Call for Leadership
When the human world is in crisis entrepreneurship and society call for true and transformative leadership. Why is that? And what kind of leadership?
The very first thing we have to acknowledge when the human world is in crisis is that the way we organised our world has become obsolete, else it would not be in crisis. Trying to restore old securities is therefor no sign of leadership at all, it is called management. Management will never get anyone out of a crisis simply because the paradigm (the total set of values on which human interaction is based) has cracked up. It served its purpose in the past but now cannot be revised and needs to be replaced with a new paradigm. And that introduces two leadership issues: Definition of the new paradigm and the intense en risky transformation exercise from one paradigm to the other. Let us deal with each separately.
Definition of the new paradigm: We can distinguish five different paradigms that humankind can apply. In times of crisis we have seen four that have been regularly been called upon in history: The State, The Church, Money and Technology. The one that has not been seriously used is the one that places the individual human being at the center of all our strategies. While we placed artificial human invented systems in place to conduct our progress we noticed that they invariably ended up in crisis. For the very first time in modern history the individual human being has sufficient access to information to become aware of its own evolutionary responsibilities and create a culture of progress through cooperation. This paradigm means that we leave all artificial structures behind and get ourselves into a purpose driven culture of individual responsibilities shared through our common progressive, evolutionary objectives. The shift between paradigms is intense because it places responsibilities at the individual level through self-leadership and at community level through result drive sustainable progress. Political leadership is asked or forced to let go and facilitate the process of self-leadership of the people. We are seeing this happening around the world while corporate leadership is asked to take purpose driven humanistic initiatives to drive progress with the power of result driven united talent and energy, demanding a totally new business culture and structure.
Transformation between paradigms: The transformation between paradigms demands from leadership strong professionalism that goes way beyond technical or financial leadership. It requires strong understanding of human fears and hopes, the psychology of change and charisma to conduct the long term change by producing short term securities for all the people involved. It is a very humanistic type of leadership, a servant kind but also strongly demanding from the people on the verge of dictatorship. Sustainable progress is not a political discussion or democratic choice. This type of leadership that has nothing to do with the drive for power over people but the drive to provide comfort through change by getting people to provide comfort to themselves by taking responsibility. It requires strong insight, will power, anthropological/anthroposophical understandings and perseverance giving people their own share in the fruits they achieve through their own productivity.
Does that mean that the other paradigms are obsolete? From an operational leadership point of view: yes, because they cannot be placed at the kernel of human progress anymore. But the learning that we have reflectively embedded in our collective awareness is important to use those paradigms to feed the new one in development. Moral awareness that was claimed by religions is needed to provide ethical guidance to the humanistic drive of purpose driven communities, the state is needed to provide territorial cohesion and interaction between groups while technological innovation is required to provide the necessary tooling for humankind to produce abundance for all. The speculative money system needs to transform into a true value system that does not measure and speculate on shortages but values abundance through result driven investment of individual and collective talent and energy. This part of the transformation of values is probably the most complicated one since most of the old paradigm has glued all current human systems around monetary dependencies. To break through that the crises need to do their work because human interaction will only encounter dangerous opposition from the old power positions. This impasse will slow down the processes of the paradigm shift at the expense of human suffering. The introduction of new value system based on different criteria can slowly make way for large human structures that can break through the protective walls of the old money driven paradigm. That’s why I see a huge chance for technology driven corporate business organisations to make the shift first and become creative in valuing their people while creating a movement of change through visionary, multidisciplinary cooperation with other actors in this holistic approach.
The call for leadership is hence a significant one. Extremely few people today unite the conditions that profile the transformative leader. They cannot necessarily be found in the current leadership positions because those are jobs for high level managers guided or puppeetered by the self-interest of powerful shareholders. The true leaders that will stand up are currently without a job but with a personal mission. They may have lead significant ventures in the past which have provided them with the network and experience of old paradigm people management. Their personal enlightenment, together with a renewed energetic impulse to become the true instrument of change (they have no leadership ambitions but strong desires to see the paradigm shift). Others stand up and start anywhere in society or in a corporate organisation with sufficient skills and freedom to make the difference already today. On them the speed of the paradigm shift will depend and with them the sustainable progress of humankind that needs to be addressed.
