Disrupting Gracefully: A New Approach to Leadership
In this engaging conversation, Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D., shares her insights on leadership, mentorship, and the transformative power of holistic practices in the criminal justice system. She discusses her personal journey, the concept of 'Disrupting Gracefully,' and the need for new systems that prioritize human potential over punitive measures. The dialogue emphasizes the importance of questioning established norms and fostering authentic leadership to create meaningful societal change.
takeaways
- The best advice often comes from unexpected sources.
- Mentorship can come from various life experiences, not just traditional figures.
- Leadership is about merging personal and professional identities.
- Disrupting gracefully means creating change with intention and compassion.
- True transformation requires a shift in mindset and belief systems.
- The criminal justice system often perpetuates cycles of punishment rather than rehabilitation.
- Real change happens when individuals recognize their own potential.
- Creating new systems is essential for true transformation in society.
- Leadership development should focus on authenticity and interconnection.
- Questioning accepted truths is the first step towards meaningful change.
Transcript
Well, Doc, welcome to the podcast. How you doing today?
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:I'm doing excellent. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:So good to have you all. Looking forward to this conversation. I like disrupting things myself, so I'm curious to figure out how you do it.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:you
Hey.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:I'm going start out with a different question though. Tell me about the best piece of advice you've ever received.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Okay, well, it wasn't actually meant as advice, but I think I was probably 12 years old and I overheard my dad talking about his day at work. Now, my dad worked in Corrections and that day he had been assigned to the, was where the criminally insane had been housed. And if you know anything about a holding cell, these holding cells are bolted into the floor.
you are not supposed to be able to move these holding cells. But he was sharing with my father that this individual broke the holding cell from the bolts into the floor and was able to move his cell to go get something. I think it was like a book on a radiator or something. I can't remember what it was. And I overheard this and I said, Dad, how is that even possible? And he said, and he just said,
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:my goodness.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:No one ever told him he couldn't do it.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:I love that.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:But he said it like shrugging his shoulders. I guess no one ever told him he couldn't do it. And I didn't understand that in my 11, 12-year-old mind. But it really came back into my awareness all these years later. And it's really shaped my thoughts and my beliefs about how somebody could achieve something that we would say would be impossible. So it's really about
our view of limitations and potential. we're seeing that today, know, like in our real world today, the four minute mile, right? Doctors told us it wasn't possible for our human body to do it. Hundreds of men have done it. And I think this year we're looking at a possible woman from Kenya doing it as well. So it's just, you know, it's how our beliefs shape our reality.
But yeah, was, that was wasn't it meant as advice, but it really probably was the best thing I ever heard.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:I can see that. That's a powerful image and a powerful message for us to knowing that sometimes we're limited by our own thoughts about how far we can go. I love that.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Exactly. Yeah.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:As you think about your life, who are some people in your journey who served as mentors for you or even inspiration? If you want to kind of give them a shout out here to say thank you for being so important, there's a chance to do that.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Sure. So mentors always have an interesting way of showing up. I don't look up to celebrities or anything like that for me. I think Dr. Michael Worthington in my graduate studies was somebody that I thought he was just an amazing mentor. He was a professor. In my spiritual and leadership journey, Danielle Rama Hoffman has really helped me to heal a divide that I had.
we wanted to expect. Back in:we were doing as system builders and policy makers and the impact that our choices have on real people. So he actually taught me a real lot. He served as a mentor for me, even though I was supposed to be there supporting him. Yeah.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:It's funny how that works out, isn't it?
So tell us a little bit about your leadership development journey and transformational coaching.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Well, my leadership journey, you know, my whole history has actually been in the criminal justice system. So I saw firsthand, you know, my first day walking into a courthouse, I saw a divide. I could see the divide. There were certain people on one side and certain people on the other side. went home at the end of the day, I was exhausted, but I really saw how
labels shape our identities and limit people's potential, going back to what my dad had said all those years ago. So to balance out the weight of the work of working in the criminal justice system, because I went into the criminal justice system with high hopes for change. They weren't ready for my type of change at the time. yeah, it led me to holistic healing, energy work.
