The process of becoming a leader is much the same as
becoming an integrated human being. ~Warren Bennis

Wise? Leaderful? Transformational? Regenerative?

Dear Subscriber First Name,

In the Begin section of the book All We Can Save- Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, the editors, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson, write:

The climate crisis is a leadership crisis. For far too long, far too many leaders have been focused on profit, power, and prestige; and many of those committed to change have been ineffective. The climate crisis is the result of social, political, and economic systems that are wildly skewed to benefit those who already have so much….
To transform society this decade - the clear task science has set before us - we need transformational leadership.

Later in the Reframe section of the book, Elizabeth Yeampierre, an internationally recognized Puerto Rican attorney and environmental and climate justice leader, offers this quote:

Leaderful means there is enough room for all of us.
Seeing everyone roll in together is much more powerful than having one or two people speak for everyone. Being inter-generationally leaderful also generates the best ideas and solutions.. We need to do this together, and we can do it lovingly.

Sustainability and leadership experts Laura Storm and Giles Hutchins, have a different term. They call it regenerative leadership in their eponymous book (it’s also the term that Hutchins continues to use in his recently published book Leading by Nature- The process of becoming a regenerative leader).

Environmentalist and entrepreneur, Paul Hawken (see my blog post of January of this year Putting Life and the Future of Life At the Center of Everything We Do) also uses the term regeneration in his book of the same title.

My teacher, leadership coach, and founder of the Aletheia coaching school, Steve March refers to the type of leadership needed for the meta-crisis as wise leadership.

So what does it mean to be a transformational, a regenerative, a leaderful, or a wise leader? It’s pointing to a different way of leading and engaging with followers, teams and organizations, shifting to a culture of partnership, of peer-to-peer relationships that are life-affirming for all parties involved.

Resonating with the purpose of All We Can Save circles - let’s strengthen the “we” in the All We Can Save-, psychology professors Haslam, Reicher, and Platow write in the New Psychology of Leadership:

Effective leadership is always about how leaders and followers come to see each other as part of a common team or group - as members of the same in-group. It therefore has little to do with the individuality of the leader and everything to do with whether they are seen as part of the team, as a team player, as able and willing to advance team goals. In short, the key to leadership is to understand it as a “we thing”.

It’s also pointing to shifting our view of leadership and organizations from a mechanistic one to a living-systems one, to acting in a way that favor life and the future of life, to sensing into the ever unfolding process of all living systems, to learn from nature, to take a longer sense of time. My list of quotes about leadership would not be complete without one by Joanna Macy. Centering life as well, she says:

Leadership is to evoke reverence, appreciation, and gratitude for the miracle of life.

In conclusion, I want to leave you with a self-reflection based on this last quote by Giles Hutchins:

Leadership, ultimately, is about co-creating futures that enable us to become who we truly are - Homo sapiens, wise beings participating within this sentient, interconnected world we call home.

Self-Reflection: What type of leader are you?

• In which ways are you wise? leaderful? transformational? regenerative?

• How are you co-creating futures?

• How are you enabling others to become who they truly are?

• How are you wisely participating within this sentient, interconnected world?

I look forward to answering your questions and reading your comments.

Warmly,

Anne-Marie
October 26, 2022
415.67 ppm of atmospheric CO2 (safe level 350, a year ago 414.19 ppm)

PS: To further reflect on how life-affirming your actions are, you can also revisit Paul Hawken’s list below.

Next Elemental Contemplative Walk for Women:
Sunday December 4- Earth Element

Poem: Hokusai Says by Roger Keyes