The time has come for Real Leadership – Crossing The Threshold

In today’s world of systemic wicked problems, leaders require a ‘new-norm’ in their leadership capacity.

This new-norm cannot be appropriately embodied without a necessary shift in worldview and consciousness; a shift that deals with root causes while simultaneously dealing with downstream effects.

A revolution in consciousness no less: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2mUebq5PXU&feature=youtu.be

The root problem is our inner-outer attentiveness and relationality; our ‘self-awareness’ and ‘systemic-awareness’. This deepening of attentiveness is a deepening in our ‘being-and-knowing’. It involves a shift in consciousness. How we lead and respond, while creating the conditions for others in our organizations to better lead and respond, directly influences the future-fitness of our organizations, improving their ability to thrive amid increasing volatility while making good on their strategic intent.

As leadership specialist Joan Marques notes, ‘we need leadership to move from the here-and-now to the future.’

Leaders of every generation and region are being simultaneously beckoned and cajoled into a new way, a new mind-set, a new operating model, one that is essentially life-affirming rather than singularly at odds with the social and ecological grammar of life.

This imperative to call forth a viable future for all of humanity and the wider fabric of life on Earth is, I believe, an inherent quality of Homo sapiens (wise beings).  While we may unwittingly do a great job of distracting ourselves from real wisdom, there is something within our kernel of selfhood that impels us to deepen into this wisdom as we explore life-affirming futures.  It reminds me of George Bernard Shaw’s insight, ‘We are made wise not by the recollections of our past but by the responsibility of our future.’

This shift in consciousness is what I call forth in my recent TEDx Talk at Wycliffe College: The Necessary Revolution from Connectedness to Separateness can be watched here.

‘Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness the catastrophe toward which the world is headed will be unavoidable.’ Vaclav Havel, Prime Minister, addressing US Congress

The time has come.   As the Hopi Elder’s remind us:

You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…

Where are you living?

What are you doing?

What are your relationships?

Are you in right relation?

Where is your water?

Know your garden.

It is time to speak your truth.

Create your community.

Be good to each other.

And do not look outside yourself for your leader.

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said,

“This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

 And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

 The time of the one wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word ’struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

 We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”  – Hopi Elders

I believe we are living through an epochal moment in our human history where the very concept of what it means to be human is shape-shifting, and this is catalysed by, and in turn influences, how we lead with the future in mind.

The well-respected business futurist John Naisbitt notes,

‘The greatest breakthroughs of the twenty-first century will not be because of technology, they will be because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human.’

I, for one, wish to consciously co-create life-affirming future possibilities through how I show-up now, and through my leadership development work with leaders across a great variety of sectors.

These times ask – demand – that we create the conditions conducive for ourselves and our organizations to become more conscious, more attuned, more human, as we open ourselves up to and re-connect with the magnificence of this more-than-human world and universe.

Giles Hutchins  is a visionary thought leader, speaker and adviser on the future of leadership.  He advises organizations on their transformation to regenerative business, and is author of the books The Nature of Business , The Illusion of Separation  and Future Fit, watch a short 3 minute video about it here. Giles blogs at www.thenatureofbusiness.org  is Chairman of The Future Fit Leadership Academy www.ffla.co and co-founder of www.regenerators.co

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For Giles’ latest TEDx talk see here