We are experiencing what some are calling the great unraveling as we find the systems and structures (and the thinking that created them) now woefully inadequate for the creation and sustainability of a world that works for everyone. As a maker of change – for your organization and the constituents you serve – you know that the people you serve are struggling with the chaos, with the uncertainty, with an increasing sense of disconnection, with resignation and a feeling of helplessness, and ultimately with the fear that not-knowing brings. You aren’t immune to the struggle either.
As someone who cares about being in service to those suffering and making positive impact on self, others and the world, you intuitively or experientially know that so much more is possible in the work you do. There are no simple problems left to address and the issues you are facing require you to be fully resourced – Emotionally, Physically, Mentally, Energetically and Spiritually.
You can no longer rely on your skill sets and good intentions. It’s time we all did the deeper work needed as we are called to consciously witness and be fully present to support others to live into the highest expression of what’s possible, all for the sake of a world that works for everyone and not just the few.
The world is dying (metaphorically and literally) for conscious organizations and conscious leaders that can consider the needs of all stakeholders, including the planet. We need conscious change makers that can disrupt the embedded fiction in our individual and collective belief systems and root out the unexamined premises and biases that are limiting what’s possible. We need a new narrative about ourselves, new practices, and a new paradigm to see what we haven’t been able to see before. Simply put, we need leaders who understand that:
- We, individuals and organizations, are complex, adaptive systems that are in constant dialogue with the environment. Having the skills and resilience to be able to adapt to increasing complexity and uncertainty is now essential.
- We participate in the creation of reality as opposed to responding or reacting to a fixed reality that’s ‘out there’. Disrupting this old world view supports you and those you work with in becoming conscious co-creators of reality. As a disruptive change maker, you want to challenge all your limiting beliefs that keep you operating from scarcity, fear or resignation.
- Everything is connected to everything else. We are individuals and, at the same time, part of greater and greater collectives and wholes that are deeply interconnected and constantly evolving and emerging. As a leader, you need practices to be able to hold and engage with the interconnectivity and evolving relationships of all your stakeholders.
- You don’t “have” a body (Newtonian world view); what you call your body is a vehicle or form through which consciousness manifests and from which you generate your reality and take action. Your vehicle, with which to experience the world and do your best change work, requires refinement and attunement. Leaving the body out of change making – for yourself or those you work with – severely limits what is possible.
The world is demanding all of us to be more disruptive in our approach to leadership and change. Holding change as anything less will only get us more of the same. Collectively, we need to challenge our world view, our thinking, and our beliefs to be able to address the concerns that aren’t being taken care of in other ways. We now need to take more risks and get 10x bolder at a time when it might be easier to retreat and contract.
You must seize this opportunity to be the usher, guide, and mid-wife of the new story of being human, Your leadership is about nothing less than disrupting the entrenched fiction we lead and live by so that we can be of greater service and better take care of what matters most to us.
Terrie Upshur-Lupberger