Ecocentric Leadership as Stewardship

What if leadership was about tending to the whole, not optimising for a part? In this episode, we speak about stilling the mind, listening to dreams, plants, and riverbeds, and making decisions with our wider ways of knowing. We also look into celebrating soil while it is still healthy instead of negotiating over it once damaged, and celebrate the power of ordinary beauty. This is the third episode in a six-part series with World Ethic Forum co-leads Luea Ritter and Anaïs Sägesser, on cultivating a culture of care and kinship.

Show Notes

• Paper: Towards an Ecocentric Leadership as Stewardship Framework https://www.researchgate.net/publication/396007701_Toward_an_ecocentric_leadership_as_stewardship_framework
• Blogpost: Understanding Wider Ways of Knowing https://www.worldethicforum.com/understanding-wider-ways-of-knowing/
• Blogpost: Generative Scribing and Social Field Resonance https://www.worldethicforum.com/methods-for-collective-wisdom-generative-scribing-and-social-field-resonance-at-the-world-ethic-forum/
• Holacracy:  https://www.holacracy.org/ 
• Sociocracy: https://www.sociocracy.info 

Transcript

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Speaker 0:04

What if leading was about tending to the whole, not optimizing for a part? Today, on the World Ethic Forum podcast, we're exploring ecocentric leadership as stewardship. We talk about stealing the mind, listening to dreams, plants, and riverbeds, making decisions with our wider ways of knowing, and revealing the power of ordinary beauty. Hello! You're listening to the World Ethic Forum Podcast. I'm Julien, and I'm your host today. This podcast is exploring what we call a culture of care and kinship. It's a way of being in the world where humans feel and act as part of the web of life. We're not offering chewed up and predigested wisdom. Instead, we're sharing with you what a live inquiry into radically shared aliveness might feel like. Fair warning, some of what you will hear might feel strange or inconclusive. That's all by design. We're here to loosen something in ourselves and maybe between us. Because then maybe something else can emerge. New types of relationships, new questions, and new directions. In this episode, I'll be talking to our two co-leads, Luea and Anais, about ecocentric leadership. Luea, Anais, welcome to this episode. This week I'd love to talk to you about ecocentric leadership. You published an article, a paper, I believe last year, that was entitled Toward Ecocentric Leadership as Stewardship. And those are two words that I'm hearing often in the field, leadership and stewardship. And I'm wondering if you could share more about what you mean or what those words mean for you and how both of them relate.

Speaker 1 2:16

For me, stewardship is really this sense of something is given into my care and into my hands of responsibility, but not ownership. So it's really this kind of being given something to guardian, to take care of, to listen to, to enable to thrive. And not just in the way I want or in the way I see meaningful, but really from this broader view of what is meaningful for the whole, what is what is on long term, especially from a legacy thinking really important to take into account. So that's how I relate to this word of stewardship, and then leadership is also, of course, a sense of having a direction, but acknowledging that leadership still until today has often a connotation of power over top-down hierarchies, one leader above many others who follow. And to kind of put that into dialogue with each other, we chose this almost inquiry of how could leadership be actually become a form of being stewards of something that is given to us rather than we step into in terms of own or or um determine and dominate.

Speaker 2 3:44

If I think of leadership, I really also think of you know the functions that it has. And in our understanding, you know, we have a relational understanding of leadership. So leadership as something which emerges out of a relation. And the functions of leadership that we look at are really you know how direction, alignment, commitment, and care takes place in groups, in groups, which include also the more than human, which is you know, this deep connection to land and place with all its beings, really centered in an ontology of ecocentrism, where we look at the integrity of the functionality of entire ecosystems, and so these relationships in between them and the weaving of the whole work, that is where then also this term stewardship comes in, meaning that us also as humans we are embedded in our ecosystems, we are nature and we do have a role. So maybe also this notion comes in that we do not think that planet Earth would be better off if it just got rid of its humans, as you know, sometimes you also hear people kind of jokingly saying that, but we really say, no, no, us humans, we do have also a role in this ecosystem of Gaia of our planet Earth, and stewarding is one of these roles, and we look how then, together with all the other beings, uh leadership can emerge.

Speaker 5:50

Thank you. I I I love the way you both talk about the role of humans as in the benefit of the whole or as as caring for everything around us. Uh, you both say that uh Luea that the the way that um this form of stewardship uh goes is that it's about doing what's meaningful for the whole. And Anais, you highlighted the importance of caring not just for humans, but for the more than human. And so with this comes a question for me, which is in your role as uh ecocentric leaders or relational leaders, how do you sense what is meaningful for the whole? How do you sense what would be in the best interest of all humans and the more than human?

