Dearest world-changer,
You and I believe that something different is being born, the beginning of something new. That the future will be different from the past. And you and I and many others want to help with that birth.
“In the decade in which we now live, a period of unprecedented disruption, the ability to let go, enter new territory and activate our trust to act is crucial.” - Otto Sharmer
The world is calling for a different kind of leadership that dares to think and act for the long term, while at the same time being able to be present, again and again, in every moment.
Easy to say when you are sitting on a mountain in Nepal, but harder to do between meetings and emails. Staying connected with yourself while connecting with others is quite difficult.
Enough healthy food, quality sleep, sufficient contact with nature, moving your body and a loving inner circle already take you a long way as a human being. Choosing this, putting your well-being first, can sometimes already feel very exciting.
Another obvious thing: using your unique talents. You add something to your organization and to the world, and it often gives you energy too. We can usually get by on sheer determination quite well, but you cannot sustain it in the long term if you find too little joy in your role and your job.
“There is no passion to be found playing small.” - Nelson Mandela
Leadership is creating results that matter on a personal and collective level. With your organization, you are always looking for the best strategies to build your mission. Because the vision of the future, the inspiring alternative, the visualization of the path towards it is often the real connecting factor between people. But more is needed: strategy and leadership cannot do without each other. As a leader, you are challenged to help ensure that there is buy-in and decisiveness to execute the strategy. But also to find resilience and adaptability in yourself and in your team.
And it does not stop there. At S&L, we believe that real positive change can only take place when we focus together on four dimensions: the self, the relationship with the other, the team or group, and the ecosystem/the societal dimension. We need a growing capacity to bring our visions around well-being, around justice and solidarity, around economy and sustainability much more into focus and, above all, into practice.
So we need not only future thinking and agile strategies, team energy and ecosystem thinking, but also individuals who make good contact with themselves and truly dare to take up leadership.
That means you. Self-knowledge about your talents, but also making contact with deeper personal themes, is necessary to avoid exhausting yourself in ordinary life and being continually triggered because you are drawn into a vulnerable part of yourself.
In our multidimensional model, we approach leadership development holistically and in layers. We focus on you as a person and your patterns in relationship with others, but each time we make connections with the other layers: team development and impact thinking. Because what shows up at the micro level often also shows up at the meso and macro levels. For example, someone who avoids conflict will often also have a team that is not very assertive in its relationship with partners, governments and clients.
“Finding your voice and helping others to find theirs.” - Stephen R. Covey
The leadership coaches at S&L take time to reflect on your story and how you write new stories from there. How you can learn to be even more connected with your own voice and what you have to bring into the world. Your strength and the challenges you experience in the contexts in which you move. We zoom in on your moments of truth: moments when you feel challenged to stand in your power, to hold on to something very tightly or, conversely, to let it go. To make your voice heard or, instead, choose to be silent. To recognize your core themes and core patterns, or to bring them into even sharper focus. So that step by step you can use them as strength.
Learning to come into balance with yourself, in other words. From there, it becomes easier to reconnect with others, so that the energy in a collaborative relationship can flow and be used for the higher purpose. The same goes for team energy: where does it flow, where does it get blocked? If you know that, you also get a better feel for what your team needs in order to grow together with you.
“The future is depending on you to be manifested” - Otto Sharmer
Finally, there is the societal dimension: what touches you in the world and what do you dream of? Which inspiring alternative do you want to help build or scale up? How can your organization, and impact thinking and action, be a vehicle for this? To keep returning to yourself and to caring for yourself. Because you matter. Your energy and motivation matter. We would be happy to help you cherish them. So that you contribute to humanity more from your flow, and become happy yourself in the process.
Because making the world a better place can also genuinely be fun.
Love,
Aurélie
Curious to learn more? Be sure to check out our training in October.
