The individual will want to be open to and experiment with a deeper inner journey that considers reflection and a larger system’s awareness. Asking for feedback and reactions to one’s own behaviour will mean stepping into the unknown zone of discomfort. This will require that the individual is both courageous and that these choices are made often enough to allow the person to grow accustomed to the discomfort and the field of learning. And then, as the individual experiments with the discomfort, it is necessary that the surrounding eco-system be supportive and encouraging – creating the environment in which it is accepted to be feeling vulnerable.

As these choices are repeated and become more intuitive the individual becomes less worried about failure but rather intrigued by learning to feel comfortable balancing ones intellectual, emotional and social capabilities. The individual needs to accept that “vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and the struggle for worthiness but it is also the birthplace of joy, creativity of belonging and love”[1]. Eventually, this will lead to a breakthrough, when the individual realizes a bigger purpose – the interconnectedness and interdependence between individuals and groups, between everybody and everything.

Likewise, the individual will need to learn to be less exclusively focused on individual (financial) success and well-being and also focus on the success of the respective ecosystem. This does not mean that individual success is not a worthy concept. But it is the type of individual success that derives from collective success and the belonging to a group which will provide a lasting positive effect.

United in society on the other hand we will need to provide the necessary development space and tools to facilitate the individual’s inner journey. This means that we must all start encouraging and supporting the individual to become more self-aware and mindful of others. Small steps and early successes on the individual’s journey should be noticed, mentioned and reinforced rather than criticized or even ridiculed. To arrive at a point where the individual understands the value of providing positive impact to a larger group will require that mentoring and feedback be established as key development concepts in early childhood, strengthened through schooling and higher education and enforced during further education as part of the working life.

At the same time society also has a responsibility to encourage individuals as they aspire to and experiment with self-reflection, gaining awareness, moving past their comfort zone and into new territory. 

Society, however, has created a negative connotation over time. It is important, however, to differentiate the many links between individuals who collectively make up society and the institutions who set out to govern it. Many of those individual institutions deal with important issues of today but may not be particularly suited for some of tomorrow’s problems.

Recent neuro-scientific evidence shows that our thoughts, movements and speech have a direct impact on those around us, consciously or not. With the discovery of mirror-neurons science can demonstrate how we are connected to the world and more importantly to each other.[1] Equally, on the basis of quantum mechanical understanding we today know that we are all connected in a unified field and what affects one affects all.[2]

This is a great opportunity to do a “stop-start” and to create a successor movement to deal with some of tomorrow’s issues.

 In particular this requires that we all:

• Enhance the current education curriculum to provide a seamless life-long-learning experience geared towards the idea of an interconnected mindset
• Communicate our interest in the holistic individual beyond outward appearances
• Support through encouragement and positive reinforcement the individual as they move towards self-comprehension
• Proactively provide mentoring and feedback regardless of the closeness of the relationship (friends, colleagues, boss, strangers, etc.)
• Showcase positive journeys – using any kind of medium to highlight to others what individuals are doing differently from before as they experiment with new modes of thinking
• Emphasize alternate successes tied to personal fulfilment and focus less exclusively on financial success
• Lobby to incorporate examples of positive journeys into the academic curriculum
• Invest our energy and commit to a long term strategy to changing mindsets and finding ways to inclusively convince the sceptics – tie the need to change to one’s immediate community level and work toward them

This idea of “I win, you lose” is buttressed in the education system, in interaction with others, through media and throughout life. Individual success is important but should not be seen in isolation and as the only goal. With an excessive focus on developing logic, reason and understanding (as managed by the neo-cortex) there is less and less room for emotions (as managed by the limbic system). By the time an individual leaves school and enters the workforce this idea is cemented into their subconscious mind, creating a filter that determines all future choices.

As a consequence of this focus on individual success we often fail to do what is best for our wider eco-system in fear of giving away what we perceive as strategic advantage. This approach might result in a short term success but over the longer term the negative impact of our short term thinking can create highly undesirable outcomes. These outcomes range from wider social impacts such as climate change, income disparity and pollution to psychological and familial fragmentation at the individual level. Pursuing the idea of working together would make us all become stronger rather than just merely supporting the individual advantage.[1]

Just think of the fact that copying from a fellow student during an exam is considered “cheating” while working together in the workplace is considered “team-work”.

The first step in taking back control over one’s actions and thoughts is to become aware of the existence of this filter and how it pre-determines our choices. This realization might be insurmountable for some. In any case counteracting the impact of the filter is difficult for everyone. The difficulty stems from the fact that this filter has become an integral part of an individual’s persona. And to subvert it, the individual must step far beyond their comfort zone, rendering them vulnerable. Yet the state of vulnerability is perceived as a state of failure in society – and is therefore part of a vicious circle.

On this high speed track towards individual success we forego other pathways to satisfaction, happiness and fulfilment. We do not even perceive that these alternate pathways exist. And those who do see another path and attempt to pursue it are often considered by society as having derailed.

When an individual happens to be the leader of an organization or business their responsibility extends beyond their individual fulfilment to the people they are entrusted to lead. Kazui Inamori [2] defines the seed of his leadership philosophy as providing “happiness” to all those around him. By happiness he refers to his obligation towards his staff and their personal life fulfilment as individuals. He sees his role as a leader to support his employees’ aspirations in the context of building a holistically sound workplace. This has resulted in the successful growth of two multinational organizations.

How can we get the individual to see the alternative paths that to this point have been obscured by their internal filter? How can the individual gain the confidence needed to set off on a new path in the first place? And how can this individual ultimately help others to follow?

