In recent weeks, the Pope Francis has again expressed the need for urgent action to tackle climate change. He criticised the failing global response to the crisis. He expressed that we remain trapped in the mindset of the past. He is calling out the power structures and the anthropocentric and technocratic mindsets that are the root causes of the situation we find ourselves in today. Pope Francis is correct. Fundamental change is not currently possible because of mindsets – mindsets trapped in the past; anthropocentric and technocratic mindsets.  In order to transform our world, perhaps e ..read more

The two key aspects of leadership needed right now.  I don’t need to start off by telling you the complexity of the world that we live in and work in. But I will. It’s a shit show out there. Running a business in the last few years has been like being on the largest rollercoaster and you have no idea about what is around the next corner. There have been so many new situations to deal with, which we never thought would happen. A pandemic, Brexit, a climate crisis, the significant war, energy price rises, inflation and interest rate rises, political turbulence, a revolt against power, strik ..read more

This article and audio was first published on Oxymoron, a newsletter by Tom Greenwood for people exploring the complex and confusing world of “Sustainable Business”.  “Wake up. Wake up, Martin. You’ve been asleep. You’ve been fast asleep.” That’s sometimes how I feel about my first 30 years of life, perhaps even my first 40. I was driven, goal-oriented, ambitious, self-focused, achieving lots, running fast. I was working in a fast-growing US tech company in sales management, paid well, big car, continuous promotions, nice house, nice life – doing what ‘most people’ do, I thought. Don’t ..read more

What have been your experiences on the path to waking up? I’ve heard someone describing waking up as being akin to lightning bolts or sunrises. Lightening bolts hit you and knock you down. There’s no denying them, and your life is never the same again after you’ve had these insights. They rip the veil of illusion from before your eyes and you see things clearly. When this happens, what do you see?  Two examples help to illustrate this: Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, talks about the moment when he experienced the thunderclap and lightning bolt of awareness hitting him ..read more

We recently interviewed Lorna Davis, a fascinating conversation with a high-profile conscious leader who has recently hung up her corporate heels running huge corporations the world over for doing something entirely different – helping and coaching other leaders and conscious businesses to think about their own impact for the greater good, both in their lives and in the world. Throughout her career, Lorna has lived and led businesses in 7 countries on 5 continents, serving on the Global board of Electrolux, heading up the merged Danone and Kraft business in Shanghai as their CEO, and being CE ..read more

Values and Purpose. Two words that regularly find their way into our business conversations, bringing with them the promise of something good. More engagement. More impact. More results. They are deeply connected to authentic leadership. They prompt us to ask the questions: What are your values? Are you living them out? What’s your personal purpose? Does your organisation have a purpose? Does it chime with you? There’s no doubt, values and purpose are two powerful tools for any leader and any organisation. Exploring values together can cut through layers of guardedness in a team and make us al ..read more

As the words ‘sustainability’, ‘circular economy’, ‘ESG’ and ‘conscious business’ become ever more part of our daily business vocabulary, I can’t help but wonder: What does it mean to be a conscious business leader living and leading in full integrity to what you believe is important? Conscious leadership can appear somewhat idealistic, and it is really when investigating how the principles of it are lived in the real world that the rubber hits the road. We are intent on speaking to conscious leaders across the board to understand and share how they do it. Recently we had the opportunity to ex ..read more

Each year lately, like many of you, I try to do a review of the year gone past and a goal-setting exercise for the year ahead.  A resource I have found that’s very helpful with this process is Jinny Ditzler’s Your Best Year Yet, because it not only casts your mind over the year gone by to acknowledge your accomplishments (and disappointments) and draw the lessons from these, but also reconnects you to your values and your roles, and helps you set goals for the year ahead that are infused with your values and that bring each of your roles to life. I’d highly recommend it. However, wha ..read more

Queen Elizabeth II and Yvon Chouinard, Founder, Patagonia On the leadership programmes I run, I usually host an exercise that goes: ‘Which leader do you admire?’ I ask participants to send me photos of their chosen leader and we shuffle them as an ice-breaking activity, to kick us all off on the leadership theme. Each participant receives a photo of a leader that is not theirs; then they find the ‘owner’ of the photo they’ve been given and have a conversation about why this person chose that leader. What invariably emerges is the realisation that the qualities of the leaders chosen reflect the ..read more

Martin is interviewed by Elizabeth Lovius on the topic of Leading Self. This is the fundamentals of being a good leader. It’s starts with learning about self, and learning about the mind, so that can become aware. We need to develop our awareness of what’s going on in our minds – our thoughts, our judgments, our fixed and limiting beliefs, the influence of our ego. We also need to develop our awareness of what’s going on around us and for others. Only then can we start to be more considered in how we lead. The post Leading Self – a key part of Conscious Leadership appeared first on Conscious ..read more