We have entered an Age of Disruption. Mass poverty. Mass migration. Climate chaos. Fundamentalism. Terrorism. Financial oligarchies. The desire for profound personal, social, and global renewal has never been more pressing. The need for purposeful leadership has never been more wanted and needed.
The age of disruption addresses endings and new beginnings as an old civilisation and a ‘me’ mindset recedes into the past. As the yet unknown future starts to emerge, it is clear that resistance and fighting is not enough. What is clear is that the shift requires us to expand our thinking from the head to the heart. It is a future that requires us to tap into a deeper level of our humanity. Who we really are and what do we want to be as a society? Rather than collectively creating results that nobody wants the emerging need is a shift in our awareness from ego – systems to eco – systems, a new approach to living not just as groups and organisations, but also as a global community.
As human beings, we are on a journey of social evolution, of becoming who we really are. The journey to our true selves is open-ended, we may experience it as confusion, depression, breakdowns and disruptions in our lives but the journey can also lead to extraordinary breakthroughs. It is the breakthroughs that give not only a deeper understanding of that which makes us uniquely us, they also contain the potential to strengthen us in all areas of life.
Everywhere we look in life we can see evidence of remarkable individuals and communities that have managed to break through the walls of trauma, tyranny and suffering in order to form a deeper connection with humanity. What makes this possible? When we shift our focus from what takes place in the exterior world to what takes place within, we become aware, transformed. Rwanda is an example of a country that has made staggering and inspiring leaps forward from its past to become the secure and stable country it is today by openly engaging such an approach.
This inner shift to greater awareness of ‘what is’ and sensing into the emerging future possibilities lies at the core of all deep leadership work today. It is a shift that requires us to expand our thinking, to pioneer new principles and personal practices, for any leader it is perhaps the most vitally important undertaking of our time. It is within this process of updating leadership that we find a way to preserve identity and incorporate new useful insights and mental models to survive and thrive.
Purposeful leadership requires us to suspend our judgements of how things should be, how we traditionally believe individuals and organisations should function, redirect our attention, let go of limiting beliefs and ideas inherited from the past and allow the future that wants to emerge to reveal itself to us. Purposeful leadership has a place and value not just for the individual, it can also be of great benefit for businesses, government bodies, education and the various systems which exist within our local communities and cultures.
We cannot change the past and it’s events, however, we can address the effect it has on us today and use that wisdom to create outcomes that benefit the greater good of all.
“The moment we believe we can learn something new, we begin the process of learning something new” – Zita