Speaker 1 6:35

Uh first of all, I wouldn't call myself currently an ecocentric leader or steward, but more the aspiration to really give that more fully space in my way of practice in the way I make decisions in the way we call it. So it's really more an aspiration, uh North Star, a pole star, than actually something I would claim as already being fully there. And who knows, maybe that is just the practice in itself, and rather than the role or the definition of the role. And how to do that? I mean, first of all, I think it has a lot to do with by way of speaking, decolonizing my way of approaching work, um, meaning opening up to wider ways of knowing, connecting to aspects, sources of inspiration, pattern tracking that are often in a more linear worldview, in a more top-down worldview, um are excluded or are minimalized or even undervalidated, undervalued, and forgotten. And so it's even way in a way this this also a form of claiming back that not only listening to each other, meaning other human voices and their perspectives, is critical, but also how do we relate to what Anais also referred to before, to the more than human, to the subtle, where intuition is equally important to pay attention to as dreams, as being in conversation with a tree or a riverbed, and of course, these conversations look different than if I would sit now in a cafe and talk to someone. But this understanding that if I still my mind not well enough, but but um yeah, if I still my mind, suddenly there is more that opens up that I become aware, and through that awareness, maybe another form of insight may emerge of what would be actually beneficial. And there is also, of course, very much this notion of we never know. So the triangulation by way of speaking, taking different sources of info, perspectives, voices, understandings into account instead of a mono channel becomes very critical. Like when you travel at sea, you're not just orienting with one or the other, you always triangulate in order to have a sense where are you and where do you navigate towards? And are you on track? Are you on course? But there is a lot of uncertainty that comes with it, a lot of honestly, vulnerability in how we make the decisions, which decisions do we take, what are the consequences, and it requires a constant listening, acting, and then adapting according to the responses that come back.

Speaker 10:12

So you you use the word we a number of times, and both of you are co-leads of the World Ethic Forum. So I wonder what how does that work in practice, this form of leadership, uh, even as an as an aspiration, as something that is done by two people, and I imagine by more people who join in this process rather than one person only sensing and guiding. How do you uh how does this coordinated co-leadership work as a way of relating to uh the human the more than human?

Speaker 2 10:48

Yes, so I would say, you know, co-leadership or co-leading something is by no means something unique to us or something new, but especially also with uh the influence of holocracy, of sociocracy, there are more and more uh organizations that also have flattened, I would say, their their structures and that really look um into engaging also in different forms. So, how it plays out for us at the World Ethic Forum, and we're also still in the process of exploring that because as an organization we're still quite small, um, but of course, we have this fire keeper circles, so we have these uh around 50 people who together we are in a process of inquiry for seven years, and so it of course in our let's say almost governance structure also depends on what are the topics, what is it about. So, for example, if it is about um expanding our circle to new fire keepers, we have a curation circle where next to Lua and myself, who are also fire keepers, we have three other people from the fire keeper circle, and together we then look in a co-defined uh process who you know shall be invited to join our circle. This is just one of the many areas where we kind of say, well, it needs a bit of broader basis than for any kind of decision-making than just the two of us. The other thing, and there we're also still learning on how to truly integrate that, is of course, how do we go about making any decisions and what do we take into account? And you mentioned again, you know, the more than human and how does that manifest. So I think one important thing is what uh Luea mentioned is these wider ways of knowing. So it is not just about you know setting criteria for something and then deciding according to those criteria fully, but it's really about opening up also to um dreams, to intuition, to maybe things which come up in a meditation, in a shamanic journey, in constellation work or system sensing work, or each one of us has you know different also methods, and then also noticing kind of what really happens in the moment. So, you know, if there is something that let's say there's a very strong gust of wind, and my window opens at a moment to kind of notice that and recognize that without kind of looking for other uh ways of meaning making actively, but just acknowledge in every moment what is actually there and taking that also into account. And it is a process where we're still, you know, learning and doing, and also we you know, it is also, especially for me, also a way of unlearning that is a big part of this, unlearning how how you do things, unlearning how you take decisions. So I would say it's still a process really in the making.

Speaker 15:15

I'm wondering as you as you speak of embracing those practices, taking dreams into account, wider ways of knowing, shamanic traveling or um unlearning things. How do you bring others on board for those practices? How do you expand them or give them the legitimacy that they that they deserve?

