video which describes the functions and importance of the King archetype.
A Video to Introduce The Sovereign Archetype
You can find Rod Boothroyd’s book Warrior Magician Lover King: A Guide to the Male Archetypes Updated for the 21st Century on sale here (UK and Europe sales) and also here (USA and rest of the world sales).
Increasing King Energy In The World
Very few men and women develop their full potential for leadership or express their full power in the world. Even fewer have a vision for their lives. Almost no-one has a mission, a sense of purpose in the world.
This is where shadow work and life coaching can be very helpful to you: these techniques will enable you to access your natural leadership, and your innate power and potency. You will quickly see where you are blocked or limited in expressing this energy. We can then remove these blocks and limitations.
In turn, this will enable you to step into more of your Sovereign qualities. I will use a variety of extremely effective coaching techniques which will quickly help you understand your vision and mission, and develop your leadership.
The power and potency you currently hold in shadow will be released so you can access your full power and potential looks like until you begin to experience it for yourself.
That way, you easily can become the person you were always meant to be. The person you were born to be.
Leadership Comes In Many Forms
Think of the King archetype as representing the leader within you. This can be the leader in your own life, at home, in business, in the world. You are a leader when you take on the role of father, grandfather, mother, grandmother, Elder, manager, director, foreman or supervisor, mentor, and of course many more roles.
All of these roles and positions need to embrace the qualities of the Sovereign archetype, because those qualities are essential for the well-being of your Kingdom, no matter how large or small it may be.
Kings Need Support
The King archetype also incorporates and allows the expression of the Warrior’s energy. (Your Warrior is the part of your personality – the Archetype – which gets things done in the world.)
The Warrior archetype represents the aggressive or energetic force that a King might bring to whatever circumstances require it.
For example, perhaps this energy is needed when there is a threat to good order or safety in the Kingdom. In business this might be defending against an unwanted takeover bid, stepping up sales, executing a marketing campaign, or expanding the business. At home this might be dealing with family challenges. And so on. All of these are examples of where Sovereign direction and Warrior action are needed.
And a good leader, a good King, accesses his Magician archetype to get solutions, answers, information and knowledge. He can decide what needs to happen and send his Warrior out to act, supported by his Magician’s profound knowledge of what is needed.
And the King’s Lover archetype helps him establish connection and good relationships with others in his realm.
All of this energy is naturally expressed as it flows through a man who takes the necessary financial, emotional, psychological and practical steps to ensure his kingdom is prospering.
The Sovereign At Home & In Business
King energy is the archetypal energy which allows a man’s wife and children to feel safe and protected, so they can prosper in their own exploration of life and discover what life can offer them.
It’s the energy which expresses itself in fathering of sons or daughters, where time is devoted to their welfare and attention is given to their interests.
It’s the energy of leadership in a business. It’s the energy of compassionate managers and supervisors who seek to guide others with firm clear support and encouragement.
It’s the energy which allows healers, counsellors, therapists, mentors and coaches to support clients in their recovery, and to empower and support them as they find their way back to their own pathway through life.
The King’s archetypal energy is the energy that allows you to keep your cool when everybody else is losing theirs.
It’s something you can find in yourself when everyone else succumbs to chaos and struggle – a voice of calmness and reassurance.
Your King archetype is the power within you which allows you to make clear decisions based on an understanding and wise discernment of what is necessary, decisions which cut through the mess in your family, your work, or even in your country.
Many of us haven’t had much experience of King energy from our fathers, grandfathers or schooling. That’s why personal coaching can be helpful in supporting you as you find the Sovereign within yourself. Coaching can also help you bring that energy into the light and develop it so it’s a fundamental part of your life.
This is far removed from traditional counselling or life coaching. It’s much more about a process of being with another King who can work with you to clear the blocks to the expression of your own King energy and coach you to be fully present in the world. So you can stand, loud and proud, as it were, in the embodiment of your King energy.
Read more about leadership and sovereign energy here.
Life Coaching and Sovereign Energy
Over the years, I’ve attended many seminars by the likes of Anthony Robbins, Jack Canfield and Jack Black. Judging by the people I’ve met there, I estimate only 3% to 5% of any human population embody King energy to any significant degree, or use it in their lives in a constructive way.
This is an absolute tragedy for the world. We all have power and potency, but it lies hidden in most people. Life coaching is desperately needed to bring it out – after all, compassionate but strong King energy is what the world needs most right now.
But I want to be really clear about this.
I don’t believe any of us truly lack Sovereign energy.
There’s a wonderful expression used in the world of self-development as an affirmation: “All I need is within me now”. I absolutely believe this to be true. Sure, that energy may need accessing. It may need bringing to life. It may need work before it is expressed.
Fortunately, as a life coach trained in the skills of shadow work and therapy, I can work with these archetypal concepts to help you access your innate power, wisdom and leadership. I can help you determine your life vision and clarify your mission. This is where this kind of work, shadow work or, if you like, “archetypal coaching” stands out as tool for personal improvement. This kind of coaching allows you to fully access your King archetype.