Feminising masculine cultures in crisis
For many decades emancipation has claimed equal rights for women but meanwhile the global cultures have totally defeminised. Even the most emancipated countries have hardly any feminity left in them despite equality among the sexes. This may sound like a contradiction but it is not. Women and men are equal but not at all the same. Cultures that center around money and the material independence of individuals show a systemised masculine culture based on external securities, excessive tooling, competition, hierarchies of power and a lot of individualism. The cultures grow cold, materialistic, authoritive and bureaucratic. Such masculine culture has nothing to do with any discimination of women. Even the women learn to behave with an independent masculine nature in an emancipated way. This excessive masculinity has been caused by our growing dependence on money based structures that have taken all feminine sensitivity out of our human organisation. These masculine cultures, resident in large corporate multinationals, money based democracies and social communism are all in severe crisis. The only solution here is to feminise the cultures again.
What then is a feminine culture?
Connected to the unique ability of women to give birth a feminine culture is based on identity, family warmth and evolutionary long term reasoning around survival, protection, safety, health, stability and quality of life. A femine culture is more holistic, spiritual and emotional than purely rational. In a feminine culture our relationship with our environment makes sense, our self-sufficiency and self-preservation within the mistique of eternal life itself. The morality of our choices become an important measure for our actions, just like equality, respect and trust.
Such feminine culture is not just exercised by women of course, also by men, just like the masculine cultures. It is a way of life, an acceptance of certain values above others that have to do with inner feelings instead of external wealth. The current world is in crisis due to the excessive masculine structures that have gradually eliminated emotions, warms and community feeling. There is no relationship anymore between what we contribute to life and what we get. We have endebted ourselves for values that we have not yet contributed in with our creativity or supportive energy. It is going to be increadibly difficult to get our lifes back to a true reality in which we enjoy prosperity from our personal initiatives. A purely feminine culture will not do the trick either….
Pure masculine societies will always enter a crisis while pure femine societies will never progress. Both mentalities always require to interact to produce sustainable progress as shown in the drawing below. Together they form a Whole….
Feminising the masculine culture in crisis
There is nothing wrong with a masculine organisation as long as it is lined up with a feminine equivalent too. The key of wellness can be found in the warmth and depth of emotions feeding and guiding the rational awareness and organisation. The femininity makes us aware of our relationship with our environment, the need for human interaction and true equality among all people. The masculinity will get us to understand, learn how to organise ourselves and get scientific insight. Together the feminine and masculine nature will interact to apply knowledge with true meaning to human progress in a complex creative manner (not destructive as we suffer now). The feminine culture will avoid the masculinity to grow above sustainable proportion while the masculine drives pull the feminine morality into progressive action and permanent change for new balans.
To achieve this we need to feminise our masculine cultures. The current huge masculine outsized complexities (banks, multinationals, political organisations) will crumble into chaos as the crises do their work, creating room for feminine awareness to develop and take a position in our minds. This process shapes a new future for humanity based on smaller, purpose driven communities that use high level knowledge and technology to progress in a constructive, evolutionary way. The day that this has happened humankind can look back at a brief period in our evolution when we were about to distroy everything and thank our wit and consciousness to have reacted on time, voluntarily or not, to get back to sustainable wellness and progress for all. Men and Women meet again in the garden of Eden called planet Earth with the knowledge and understanding that beauty, abundance, love, eternity and wealth is not found in the apple we take but the tree that we sit under.
The High Performance society
A Global Shift society structures 21st century High Performance around humanitarian excellence with wellness and sustainable progress as drivers, not money. The Global Shift announces a voluntary and involuntary transformation towards such society placing the current speculative and manipulative institutional structures and behaviour into a historic, humanitarian reflective perspective. We are individually asked to take responsibility for our future now by breaking away from morally illicit dependencies by making fundamental choices.
The modern High Performance society shows the following characteristics:
1. Purpose driven
The values of this 21st century top evolutionary society are achieved by connecting human talent and energy with wellness related initiatives. This purpose is always related to human sustainable progress that is based on the endless human abundance of creative co-creation. This wellness is not institutionalised but structured around the contribution and responsibility of every individual member of the community.
