First Published on Linked In on February 6, 2025
A fellow Tomorrow University student shared a version of this question this week. I love it, because it goes to the very core of both the mess we are in, and what I am particularly passionate about: When it comes to leadership (like so many things), now that we KNOW better, should that not lead to us DOING better?
Anyone who has ever worked with me knows, I am a BIG Brené Brown fan. Her book Dare to Lead saved me at a time when I was massively doubting myself as a leader. It is the one I return to most often and I have hands down have gifted the most times. Brené Brown, alongside a whole load of fascinating people working on Leadership including Simon Sinek, Adam Grant, Amy Edmondson and many more, have developed all the tools we need to become brave, kind, self-reflected leaders and create the best possible organisations.
Then we turn on the news. The people at the top of our political and economic systems are megalomaniac, self-interested, often down right evil, bullies. What is going on?
You hear running water. Your bathroom floor is flooded. Your bathtub is overflowing. Where is the water coming from? The tap is on. You could run to fetch a bucket, put down towels or pull the drain plug. You reach to turn off the tap. Everything else is useful too, but if you don’t first notice the tap and turn it off, any other action will be in vain, a drop in the… (sorry)
I think the same applies here, as in so many areas: You don’t solve a problem without addressing the root causes.
Our problem is a leadership crisis. But, where is it coming from? Did nobody get them the books?
“No number of anonymously sent books to senior executives is going to change the way they lead. Although I encourage you to keep trying.” Simon Sinek
What I miss a bit in this kind and courageous leadership bubble, is the acknowledgement that leaders and workplaces don’t exist in isolation, there are part of broader economic and political systems. Do our political systems foster participation? Transparency? Trust? Does our global economic system encourage care and compassion? Silly questions, right? (Here’s another silly question: why not?)
The richest man on earth actively spreads division and hatred as he attempts to dismantle democracy. The second richest man lives off our over-consumption, and the terrible working conditions of his employees. The third richest man fuels misinformation as he pines for more “masculine” energy in companies. That’s without getting started on their personal and corporate contributions the climate collapse and the amount of tax they have dodged.
Can these be anomalies? Or is the machine simply pumping out the type of character (I struggle to say leaders) that it needs to keep going?
As George Monbiot wrote in an article published in the Guardian in 2024: “The bullies’ triumph is an outcome of the dominant narrative of our times: for the past 45 years, neoliberalism has characterised human life as a struggle that some must win and others must lose.”
Remember that the objective of the capitalist economic system is the accumulation of capital. That’s its goal. Capital accumulation cannot happen without the extraction of resources (both “human” and “natural”). So, it then asks, what type of “qualities” do we need people to have to extract the most capital out of available resources?
Research tells us that says that productivity goes up when employees are treated like adults (shocking, right?). And there also seems to have been some welcome decrease in how much bad behaviour from superiors is acceptable in modern workplaces. But this does not turn off the tap, we will need a deeper shift to solve our crisis. As long as we are still defining ourselves and each other, not as creative humans, but merely as productive beings who work and consume, in the service of maximum financial profit (to benefit the selected few), then leadership practices will continue to be extractive and play the zero-sum games of command & control, divide & conquer, compete & win. It’s baked in.
As Monbiot says: “It’s a perfect circle: neoliberalism generates inequality; and inequality is strongly associated with bullying at school. With greater disparities in income and status, stress rises, competition sharpens, and the urge to dominate intensifies. The pathology feeds itself.”
So what do we do?
We keep going. We keep spreading and modelling brave and kind leadership. And, we step into our responsibility to contribute to broader systemic change.
Coming back to Brené Brown’s definition of leadership, I like to read between the lines and add “in order to bring about radical positive change in the world”.
“A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes and has the courage to develop that potential.” Brené Brown
I was asked in a meeting a while back how I would define courageous leadership. In most definitions I have seen, the emphasis is on two main areas:
- Personal courage: are you brave enough to address on your own psychological baggage («do the work », as Brené would say)? recognise your privilege? be emotionally agile? be accountable? set healthy boundaries? be a learner not a knower?
- Interpersonal courage: are you brave enough to have the uncomfortable conversations? be vulnerable? be the first to trust? ask for feedback? admit you were wrong? hold space for people to share their emotions and needs? to innovate and make mistakes?
These are crucially important (and so hard to implement!) components of courageous leadership. But I miss what we might call “systemic courage”. Imagine systems leadership and feminist leadership had a transformative baby:
- Systemic courage: are you brave enough to understand the bigger picture? to actively challenge systems of oppression and injustice ? act responsibly and purposefully (as an individual and an organisation)? use your voice, your platform, your privilege to bring about system change? support the people around you to understand and act?
We won’t bring about the wellbeing of our people and our planet without turning off the tap that is regurgitating bullies: by acting collectively to tackle the economic system aims for capital accumulation at the cost of people and planet.
Here’s George again: “We should stop celebrating coercive and controlling behaviour. At every stage of education and career progression, and in politics, economics and international relations, we should seek to replace a competitive ethos with a cooperative one. This is the amazing thing about human beings (…): it doesn’t have to be like this. We can control our own behaviour, and envision and build better forms of organisation. Through deliberative, participatory democracy, both in politics and in the workplace, we can create systems that work for everyone. There is no natural law that states that playground bullies should continue exacting tribute for the rest of their lives.”
What does systemic courage look for you? Where do you start?
PS: On a personal note, THESE are the questions I am most interested in supporting people to reflect on. The intersection between leadership and transforming our economic system especially: understanding the bigger picture, reflecting on how we might have internalised this “growth-for-its-own-sake-and-at-all-costs thinking” and how this impacts how we lead. I have the amazing opportunity to be hosting a discussion series for Tomorrow University of Applied Sciences on this called « Leading System Change ». Daniel Frieß and I have been putting our heads and hearts together to create something concrete in this direction too. Watch this space for more on this soon and let me know if you are interested!
References:
George Monbiot – It doesn’t have to be like this
Jess Blijkers 
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