How would you get there?

Here we are at the cusp of a new sustainable era. We have the opportunity, or more accurately, the necessity to evolve from living and working in a dominant, control-oriented, mechanistic culture to a sustainable, unifying model grounded in partnering, kindness and the inclusion of all. The exponential growth we are experiencing today in the sustainability and environmental movements are literally the direct results of a “dying” era. We are living with the unanticipated consequences of having developed many technologies and methodologies that are destructive to life. It is no longer okay to “do it” or “make it” just because “we can.” Many of us are looking for life-affirming ways of seeing, doing and being that don’t compromise the present or the future well-being of life on earth.

As you know, evolving to a sustainable world is no easy task. The “human factor” in climate change is no longer in question. Each of us is being called to think about the consequences of our everyday actions in life and in business. The good news is that we can look at our future as wet clay – we have the awesome potential to model our ideal world.

The True Power of the Human Factor

The ball is in our court. We are being called like no other time in human history to reassess everything. The tough news is that it means that we need the courage, perseverance and devotion to develop a different kind of leadership. This takes a deeper examination of leadership itself. What is leadership in a socially sustainable world? What does it take to be on the team guiding humanity’s evolution into the future? How do you step into your true power to be the true leader you want to be?

Western civilization is indoctrinated with over 5000 years worth of conditioning to conquer and fight or flee and hide. All that conditioning is habitual, unconscious and unexamined. Our current model of leadership and support comes from this era. How do we move into the future consciously and deliberately? By asking bigger questions about our values, our purpose. What’s important to us? What are the consequences of our actions? How do we relate to one another, our communication and considerations? How are our strategies working or not? How do we operate a business, a community, a government, a world in the context of social sustainability? What is true sustainable leadership?

Examining the Past

Looking at the past is a beginning. We can evaluate some common traits of leaders, some that are useful and some that aren’t and why. This isn’t meant to be a complete analysis, a description of responsibilities or a prescription of how to be an effective leader. It is the yeast for expanding your awareness about leadership ways. Hopefully it will inspire you to reflect on your own role as a leader or the avoidance of it and perhaps understand the leadership styles and qualities of others. We are in this life together.

What Is Not Sustainable Leadership?

Leadership is one of the most important areas to redefine for social sustainability simply because the many follow the one. Let’s begin by exploring what isn’t sustainable for either the leader or the followers. Most think that leadership has been equated with dominance, power over others, “the boss,” and, let’s not forget— a particular kind of “super-heroism.” In our popular culture, think John Wayne, Bruce Willis’s characters, the CEOs of large corporations, political figures, sports figures. Our idea of leader as Hero is as a celebrity, an icon “blessed” with unique superhuman gifts. They are special people with special powers:

• flawless vision, character and charisma

• smartest and most talented in any discipline

• all-knowing and often only decision-maker

• supreme rescuer

• the ability to command and direct others for results

• responsible for the fate of the organization and the “bottom line”

• single handedly makes it all happen

• perfect role model for aspiring leaders

• tough, brave and invincible

• “the buck stops here” resilience

This model of leadership sets up impossible expectations of the leader, as well as envy, competition and subordination from the followers. As a leader, if you don’t keep it up, you get to move on to peddle your potential elsewhere or you get discredited and/or ousted. This model is hardly sustainable on any level. At the same time, others aspire to get the leader’s (assumed) rewards of being held in high regard and the accompanying privileges. It is also a perverse part of our western culture to tear leaders down because of the perceived pedestal on which they perch. Whether it’s overt—by openly challenging their capabilities—or covert, by sabotaging their efforts behind their backs, people in this culture have learned to subvert what they feel is unfair or unnoticed. Wielding power over others is always a destructive force. Therefore, by definition it is not sustainable.

Unsustainable Consequences

Let’s look at some of the unwanted consequences of leaders as conquering heroes that potentially jeopardize successful outcomes:

• prevents other capable leaders from emerging

• feeds a crisis-to-crisis environment by clogging decisions at the top

• creates disempowering fear, making it difficult for people to participate

• stifles creativity, intelligence and innovation

• fosters secrets, gossip and covering up mistakes

• rewards competition for favor, advancement and privilege

• promotes a false masculine archetype and creates a male-values dominated culture

• dismisses feminine values such as nurturing, receptivity, compassion as weak and not appropriate strategically

Recognize the Value of the Past

Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. There have been many brilliant and wonderful leaders in this era as well, who have made incredible contributions and set courageous examples. They were people of their time such as Thomas Jefferson, who was a genius in designing a template for democracy, yet owned slaves. We can learn from their contributions and stand on their shoulders as we evolve the roles of leader and hero needed in a new era.