And then I was, you know, opened up to ancient traditions. So my undergrad is in business. have a master's and a PhD in criminal justice. So I'm pretty well versed on our systems, our processes. I've had, can't even count how many leadership courses, but my whole life I led two separate paths. had academic Barb over here and spiritual Barb over here.
So, yeah, it took going into bone marrow failure and facing my own mortality before I was able to bridge the two and really merge the two. And that's what led me to create Disrupting Gracefully, which is, you know, it's a space where changemakers can expand into their fullest potential.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:That's a great lead up to my next question, which is, what does disrupting gracefully mean to you? I know what I do when I disrupt gracefully, but what does it mean to you?
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Thank you.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Well, so I was actually meditating one day and I was just thinking, you know, what am I doing with my life? I recently heard that the university that I work for, they were doing away with the criminal justice program. So I was thinking, OK, what is my future? And I just heard, you you are a disruptor. And I said, well, I don't like that because...
In our society, disruptors usually are about force and all of those things. that's not for me. Confrontation and force, that's not for me. And they said, but it's with grace. And that's how disrupting gracefully was born. was just a conversation in my mind during meditation. But grace really, in its truest sense, is your connection to whatever you want to call it.
God, source, your higher self, whatever label you put on it, that's your grace. You're coming from that place of interconnectedness of all things, and you disrupt through your energy and building aligned systems that are for the benefit of everyone.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:You mentioned earlier in our conversation, you combine ancient wisdom with modern leadership techniques. So kind of tell us more about your approach in disrupting gracefully.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Yeah, so I think, you know, I learned about energy work early on. So early on I went in and the holistic health practitioner that I was going to to help balance what was happening in the criminal justice system for me, because I couldn't understand how we were, how people could victimize people in the way they do and how our system wasn't changing anything. It was just a revolving door system. So
I started to see a holistic health practitioner and she was trained from shamans actually in South America. And that's what opened the door for me. So it was really about our energetic alignment. So I integrate hermetic principles, energy work, neuroscience and leadership strategies. But it really goes back to us because I have a core belief that anything that we create
the our vibration, our creation, our intention actually kind of that energy is fused into our creation. So if we are creating from a place of us against them, which is something I saw over and over and over in our criminal justice system, you are always going to have an us against them. So when you're aligned and you're coming from a place of interconnectedness, then you get, you know,
the issues of disenfranchisement and marginalizing groups of people, all of that just disappears.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:I believe it was Jesus who said, if you want to follow me, you must surrender yourself. And self has been all of those outer definitions that we've put on ourself and we've missed that interconnection to source, if that makes sense.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:It does. I just had someone else on my podcast, which they talk about the prison industrial complex and the same thing you just mentioned, that somehow we have taken that system that's supposed to rehabilitate and it's just kind of a punishment system, it's punitive. In your work, and we never could really figure out kind of what, she has some ideas, but I'm kind of curious from your approach.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Bye.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:What's a better alternative to just this punitive process of you did something wrong, let's punish you, not try to redeem you or make what you did right with the world, but let's just punish you for a given period of time. And then we either keep you there or let you back on the world. Now you're either a better criminal or more jaded because of your time in prison.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Exactly. There's no easy answer to any of that. think that it starts with how it starts, you know, for parenting, our school system, all of those things lead up to this. There is no reason why any children today should be living in such extreme poverty. We have, you know, an explosion of drug addiction. And all of these things for me is because
At the root, at the very, very root, if you're going to go really deep, I believe it's that separation from our true selves. So we are always looking to the outer world to fix things. So our criminal justice system is based on that us against them. I'll punish you. And it's so funny because my dissertation was on what works, what fails and who succeeds in a DUI court.
