How Covid Positively Impacted The Future of Leadership

Large Scale Impact. Large Scale Results.

Today, I’m going to be brutally honest with you. I invite you to bear with me. There is a very positive message around the global challenges we are all facing and at the end of this exploration we will land upon a better way.

Growing up, I looked around at the state of the world I found myself in and literally had the thought, “WTF?! What kind of absolute crazy nonsense have I been born into?” You see, I was born in the ‘70s. We were dealing with massive pollution issues, public shootings, sex trafficking, and political division, to name a few. These were all new norms humanity was facing, and deep down I knew there was a better way. 

This article explores the better ways that are currently unfolding and that Covid unknowingly uncloaked for humanity.

Economic & Employee Impact

I ran across an article where I learned that the CEO of Walmart made more in one hour than his average employee made in one year. (7) Walmart employees qualified for welfare while the company made billions of profit?  Learning how the US citizens were subsidizing Walmart’s bad business practices was an eye opener. (6) 

As ABC News reporter Alice Gomstyn reported:

“A study last fall by the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal Washington D.C. research group, found that CEOs in the country's S&P 500 companies make, on average, 319 times more than the average American worker.”

IPS associate Sam Pizzigati said, “That in the 1970s, that ratio was 30 to 1.” Pizzigati went on to say, "We've seen, over the past three decades, a tenfold-plus increase in the gap between top executives and average American workers," and named it as “a very real problem in American economic life." (7) 

The even bigger irony? In Simon Sinek’s book, Start with WHY, he outlined how the founder of Walmart, Sam Walton, was driven by community back in 1945. He also took a handsome salary, but not a salary that took from the well-being of the employee. Employees were top priority.(5)  

The abandonment of the founding principles of Walmart exemplifies the dichotomy we have developed in leadership and the large-scale impact this has on the American economy. 

We Need A Better Way 

In 1997, the devastation of 5 astronomically growing “garbage patches” was discovered. “Garbage Patches” are gaping miles of human waste “landfills” accumulating in our oceans. 

Are we proud of this? No. Yet, we are here. 

Captain Charles Moore, who discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, shared with Natural History magazine: 

"As I gazed from the deck at the surface of what ought to have been a pristine ocean, I was confronted, as far as the eye could see, with the sight of plastic. It seemed unbelievable, but I never found a clear spot. In the week it took to cross the subtropical high,no matter what time of day I looked, plastic debris was floating everywhere." (1)

PBS author Nsikan Akpan asked, “What weighs more than 43,000 cars and is twice the size of Texas?” 

Answer: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. (3)

I don’t know about you, but I’ve driven across Texas. Texas is a huge state! If you have kids and you’ve driven across Texas, you will know that, “Are we there yet?” becomes, “Are we out of Texas yet?” 

Let’s put this in perspective.  Just one garbage patch is the size of two states of Texas side by side. There are 5 garbage patches. 

Will We Pivot?

So, yes, I think we can all agree that there is a better way. Humanity can do better than this. The true question is… will we? 

I looked around at all of the irony I observed when I was growing up. 

On one hand, we all live in this big, beautiful, amazing, profound world… a world that has rainforests, beaches to create sandcastles, snow to ski on, rocks to climb, sunsets to breath in after a long day. On the other hand, our global business practices lack signs of intelligence. 

When we have the power to create anything we want, why on earth are we settling to create pollution and economic bottlenecks? 

The Plot Twist

As these stories piled up, my heart sank heavier and heavier and heavier…. I thought, “This is it! Humanity is done for. We have reached our peak, and now we are aptly headed downhill as quick as we can. I throw in the towel.” 

Logical conclusion, right? 

Wrong. I found a bigger picture.

I am a rock climber. In adventure climbing, there is something called a false summit. A “False Summit” happens when it looks as if the peak of a climb is right in front of you. You climb to the top. Then, upon arrival, you realize the true summit is still in the distance. You just couldn’t see it from the ground.

I realized that we, all of humanity, are at a false summit together.

We are not at the top of our potential. 

Why not? Our technology is growing faster than our EQ. We can fly to the moon, land on Mars, and I can text someone in Japan from Tucson, AZ. We have self-driven vacuum cleaners and cars that park themselves.

So, why have we not reached our potential yet? It is definitely not because we are not intelligent enough.

The reason we haven’t reached our human potential yet because our previous focus has been primarily linear. We haven’t yet viewed success integratively. 

Let’s explore this…

Since the Industrial Age and on, we have been operating business linearly. (2)

Let’s say you and I are best friends. We are talking one afternoon, and I tell you that I have a dream. My dream is to make ONE million dollars over the next year.

You supportively say to me, “Great Laurel!” Then I set off to make my millions. 

What if a year later I come back to you and say, “Hey guess what?! My company made the million-dollar mark last year! I did it!”

You say, “WOW, congrats! You succeeded” 

We celebrate. Life goes on.

BUT! What I didn’t share with you was that my employees were miserable, I had high turn-over, and my company approach was harming the environment. 

If you found out the full picture, would you say I was truly successful? If you view success as a linear thinker, then yes, by all means, you could classify me as a success. 

What if the conversation was integratively tuned in? What if I was integratively intelligent and operated as an integrated leader? What would that conversation look like? 

It could go something like this: 

I come to you and say, “Guess what?! My company made the million-dollar mark last year.” You say, “WOW, congrats! What a success!”

If I’m a leader developed in my Integrative Intelligence?, here is where the conversation could pivot. 

