What is Regenerative Leadership?

Cultivating fertile soil in our organizations and initiatives

The term ‘regenerative’ is beginning to touch into the mainstream, but what does it really mean?

The word has come on the scene primarily through regenerative farming ~ a new and ancient way of farming and ranching that focuses on healing the soil by working in harmony with the living systems of nature.

Photo by Marie-Hélène Rots on Unsplash

The regenerative farming movement is making incredible strides in restoring the health and vitality of depleted soil ~ producing nutrient-rich food, storing carbon and increasing biodiversity.

This movement is less about dictating specific practices and more of an underlying philosophy. Rather than a “one-size-fits-all” approach, regenerative farming is an active learning process that is highly customized to the land and the environment in which the food is being grown.

Here are a few of its fundamental principles:

• Understand the connection and interdependence of all things.

• Nurture relationships within and across ecosystems.

• Nurture communities and reimagine economies.

• Prioritize soil health ~ promoting the fertility and biodiversity of the base from which everything grows, which naturally leads to rich returns.

• Hold a vision that sees beyond present needs and a desire to ensure the well-being of future generations.

We can apply these same universal, nature-based principles to the ways we are operating in our businesses and communities.

By taking a whole-systems approach, we can view our organizations as living organisms ~ interconnected ecosystems within greater nested ecosystems.

We can nurture the relationships within and between our organizations, integrating supply chains and all of our stakeholders by adopting a “rising tide lifts all boats” perspective.

We can stop creating wastelands and start cultivating fertile ground for creativity, engagement, and passion. Through workplaces that are teeming with a diversity of life and vitality, we can experience far greater prosperity for ourselves and the communities in which we operate.

We can turn our primary focus to purpose and impact, realizing that profits are part of the natural resource flows that serve to sustain and regenerate the ecosystem ~ a byproduct of a healthy system ~ rather than its central aim.

We can reconnect to the reason we originally came together to form the business or community and find true fulfillment in the impact we are each uniquely here to make.

This regenerative way of operating is not only possible … it is inevitable.

This is already happening in its own perfect timing. The planet is coming into balance and harmony ~ breaking through into a more organic, authentic expression of itself. And so are we.

As we come into greater alignment with our own true nature, we begin to naturally resonate with a more regenerative worldview and way of being.

We begin to lead differently, more collaboratively ~ focused on greater well-being of ourselves, each other and the entire ecosystem.

In the process, we are reimagining, redefining and regenerating leadership.