Regenerative Leadership – The New Sustainability?

 

There has been some significant movement in the present-day around the notion of regenerative leadership. As fittingly stated by the famous American Environmentalist Paul Hawken, this is “a planetary immune response” to the global crisis the mankind is facing and more voices speaking of regenerative leadership shouldn’t really come as a surprise.

The need for regeneration of our social and ecological systems is progressively growing and interpretation of “regeneration” may vary from one person to another.

Several scholars have examined this area of study to generate a substantive theory of leadership; regenerative leadership. This leadership approach is thought to be relevant in this era of global crisis with accelerating transformation and growing evidence that our natural and social systems have reached a point of collapse. Most studies revealed that the construct of sustainability is being questioned by modern-day leaders increasingly as more evolved they are becoming which shows that we are in need of a cultural paradigm shift towards regenerative human systems. Regenerative leaders drive organizations heterachically with a sense of higher purpose, engaging in generative discussions in order to create desirable prospects and then work backwards to eliminate unanticipated consequences if any. Engaging in personal and collective consciousness development is a vital part emphasized throughout this approach in order to make regenerative policies and practices workable.

Sustainability

The concerns in this area began as early as 1798, where Thomas Robert Malthus predicted that mankind’s overpopulation would outrun its capacity to produce an adequate food supply. Almost a century later, a working definition of the term was provided; "Each generation is entitled to the interest on the natural capital, but the principal should be handed down unimpaired" (Canada Commission on Conservation, 1915).

Constructing on this preliminary definition, the phrase "sustainable development" was first introduced in the World Conservation Strategy in 1980, which defined it as “the integration of conservation and development to ensure that modifications to the planet do indeed secure the survival and well-being of all people” (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, 1980, Section 1.2) and later popularized. The United Nations established the Division for Sustainable Development in 1990 and the Millennium Development Goals, signed by 189 countries launched in 2020 address the sustainable development through the following eight goals with measurable outcomes (Ocampo, 2006),

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

2. Achieve universal primary education

3. Promote gender equality and empower women

4. Reduce child mortality

5. Improve maternal health

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

8. Develop a global partnership for development. (Sachs, 2005, p. 212-213)

As stated by Jeffrey Sachs (2005) sustainability development is not only workable but given the global scale wealth, technology and expertise, it is more likely to succeed with the appropriate leadership.

Corporates and communities worldwide are increasingly instructed to establish benchmarks and standards to enable evaluation and measurement of sustainability (Global Reporting Initiative, UN Global Compact; Sustainable Schools [UK], 2008; Sachs, 2005). Such initiatives promote environmental preservation to the generations to come and co-create a more just and sustainable world. Despite so many theories and studies conducted in this area, a concrete theory on sustainability through regenerative leadership is not established yet.

Regenerative leadership in the 21st century

There is a debate whether regenerative leadership is economically viable. Recent statistics on the state of the world (GBPC, 2019; IPCC, 2019) provides evidence to show how far we are reaching the point of overshoot and collapse which may very well be the deciding factor.

The clear distinction in this type of leadership is not necessarily based on the leader’s charisma but the key success factor is driving the importance of sustainability as an issue itself (James MacGegor Burns’,1978),  He also defines that this a non-charismatic, purpose-driven leadership where by organization goals are developed and performance is linked to environmental, social, and economic benchmarks.

Figure 1.0. Regenerative leadership: An integral theory for transforming people and Organizations (Hardman, Guillermo, 2009)

The following stages have been identified as vital to regenerative leadership with a focus of sustainability development,

1. Facilitating access to the source of personal purpose and emerging self through triple-loop learning;

2. Connecting with others through keen observation and deep listening;

3. Eliciting collective purpose through generative conversation; and

4. Engaging in collective action to strategize and prototype the best possible solutions to emerging futures through third-order change and backcasting.

If these stages are correctly followed, this will create a synergy that combines both consciousness and individuals’ actions within a group applying this process. This collaboration presented in above figure, has the potential to harness individual and collective “minds, heart, and hands” (Scharmer, 2007) to accept other faculties other than approach that relies specifically on scientific evidence to problem solving.

Sustainable Development Goals to Regenerative Development Goals

Establishing development goals aid in creating regenerative sustainability by being more all-inclusive, progressive self-organizing capacities in living systems, integrating sustainability, and offering an inspiring motive to ensure communities prosper. In order to achieve this, a shift from sustainable development goals to regenerative development goals is required. Sustainable development goals include targets, aims, and guidelines for conventional sustainability, but do not support holistic thriving living systems. They also have been difficult to integrate, creating tradeoffs that move communities farther away from sustainability (Kroll, C.;Warchold, A.; Pradhan, P. 2019, Staord-Smith, M.; Griggs, D.; Ganey, O.; Ullah, F.; Reyers, B.; Kanie, N.; Stigson, B.; Shrivastava, P.;Leach, M.; O’Connell, D, 2017).

Regenerative development goals, integratively guide human minds to think and action aligned with life’s principles and to establish thriving communities from the scale of individuals to the entire earth system (Gibbons, L.V.; Pearthree, G.; Cloutier, S.A.; Ehlenz, M.M., 2020).

The primary objective of setting regenerative development goals is to develop characteristics and capacities of regenerative living systems. In order to establish those capacities, communities need to create and implement strategies to guide minds to think and action following general strategies for regenerative living systems and regenerative development principles, integrating ecological and socio-cultural dimensions of living systems, process and product areas of development and design actions across scales of space and time. The different ways of knowing and perceiving also are well integrated. Developing the abilities of individuals in a group to ensure successful integration of regenerative development goals are the primary motives here. Successful integration results in self-organization, emergence, and thrivability. (Gibbons, L.V, 2020).

Conclusion

With so many studies and research conducted by various scholars, this beg the question – what type of leaders can actually make this work to bring about this prosperous, environmentally sound, and socially equitable society?

As suggested by Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber (2002), progressive study and collation of findings in this area of study may shed some light the way for a sustainable future. As described by him this process of study is a ground-breaking illumination that defines a regenerative leader as an individual who has engaged in inner work to become free of the ego and can therefore embrace a deeper and broader understanding of the meaning and purpose of life.

Leaders at this development phase have the ability to form relationships at a different level, that of the “higher we,” through the development and expression of a synergy of principles (Cohen, 2008). Individuals at this stage are able to converse creatively, addressing problems by integrating their collective mind, intuition, and the will to act. As stated by McEwen & Schmidt (2007), this type of regenerative leadership for sustainability, reflects the leader as a transformer, that integrate “multiple realms of knowing”. It is evident that the challenge in sustainability is within our own actions and not necessarily in the consequences of our actions.

The most essential part is that, regenerative leadership and sustainability development are becoming vital and aligned with nature’s principles. Sustainability through regenerative leadership is our best hope to enable the changes needed to reverse the devastation and degeneration that conventional sustainability have been unable to slow or reverse. In order to co-create abundance and prosperity for all life, we need to step in to the new way of thinking, being and feeling thereby creating the transformations necessary for true sustainability—regeneration and thrivability.