And it was those who really came to the truth of who they were that were the ones that were succeeding. They might have false success, like they might just do something in order to get through the program and get out of it, but real change has to come within. And when we're raising individuals the way we are right now because of the way our society is built, no wonder they're out.
committing crimes and everything else. It's no wonder. And we have to look to ourselves to say, is enough enough? Why is this happening? But the whole concept of rehabilitation has always kind of bothered me a little bit because there's a connotation right there that they have to be rehabilitated, that they're broken. And I don't believe anybody is broken.
They might not be falling into our social norms the way we want them to. They might not be showing up the way we want them to. They might not understand a lot of things the way we want them to. But they're not broken. And when we're telling them they need to be rehabilitated, we're telling them that there's something wrong with them.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Exactly. Yeah. As you think about your research that you did, what was the most surprising thing you discovered from your research?
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Many of the individuals that I was able to interview at the time, I could not find any studies on accountability courts at the time who had interviewed participants. It was always from the judge's perspective or the court's perspective, the coordinator's perspective. It wasn't from the participant's perspective.
So we're not asking the people who are in these actual systems. We weren't at the time. But something that really surprised me was I was told that the whole concept of the DUI court was on forced compliance. And that really bothered me because, just like we met, we're forcing somebody to comply. But are we really bringing in transformation?
Are we helping them with their addiction to alcohol or drugs? Is there just a forced compliance or is there true transformation? There's a difference. And when I was speaking to the individuals, a lot of them were just trying to go through the motions to get out of it.
until they got so exhausted of going through the motions to get out of it, they decided, yeah, it's time for real true transformation. And a lot of times a true transformation didn't come from the services that were being offered by the courts. It was they found a solid mentor or somebody there that saw them for their true potential and not for their addiction.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:That forced compliance thing is interesting. wonder how much of even our prison system is about forced compliance. And we wonder why it's not successful.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:It is.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:The whole concept of deterrence kind of blows my mind because I don't know. think a lot of people are, we want to be autonomous individuals, but I don't think if I'm going, if I were to commit like a major crime, there's something inside of me. And I think any one of us at any time is capable of committing an act.
that would be a crime. And I mean, it's our system that creates all of these crimes. mean, our crime rate is what it is because of all the laws that we've created against so many different things. You know, I'm not talking about murder and sexual assault, you know, those core crimes that they should be crimes, but yeah, I just.
We're not seeking true transformation. And when we try to seek true transformation, the programs available for these individuals are so limited. And like I learned a lot through Matt when I was visiting, he couldn't participate in most seven habits. He couldn't participate in some mindfulness courses. He couldn't participate in the GED until he got to a certain point right before he was
I think it was in seven years of his release because we don't have enough people to facilitate this. We don't have enough money. And we're putting all of this transformational change on a prison system that's not built for transformational change. It's built for security. So, and I think that's where it goes back to.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Right.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:You know, that Buckminster Fuller quote about, don't try to fix outdated systems, you make new systems that make them obsolete. And what we've done with our criminal justice system is we've tried to bring in these little sprinkles of rehabilitation and programs and all of that when the core of what the criminal justice system has never really been changed. So it's really, if we're going to have, we have to create a new system from my perspective, one that...
realizes the potential of all human beings, not as broken individuals, but as people who maybe just need to be heard and seen in different ways.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Yeah, that's very helpful. I agree with that. And I think your insights are spot on. It's interesting that you're working in that field and your dad worked in that realm too. So it's kind of like you're kind of following your father's footsteps, but a different perspective of it.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Yes, and my dad actually taught me a lot. I I grew up in New England and at the time he had a lot of mafia mobsters that he had gotten to know. you know, it's just, it was all fascinating stories. I actually went into college for nursing and I could not, at the time we had to dissect a cat and I couldn't dissect the cat.