My response may look more like this: “Well, thank you. I do appreciate the sentiment. However, we haven’t quite succeeded. My employees are miserable. We have atrocious turn-over costing us a lot of what we are making. We also created a back log of pollution which I’m not comfortable with. So, I would say, yes, we succeeded but only in one area. We have impact in 3 areas! Two of which are failing.”

Most leaders don’t talk like this… Especially not to their stakeholders. 

Yet, their hearts are dying to do better and would really love to reach success in all areas! They just don’t believe it is possible, and so they quite naturally settle for the false summit.

What Leaders are Up Against

Now is a very prime time for leaders to feel stressors. Leaders are feeling pulled in many directions and many are either feeling more burnt out than ever before, or stuck in the politics of linear business practices. 

Many leaders feel as if they have to leave their values at the door to be effective. The good news is that there is a better way for leaders. A better way is why we are here.

Three Common Challenges to Consider:

● Leaders make or break the company experience. The stress on a leader to perform can also be the same stress that harms the company culture. 

● Leaders typically struggle in the closet. Being in the limelight places additional undo stress on leaders. It can feel “lonely at the top”.

● Leaders want to do better and often can’t see how. Leaders are pulled in so many directions. This can prevent them from seeing how to create positive new pathways to better outcomes to reach the true summit.

The other day I attended a Conscious Capitalism meeting. Their credo is “Elevating Humanity Through Business”.(8)

At this meeting, we discussed the impact Covid has had on businesses. 

Listening to the rich discussions and variety of experiences, it dawned on me. Covid has taught us how amazingly agile we really are!

Our full capacity to pivot has, for the first time in centuries, been completely uncloaked. Leaders who previously believed, “We can’t”, woke up to the reality that “We can”. 

We can pivot. We did pivot.

It wasn’t easy, but it was accomplished.

This leaves a major door ajar. The door of “why not?” If we are capable of pivoting, why not pivot to include better corporate practices that include success in all areas? 

Well, because it can feel and seem impossible and daunting. Remember… the false summit is a limit of perspective only.

Yet, did you know that a goldfish grows to the size of its fishbowl? The larger the fishbowl, the larger the fish. It makes sense then, if we are stuck in a linear mode, it quite naturally will be hard to find a better way. 

What does this have to do with the future of leaders? A lot!

Since we can’t fix what we don’t see, our leaders are stuck in the day-in day-out, and it is hard to see how to reach the bigger picture, the true summit. 

Leaders experience many false summits.

We need empowered leaders now more than ever. We are living in times where companies are leaving large-scale impact in ways never before seen. 

Have you ever met a CEO who wakes up in the morning and says, “I’m so excited! I’m going to harm the environment today!” Or, “I can’t wait to devastate my employees today, woo-hoo!”

Not one that I’ve met.  Yet, it still happens.

What are our Leaders up against?  

• Stress; real and perceived
• Stress responses; disintegration
• Restrictions; real or perceived
• Reactions to feeling boxed in
• False summits

The True Summit - Considering Solutions

In the past, since leaders and companies have approached success in a linear way, they’ve been operating in a limited capacity. This approach is now outdated, inefficient, and roots back to the Industrial Age. (2)  

Today, we are seeing a better way come to fruition.

A way that professional coaches are already tapping into. A way that conscious business owners, consultants and the Conscious Capitalism movement is positively shaping. (8)

Consider how:

● Linear thinking produces linear results. Linear thinking creates a one-sided focus that leaves out important factors. This funnel vision approach is outdated and highly inefficient if we are to head into a positive future. 

● True success is success in all areas. When we view success integratively, we see true success is success in all areas, not just one. In the past, we have settled for success in one area, limiting the positive impact we could leave.

● The time for linear approaches has come to an end. If we are to cultivate a truly profound future, it is time to approach organizational strategy in integratively intelligent ways. Linear thinking got us where we are and is no longer informing our best business practices in positive ways.

I call this better way Integrative Intelligence?. We can reach a higher human potential together. We can forge the next wave in developing positive, high-impact, big-picture leaders and more comprehensive company practices.  

If we are to create a really profound future, and reach the true summit, it is time to stop settling, and time to start integrating into our full global potential.

Integrative Intelligence? and 

Conscious Capitalism are two major game changers moving us towards a more positive future and that will ensure humanity reaches the true summit.

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References:

1.300 Mile Swim Through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, by Scott Snowden, Forbes, May 30th, 2019 [Web log post]. (n.d.).

2.Covey, S. (n.d.). The Eighth Habit.

3.Great Pacific Garbage Patch Weighs More than 43,000 Cars, by Nsikan Akpan, PBS Newshour, April 18th, 2018 [Web log post]. (n.d.).

4.Moore, C. (2009). Seas of Plastic. Retrieved March 25, 2021, from https://www.ted.com/talks/charles_moore_seas_of_plastic?language=en

5.Sinek, S. (n.d.). Start with Why.

6.The High Cost of Low Prices. (2005). Retrieved March 25, 2021, from https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.16b0c96a-9e2f-ae82-dec3-8809242c7ff2?autoplay=1&ref_=atv_cf_strg_wb

7.Walmart CEO Pay: More in One Hour Than Workers Get all Year?. (2010). Retrieved March 25, 2021, from https://abcnews.go.com/Business/walmart-ceo-pay-hour-workers-year/story?id=11067470  

Resources:

8. Conscious Capitalism Arizona: https://ccarizona.org  

9. The Institute for Integrative Coach Training: www.IntegrativeCoachTraining.com