2. Value sharing
The purpose of wellness related issues is a motivating factor and experienced as fruitful when the results can be appreciated directly by the participating individuals. High Performance starts therefor through an entrepreneurial attitude at individual level and is closely related to the value creating and sharing social interaction with the direct network surroundings of every person. We call this sharing of local values (for local wellness) “local for local”. Within the context of globalisation every geographical region can apply this and create a chain of wellness driven communities that interact again among each other. Eventually the wellness society can cover the entire planet and beyond. We call this “local for local for global”.
Money is no valuable when value is measured through sustainable progress. Change cannot be banked and progress cannot be saved nor wellness charged. It can be experienced. The ongoing process is “financed” through the investment of collaborative energy and co-creative talents within the community. If a value system has to be put in place this is to create an exchangeable system of progressive values with other local for local communities. Sharing values freely creates equality, stability and peace. Within the community a value system can be put in place that registers and values the talents and energy of the participants in order to give them continuous feedback and community status. Status is provided by the community itself and can be exchanged for usables s.a. consumables, luxury items, housing, etc.
3. Self-sufficiency
Individual and local self-sufficiency (energy, food, water, shelter, etc) is the key engine of the High Performance wellness society as wellness is not an external source of pleasure and satisfaction but an inner one. Any dependence on external securities is a potential threat to stability. This can also be a measurement for progress. Eg. when the threat of dependency arises this should automatically trigger innovative creativity for independency. Auto-determination, self-leadership and authentic, independent self-sufficiency are necessary mental and cultural conditions to be able to take responsibility for such complex issue as wellness. The column of values (individual identity of talent, energy and purpose, safety, equality, trust and cooperation) will guide the sustainable progress.
4. Applied technology and science
All current scientific knowledge, practical know-how and the technological instruments are used and deployed in locally applied innovations that contribute to the purpose driven challenge. Knowledge and tools are only of value when they produce the desired results which is a direct motivation to use them to prove their value. Sustainable progress is a never ending quest and becomes a chain of continuous results that is challenged by the ever changing environment and the intrinsic motivations of the community itself. As a consequence fragmented entrepreneurship, banking and party politics will disappear as they have no function in such dynamics.
5. Education and measurement
Wellness, sustainability and progress is educated through integral experience and feedback by providing spiritual, emotional, physical and rational meaning to behaviour, mentality and events. If the surroundings are High Performance in wellness the newcomers will be challenged to learn about it and improve it. It becomes a symbol for the “art of living” by addressing our evolution in an individual and collective way. Education never stops and wellness is always challenged through sustainable progress. Measurement of levels of progress in human values can become the teasing triggers for purpose driven initiatives.
The scientific learning processes feed our rational consciousness but this is not enough. Knowledge needs to be applied to our lifestyle to create sustainable progress through feedback. We relate with our natural environment from which we learn and that we integrate into our existence with a benefit for all involved.
Local and Global Transformation
The transformation starts with each of us, changing our role in the social awareness from money based dependence to wellness based motivations. We are ourselves responsible to create such society, starting at home, in our streets, neighborhoods and expanding world wide. The current money based systems based on institutional greed are collapsing making way slowly for the rise of the new High Performance society. But is not just money that is blocking the evolution of the human quantum leap. Also hierarchical power positions in business, banking and politics are reluctant to let go of their level of influence. They remain in place because we allow it by accepting them.
Nevertheless the new 21ste century High Performance can already be observed around us and all over the world where people become cultural creatives and create their own image of society. They are the pioneers that use or even create the openings that the recessions leave behind. In many occasions the transformation takes place on individual bases by brave confrontation with the old system, or by addressing key issues that the old system cannot deal with anymore. In any case, the new High Performance of the 21st century is slowly showing its face, breaking through the brick walls of material dominance of the 20th century. It will not be long before it can expand freely and fast throughout the human world with strength, flexibility and determination proving that no challenge is too complex for humankind, not even abolishing our past and starting with renewed energy, if the purpose and drive is right. And wellness is priceless and worth the effort.
Sustainocracy, the new democracy 