Blog & Podcasts

Look around: the challenges facing our organizations, communities, and societies are growing more complex by the day. Polarization is deepening. Burnout is rising. Trust in institutions—and often in each other—is eroding.

And in the middle of it all, we are still trying to lead with a model built for another era: the model of control and “power-over” rather than “power-with.”

Control has its place. It works when outcomes are clear, environments are stable, and efficiency is king. But today, we are navigating uncertainty and interdependence. In this reality, control doesn’t create clarity—it creates brittleness. It disconnects and feeds distrust.

What people long for most is not more control.
It’s connection.
It’s belonging.
It’s a sense of meaning in their lives, work and communities.

The Limits of Control

Surveys have consistently shown that the biggest driver of employee disengagement isn’t pay or perks. It’s leadership—especially leadership that is unresponsive, untrusting, or disconnected.

When leaders:

• Force/fix performance rather than invite contribution
  
  
• Avoid real dialogue, failing to really listen
  
  
• Micromanage or hoard decision-making
  
  
• Fail to create safety for dissent
  
  

…they don’t just frustrate employees. They dissolve trust. They chip away at the very fabric of belonging that makes communities and workplaces resilient.

In an age of complexity, command-and-control (power-over) leadership limits potential, focusing on problems instead of possibilities.  

What Leadership at the Emerging Edge Looks Like

The leadership we need now isn’t about commanding from the top. It’s about hosting spaces where people can show up fully, feel seen and heard, and co-create new possibilities together.

This kind of leadership is grounded in capacities like:

• Presence – slowing down, listening deeply, and being fully with the group in the moment.
  
  
• Trust-building – moving from micromanagement to empowerment, creating conditions for people to take ownership.
  
  
• Dialogic practice – asking questions that matter, inviting real conversation, and holding space for dissent as well as agreement.
  
  
• Recognition of gifts – seeing and cultivating each person’s strengths, not just their shortcomings.
  
  
• Psychological safety – cultivating an environment where people can risk honesty without fear.
  
  

When leaders create these conditions, something remarkable happens: groups begin to self-organize, ideas flow more freely, and collective intelligence emerges. People not only perform better—they also experience a greater sense of meaning and belonging.

Coherence Over Control

At its heart, the shift is from control to coherence.

Control says: “I know where we’re going. Follow me.”
   => Coherence says: “Together, we will discover where we can go—and trust that our shared intelligence will show us the way.”

Control isolates responsibility at the top.
   => Coherence distributes ownership across the whole.

Control produces compliance.
   => Coherence generates commitment.

And commitment is what sustains organizations and communities through uncertainty.

The Leadership We Long For

Many of us already feel it. We long for spaces where:

• We can bring our full selves, not just our job titles.
  
  
• We can speak honestly, even when it’s uncomfortable.
  
  
• Our contributions are recognized as gifts, not just as output.
  
  
• Leadership is not the burden of one, but the shared capacity of many.
  
  

This is not naïve idealism. It’s a practical necessity in complex times.

An Invitation

The good news is: these capacities can be cultivated. They’re not traits we’re born with, but practices we can learn — together.

This fall, we’re gathering a community of leaders, facilitators, coaches and change agents for the Liberating Leadership Lab: a co-creative, immersive space to practice and build our collective capacity for presence, trust, dialogue, and shared leadership.

Because the future of leadership isn’t about control.
It’s about coherence.
It’s about creating spaces where belonging, meaning, and creativity can emerge.

And it begins when we choose to lead differently.

👉 What about you? What kind of leadership do you long for? What capacities do you need to culture for these complex times?