As we move into the future, another consideration is that in the “leader-as-one-special-person” model there are numerically few leaders in comparison to the multitude of untapped talent available in the rest of the population. Most command- and-control strategies and attitudes will simply not be able to meet the challenges of creating a sustainable business and world. Our task is to integrate what works, transform what doesn’t and design models for interchangeable leadership to lead us into our sustainable future together.

What is Sustainable Leadership?

We are moving toward a culture of shared and interchangeable leadership, building teams by creating allies and collaborators. Each of us has different qualities of intelligence, insight and true power to activate. All voices are essential now. I may never come up with an idea that you will because of your unique life experience and learning. As an evolutionary leader you know that when people work in the area of their passion, they will love their work and so will you. Evolutionary leaders are:

• initiators and collaborators

• resources as mentors or coaches

• holders of a high bar for excellent work

• able to face conflicts and challenges with calm and balance

• models by example; walk-the-talk

• supporters and encouragers of others to emerge as leaders

• actively recognizing and appreciating effort, creativity and competence

• moving decisions local to where the knowledge lives

• guides to the group or organization

• excellent communicators

• role models for aspiring leaders

• authentic, receptive, honest and vulnerable

• demonstrating how intention is aligned with attention

• inspiring trust and confidence

• self-aware, self-correcting, self-generating, self-responsible

Sustainable Consequences

A socially sustainable model uses a whole-systems perspective. Leaders are guided by the understanding that everything and everyone is interconnected. True sustainable leadership draws on the life-force, wisdom and will that lives in all of us to transform our organizations into cooperative alignment for the common good. Thus each of us can take the lead in implementing social sustainability. Some consequences of sustainable leadership are:

• flexible organizations that can adapt and learn

• alignment behind a vision

• exponentially greater capacity for the work

• people and groups that can reinvent themselves

• leaders that arise from many places and situations

• shared responsibility and support — “got your back”

• value building a foundation of capability

• change emerging from all people involved

• an environment of cooperation, coordination, consideration, collaboration and mutual understanding

• a diversity of ideas and talent

• understanding the whole system and one’s place in it

• alignment with yourself, others and the group’s goals

• relational equality within a functional hierarchy

Taking This Mission into the Future

The true leader’s mission is the most important and yet the least visible key toward a sustainable life. It is inside the very nature of creating every new technology, planting the garden, building the house. It is the quality of our humanity. Leading a conscious and deliberate evolution takes a more challenging kind of courage. First, it’s the willingness to step up and step in to lead into an unknowable future. Therefore, the greatest courage of an evolutionary hero is personal transformation— by developing the competence for self-reflection and self-direction, and the humility to grow from experience and learning true compassion for others.

Transformation is not for lazy thinkers. Do you have the courage to ask yourself: What are my blind spots as a leader? What are my gifts, my strengths, my passions? How do I bring out the best in others? How do they bring out the best in me? Where do I need support? How have I earned people’s trust?

Building trust is essential, and may take a long time with some. Trust is much easier to destroy and nearly impossible to get back when violated. For a successful true leader, trust is founded in integrity. Integrity is staying aware of your evolutionary intentions and reminding yourself to keeping your attention in alignment with them.

Prosperity Flourishes with the Social Side

As a pioneer on the cusp of a new era, you have a unique intelligence and quality that are pivotal to the success of a sustainable, green economy. We need you to lead, whether you identify as an extrovert or an introvert, male or female, short or tall, multicultural or ethnic. The green economy is ripe for new business models that value all life that aligns with and learns from nature. As a fruit tree exists to produce fruit, business, communities and government exists to deliver products and services. With the proper nourishment, sunlight and water, the tree produces abundantly. That’s the way of true leadership—to nurture the social side of sustainability.

Prosperity flourishes when synergy happens and social harmony abounds. As we are evolving together, recognizing each other’s finest qualities, our capacity for productivity maximizes. For all of our sake, may your true leadership blossom to fuel the evolution to sustainability and take us toward a bright future.

Hina Pendle, PhD Organizational Development and Transformation, can be contacted at hina@uspartners.com or 831-662-2232 What concerns you? Let’s talk about it.

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