So I took a criminal law class as an elective and it went back to the concept of deterrence. I had been a, I wasn't a bad kid, but I did a lot of things that were outside of the rules sometimes, you know. I like to push boundaries. And the whole concept of we're going to create a law and if you break the law, you're going to prison.
or whatever, you'll be punished. Just never made sense to me. So that criminal law class actually is kind of like what pulled me into changing my major and going that way because it just didn't make sense to me because I knew as a kid that just because there's a rule doesn't mean you will follow it. no. Exactly.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:No, having six kids, that never works out that way.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:But I'm sure you teach your children about that. Yeah, so it's a moral compass that they probably are holding them into what they do, you know, the right path.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:So I'm curious. Yes.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Right, exactly. But the crime in pressure doesn't usually deter them from doing things that are wrong.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:No, because who thinks they're going to get caught? Who seriously thinks that? I don't think anybody does.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Right, exactly.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:I want to dig a little bit deeper into your Disrupting Gracefully because I'm curious, how do you tailor these programs? I love leadership development and working with leaders. So how do you tailor your programs to meet the needs of emerging leaders and professionals?
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Well, for me, the leaders that I work with, already have that spiritual side or that holistic side that I help them with. A lot of them, have that problem of merging the two, just like I did. I couldn't see how some of these practices could come into the real world. So I meet everyone where they are. But basically, when we get
We really work through any beliefs that are holding them back. Because I had that belief. I can't integrate spiritual practices into mainstream society. you know what? It's happening all over the place. Mindfulness really has roots going all the way back to things like meditation and awareness. So yeah, I help them bring awareness into limiting patterns and processes in their lives. And it's usually an illusion.
that we're holding on to that something's not possible.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:So as you think about disrupting gracefully, what is the core principles of the framework you use? know spending time on my dissertation I learned all about frameworks. So what's the framework of your disrupting gracefully process?
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Well, for my consulting, it's really based on like the how their hermetic principles mirror us. like correspondence as above, so below. It's the same thing where I was saying earlier about our energetic awareness of how we are showing up is being reflected into our leadership. So if we're
know, faking it until we make it. think everybody knows that that's happening. So we're not showing up authentically. So I really, I get into the deep what's authentic for them and I really help them to show up with what is authentic. So it's always based on interconnection and aligned action, you know, and that results in their, their leaderships. So it's, for me, it's always about moving.
We have our mindset shifts, are, you know, mindset work is very important, but I've learned a lot that in our society, a lot of times we're all about getting our degrees, our certificates, we're doing all of these things, but we're not really embodying that transformation. So it's really about embodying who you are through that principle of interconnection.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:We all love to hear success stories. Is there a client that comes to mind you think about who's navigated through your system and come out on the other side and just really flourished after that?
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Well, think anybody who has anybody who's had any accountability with me or anything like that, they have learned that they just have they just step into their truth. So it's it's because I'm supporting them from that authenticity. But I've had a lot of people that I've worked with lead leave their jobs because they have found that they don't align to their truth. They were forcing themselves to get up and go to a work go to a workplace.
that was so out of alignment for them that they were making themselves sick. So yes, any success story that where they were actually able to show up, we've had several individuals show up more fully and be taken more seriously as a leader because it's not about just going through the motions anymore. It's really about leading through example through their authentic.
how they show up, what's authentic for them. But I've also had several people leave their positions and then start their own businesses.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Wow, that's impressive. So what's next for disrupting gracefully?
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Well, I think there's a lot that's always on the horizon for me. I'm always building things out. I think for me, it's continuing to, it's breaking into more speaking at the organizational level. I, that's what I'm thinking where I can help them.
step out of their limiting paradigms. I hear it all the time in the criminal justice system. This is the way it's always been done. It doesn't matter. It does not matter. Why does that matter? So it's just to really help bring in the concept of that aligned leadership.
and getting back down to our values. So often we create, we have, we don't even know what our values are sometimes unless we sit down and write them. And then when we look at what we're doing, we're not aligned to those values. But once you have a clear set of values, you can say, is this aligned for me or is this not aligned for me? And then decision making is so easy. it's so easy.