Given that the societal pressures are produced by none other than individuals acting collectively, what force in society would have the motivation to support the individual in their quest rather than limiting them?

While all this might seem to require society to take a quantum leap this approach really only requires that each of us take a few small steps in the same direction – steps that can be effected by everyone –  today !

We must recognize that we are living in times for a profound shift in the context in which citizenship and leadership are being defined and exercised. If nothing is done the current degree of supply over-usage and the focus on short term results might require that the next generations will have to deal with severe scarcity of water, food energy and resources.

In the West the generation currently growing up is fighting the effects of misguided nutrition which is resulting in the highest ever recorded levels of obesity, diabetes and other non-communicable diseases. In the United States in 2010, over 63% of people (18% of US children) were overweight or obese. Profit maximization and ignorance are largely responsible for this trend.[2]

While the perceived wealth, resulting from the economic drive to succeed, is perhaps higher than in less developed countries, an ever rising proportion of this wealth is needed to pay for the sky-rocketing costs of keeping people healthy.  The obese workforce costs American business an estimated $73.1 billion per year.[3]

While the situation of the “rich world” is surely difficult, it does not compare to the dire situation faced by the world’s poor. These poor populations are caught in a continuum of struggle to survive. Even if some improvements have been made, the energy spent to ensure food and shelter for their families prevents them from seeing past the daily struggle. Without significant change there is little hope that these 2 bill people living on less than 2 USD a day, will ever escape from the cycle of poverty.

As Muhammad Yunus puts is: “If you go out into the real world, you cannot miss seeing that the poor are poor not because they are untrained or illiterate but because they cannot retain the returns of their labor. They have no control over capital, and it is the ability to control capital that gives people the power to rise out of poverty.” [4]

The increasing scarcity of resources (financial, natural and human), the emergence of “super wicked problems” (food and water shortage, climate change, youth unemployment, etc.), the imminent demographic and societal shifts and the developments around new technologies are making our world increasingly global, more interdependent and complex.

So while the lives of the rich and of the poor appear increasingly separate, they are in fact intertwined and moving closer together. This is the reality the next generations will be facing.

Some of the reasons underlying this shift include ubiquitous communication, international travel, open borders, free movement of labour and the changes in cultural understanding due to the emergence of digital natives.

This heightened degree of interdependence, better described by “systemic connectivity” implies that an individual’s decisions are less and less exclusively subject to the person’s own choices. In this interconnected world one’s own decisions have become more and more subject to other people’s choices as well.

Under the assumption that our decisions are impacted not only by our own choices but by the choices of our eco-system as well, isn’t this the right time that we adjust our individual approach to collaboration, issues management and leadership?

In a world of competing priorities and systemic connectivity, what should we focus on to sustainably mitigate societal threats such as unemployment (in particular of youth), poverty and hunger? How can we create a society in which individuals are encouraged to self-reflect? How can the mechanisms of society be channelled to achieve a collective understanding that each one of us has a stake in other individuals? How can we identify the first little steps that we all can take to making a difference for others? How can the collective energy of the group be converted into real action to create a stronger sense of mutual cohesion and interdependence?

By deciding to financially engaging in a business concept a “Seed Investor” or early stage “Venture Capitalist” obviously also supports the entrepreneur behind the business idea. And by supporting the entrepreneur the investor of course also supports the leadership style and philosophy that this entrepreneur embodies.

And this works both ways.

• Financially supporting an entrepreneur who is striving to create a culture of empathy and respect, who uses feedback and collaboration to establish a “safe space” for all those around and who showcases the benefits of the “We” over the “I” will undoubtedly set a signal in the market in which the investor operates.
• Investing in an entrepreneur on the other hand who embodies a more rigid, command and control approach to leadership and who shows little interest in building self awareness around the impact his own behaviours have on others might still yield financial benefits. But this investment decision will fall short of its potential to amplify the societal benefits of the new models of leadership

• What would potential candidates be attracted by when considering to come and work for this organization?
• What type of structure would be most suitable for this organization in order to become resilient and flexible (hierarchical, circular, other)?
• What kind of organizational culture do I want to create and build?
• What leadership role do I want to play?

Under the right conditions, training can play a catalytic role in creating a higher level of awareness and mindfulness, two of the key drivers of the new model of leadership. If done in a toughtful manner taining can  then also serve as the vehicle to explore the notion of togetherness and universal interdependence. The only qustion is:”How can trainers strike a balance between spirituality and reality, how can they merge the concept of being and doing and how should they unite feeling and thinking in a world that seems to dominated by IQ ?

Obviously, trainers will not want to disengage or otherwise put off their workshop-participants by enforcing a discussion around what some participants might interpret as spirituality, or even as religion. While it is definitely necessary to explain that the journey to more awareness and mindfulness must push existing boundaries maybe even into previously unknown territory, it will be important to use a suggestive and didactical rather than a dictatorial or categorical approach.

Equally, when trainers turn to the importance of allowing room to “be” rather than just to “do” they will need to be aware of the potential unease that this notion might creat in some.  The future directed character of our society leaves little time to reflect and little room to live in the now. Some individuals will need time to absorb this concept or otherwise push back if they feel pressured. 

Finally, trainers must use particular care when it comes to incorporating the dimension of “feeling” into the catalog of enablers for awareness and mindfulness. Undoubtedly, feeling one’s own self, one’s passion, purpose and true potential has to become an integral part of leadership. But trainers should not forget that some individuals will view the request to “feel” to be in direct oposition to today’s brain and intellect dominated approach.

The true genious of the trainer will lie in the ability to unite the various dimensions in a gentile way, so that the individual participant voluntarily embarks on the journey to a higher state of awareness and mindfulness.