What is authentic and emerging leadership? What’s the difference between nature-driven leadership and culture-driven leadership? What does it mean to be a responsible or conscious leader? Are we all leaders, or is it something we’re born into or made to believe?
For those who know me more personally, my lifelong struggle with the concept of leadership is no secret. Some have said I was born with a natural inclination to lead everything and everyone around me. From as far back as I can remember, I’ve defied and even denied authority.
I’ve held many leadership roles throughout my life, and I’ve had the privilege of being trained by some of the best mentors in conscious and emerging leadership. But despite this, I’ve also developed a huge resistance to the very concept of leadership. At some point, even hearing the word ‘leader’ or ‘leadership’ became re-traumatizing for me.
I found myself in a deep love-hate relationship with leadership while being paid to lead others. I had employees I was responsible for, but I hated being seen as some kind of superior. It felt deeply uncomfortable to be the 'boss' of others who, in many areas, likely knew more than me. They had knowledge and wisdom that should have guided the team, not just me.
I often felt frustrated with the leaders above me, with my own leadership status, and even with those who seemed to need a leader in their lives. I was frequently confused by what leadership truly meant and what kind of leadership model could actually make sense to me.
It’s a sensitive topic for me.
Even though I sometimes struggled with the idea of leadership, I always committed fully to the projects I was leading. When I accepted a leadership position, I took it seriously.
The projects I oversaw were almost like children to me. I didn’t necessarily feel like their ‘mother,’ but more of a co-leader—some kind of ‘guardian’ or conscious witness, ensuring that the network remained healthy and had access to everything it needed to grow and flourish.
These projects were usually nurtured by entire communities, not just the 'parents' or original creators. This philosophy is at the heart of open innovation and community-driven change. For meaningful transformation to occur within a network, a region, or a macro-system, vision, strategy, and implementation must be decentralized with shared power dynamics.
Systemic change is led by a living, evolving community—not by a few individuals.
A village or community that makes sense doesn’t have a single, predetermined leader. There’s no unipolar decision-making process or management. Leaders aren’t elected or voted in.
In authentic communities, leadership is situational and contextual. It’s earned by trust, not delegated by title. It’s emergent and ever-changing. Some lead in medicine and healing, others in education, business, housing, or food. It’s a shared form of co-leadership. There’s no ‘boss.’
Even without a formal ‘boss’ dictating actions, communities typically have something more valuable: elders and mentors. These people, with their lifelong experiences, serve as guides. They aren’t authorities; they’re precious guides and confidants more concerned with our personal evolution than in bossing us around.
Mentors help with wisdom and expertise. They don’t control or manipulate to achieve personal objectives. They don’t dictate our behavior or decisions.
Mentors generally have no decision-making power regarding the community’s vision or strategy. They have a voice, but the community decides how valuable and trustworthy that input is. The power of a mentor’s voice depends on how they’re perceived by their community.
Authority is often gained through fear. If you're afraid, you’ll listen to my authority if you believe I can help you manage your fear. But the power of voice doesn’t work that way.
It’s not about status, control, or fear. It’s about the authentic recognition of contribution, coherence, and deeper meaning. Elders don’t impose their opinions out of fear; we listen to them because we trust them and value their guidance.
We always have the free will to choose what’s best for us and future generations. Elders know they’re not creating a world for themselves—they’re co-creating it for their grandchildren and beyond.
If elders or mentors fail, they usually lose the community’s trust. Their voice diminishes in importance. This is a natural reorganization of power and influence in the system.
If I don’t trust you anymore, your voice matters less to me. This is true on both personal and collective levels.
If you don’t trust your ‘boss,’ they honestly shouldn’t have authority over you.
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Nature-driven leadership and culture-driven leadership are very different. One of the major problems with today’s businesses is that they are stuck in an outdated culture of leadership.
Culture-driven models of leadership, as we know them today, were developed during times of war and crisis. The management tools, techniques, and strategies we still use in the corporate world were designed during the darkest moments of collective fear and despair.
Back then, we were willing to give up our inner power in exchange for survival. We accepted centralized authority because it kept us alive.
But why did we continue teaching war-driven management and leadership strategies 50 years after the war ended? And why, today, is the globally accepted work philosophy still rooted in fear, manipulation, and imposed authority?
We know better now how to co-create peace.
We know how to build cultures driven by love, freedom, respect, and kindness. So why do we continue to invest in cultures led by fear, instability, and systemic abuse?
Maybe we need to start by co-creating peace in our organizations and projects, learning to co-lead with others in our local communities.
Maybe we need to update our management and leadership programs. Instead of teaching people how to become ‘bosses,’ we should teach them how to care for the well-being of their communities, nature, and humanity.
Nature-driven leadership is based on systemic coherence and the meaningful redistribution of power and resources among all beings.
Nature is about performance, resilience, co-creation, and regeneration. Nature is about peace, evolution, and beauty.
We can create cultures inspired by nature. If we embrace the principles of emergent leadership in our businesses, networks, and communities, we can align our culture with our authentic nature.
Our global economy wouldn’t be an isolated reality based on fear. It would become a tool for creating coherence in our social systems and harmony with the natural cycles of evolution and growth.
Nature-driven leadership can shape culture-driven leadership too. From this level of interconnection, we can all become co-leaders with a shared goal of creating a reality that is meaningful, pleasurable, and abundant.
We have a choice. We can continue using old strategies to destroy the earth and humanity further, or we can co-create a new culture aligned with how nature truly works and what we actually desire to experience.
Culture is something we consciously (or unconsciously) co-create.
The more we disconnect our culture from our deep nature, the more the entire system will suffer, leading to self-destruction.
But the more we re-establish coherence between the two, the more we naturally create peace, abundance, and regeneration for ourselves and the global community.
We have a choice in choosing our leaders. We can also become our own leaders and co-leaders. But we should never give our inner power to those we don’t trust or blindly follow the authority of those who claim control over us.
You are the master of your life and inner world. We are the co-creators of our shared reality and community.
Being a master and being a co-creator are not the same. Real leaders are not just masters; they are authentic co-creators too.
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