But yeah, I think for me, I really love the study of consciousness and that's coming a long way. if through an academic viewpoint or perspective, I would really love to see how do a study on consciousness actually, but anything that has to do with disrupting gracefully, it's going to go back to more speaking and giving.
these change makers. There's so many people who they just don't understand. They have that fear of what are people are going to think and all of that where we can when we can break through all of that doors start to open. So that's probably what's mostly on the horizon is helping support people you know break through those barriers.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:That's great. I love when you use the term, we've always done it this way. Those words are also very popular in the church. So it's not just in the prison system.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. But that goes back to why, okay, how do we bring awareness into what we've always done and does it still serve us? Because, I mean, let's face it, we have changed a lot as a society and it's time to upgrade our systems, processes, leadership, all of that based on what's important now.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:It is everywhere.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:So for the person listening to this podcast who's an emerging leader, who's looking to disrupt old patterns and create new ways of leading, what advice do you have for that person?
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Mm-hmm.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Just start questioning the structures that you've accepted as truth. Just question everything because transformation, really begins when you realize that what you've accepted as truth can be self-imposed limitations. So just because something has always been the way it's always been doesn't mean it has to be that way. So it's just about questioning.
questioning and if you're going if you're getting up and you're going to work and you're not feeling motivated or happy or any of those things that would say hey what what is a pattern within you and how are you not aligned to what you're doing in your in your daily job?
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:That makes so much sense. I love to ask my guests this other question, my second favorite question. What do you want your legacy to be?
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:legacy. You know what I would love when my grandchildren are grown that the whole us against them paradigm has just faded away. You know and I look at my grandchildren and they don't see people for the color of their skin or
their socioeconomic status, all of those check boxes that we have to check off in those categories that were put into on all of these government forms. That keep us in division while we're pointing out our differences based on outer characteristics rather than who we are within. So I would hope that the
legacy is that we just see each other as all, you know, a part of source. We're all interconnected. There's nobody higher or lower and the whole us against them paradigm has not, does not serve us or make any sense.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:That's really good. That would be a great world to move into for our grandkids. Is there anything I haven't asked you? Was that?
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Yeah, they're still young, so I have time. They're still young, so I have time.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:There we go. That's right. Is there anything I haven't asked you that I should have asked you?
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:I don't think so. I think you have been an excellent podcast host. You've done really well asking some really great questions. I have a question for you.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Sure.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:So what brought you into podcasting?
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Actually what brought me into podcasting was my first book, which was One Nation Under God, Healing Race in America. I wrote that book in 2016 after the Michael Brown incident in St. Louis. My church body was asking, can we write a book that's dealing with, helping the church deal with racism in America? Well, I knew that book had a time shelf to it. So I knew that I wanted to continue to have in the conversation.
The podcast became a way to continue talking about difficult topics that we don't typically address in a very relevant way. And so I've had a lot of guests on who I agree with, don't agree with, but I want to have an open space where we can have dialogue about things. So what you talked about today with the prison thing, I've had a couple of prison people on, some social justice people, some DEI people who have different perspectives than I do on the topic. And it's just been a good way to kind of continue to keep the conversation going.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Mm-hmm.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Mm-hmm.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:I love that I'm going to have to read that book. Yes. And it's unfortunate. Sure, it's amazing. And it's unfortunate that we bring all of this into awareness, yet we keep repeating the same cycles.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Yeah, it's been good.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Right. And the way I approach the racism topic is it's a spiritual warfare. And if we try to address racism with more conversation, more government legislation, it's the same thing with the prison system. It's never going to change unless we look at it differently and see it as a spiritual war versus a economic, social economic.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Exactly.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:I think that is beautifully said. And I think that kind of really resonates with everything I've said on this. It comes down to our disconnection from spirit. Yeah.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Exactly. Yeah. So where can my listeners find you and connect with you on social media?
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:I am on, let's see, I am on Facebook and LinkedIn under Barbara Ann Jakes, and I am on YouTube and Instagram under Disrupting Gracefully.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Well, great. I'm so glad we connected on Facebook, Barbara. Barbara, it's wonderful to have you on and blessings on the work you're doing and the impact you're having on this generation of leaders and beyond.
Barbara Ann Jacques, Ph.D (:Thank you so much for having me. I've really enjoyed this conversation.
Host: Rev. Dr. Keith Haney (:Thank you.