Speaker 1 15:42

I guess we can only speak from the fire keeper circle. And the people who who are part of this circle, they all have their forms of practices already widely embedded through the leadership roles they had, community-building roles they do embody and and inform through the learnings they had at their own edges and challenges of what that means to really act from and lead from an ecocentric point of view. Knowing, of course, even that word can be for certain things problematic. So also we treat these terms lightly, knowing depending where we come from and how we relate to certain um discourses, we may be actually critical to the word. So for us, it's also really important to acknowledge it's not so much about the word, but how we then give it meaning through our actions. And so that said, I think most of our fire keepers, or all of them, they they are practitioners in multiple ways of informing themselves, being it through having a lot of experience with multi-stakeholder processes, where it is normal that you have to find different forms between different opinions and perspectives and discourses, or people who are you know practitioners in somatic embodied practices, others in hosting practices, etc. So in our work, I wouldn't say that we try to bring others on board, it's more like sharing what works for us, and and therefore enriching each other and learn from and with each other through seeing the variety, the pluriversal ways of how we can actually get in contact with more than our rational cognitive understanding, and often, as Anais said, our conditioned way of looking at the world can actually take shape. So in our in our vessel, it's really more like ah wow, this is also an access door, or ah wow, this is also practice that enlivens certain capacities in us, which then again make us more sensitive or more aware or more um cautious, maybe even to dynamics, to patterns socially, um personally, uh interpersonally, and therefore also starting to or not only starting but to uh widen our capacity as groups to be with intensity, with complexity, with things that come up with the stuff, the messiness that comes up when you go on such an inquiry of how can radically share the liveness, the culture of care and kinship be embodied in the real world, not out there, but here so how does that then affect the rest of your lives?

Speaker 19:09

Because I imagine that embracing this form of uh stewardship, this form of practice would ripple all through the way that we are in everything else. Is this something that you've observed? Are there any moments when you thought, oh wow, this thing I've done over there at the World Ethic Forum, now this is showing up here?

Speaker 2 19:30

That's a very interesting question because I actually think it's almost the other way around. The practices, of course, that we also bring to the World Ethic Forum, you know, these practices, some of these have accompanied us for decades, and now, you know, in a way they found a home, or where it's um where we invite others to also fully show up uh with the practices that they are doing. But for example, you know, speaking with plants or with animals, that's something which for me started as a child, and kind of listening to what I hear, you know, there were certain maybe professional contexts where this wasn't accepted, appropriate, or at least I didn't dare to even bring it up. And so, in a way, I would say it's there there is a this kind of feeling of that it's reinforcing in a way the valid validity of practices which were not able to fully show up um in their entirety. In um I don't make this distinction between work and life anyhow so strongly. I I just realize that as well when I'm as I'm speaking, because for me, for example, also what we're aiming uh for, you know, at uh what what do I say what we're aiming for, but the process that we're going through of inquiry, it's kind of at the World Ethic Forum, that's kind of uh potentially a lifelong process, and it integrates us in you know who we are, uh in what we do, in how we do it, on in why we do it, and in who we do it with. So it is much broader than just. Just, you know, saying this is an organization to which we bring certain practices.

Speaker 22:06

Thanks. Thank you. Luea, earlier you were saying something that uh stayed on my mind when you used, I think, multiple times the uh the expression, if I still my mind, uh, as a way of sensing what would work or what would be relevant in uh in context for decision making. And I'm wondering about this stilling of the mind. Uh, because being in a position of decision making also comes with the need to take a lot on and a sort of pressure. And how do you how do you manage this tension between those two?

Speaker 1 22:45

Great question. Thank you. I think first of all is the acknowledgement that it is a tension in itself. Uh so to not kind of try to you know solve it or overcome it or fight it. That's for me, I think, where you I would otherwise add another tension on the tension, and then it becomes a tension as tension uh ongoingly. It has to do a lot with personal practice, and for me, personal practice means really rigor, um, rigor in terms of discipline. I don't speak from a rigid place, but I speak from like a top athlete or musician. You just have to keep training your muscles and your awareness, your alertness, your presence in order to be able to not only perform, because it's not about performance as such, but to really be at the top. I mean, at the top, also not again from there's below, but to be really uh mastering the crafts that that this work requires. And for me, so it has to do with you know contemplative practices, ensuring I'm well in my body, I have a connection to my whole system, I'm aware of how I feel, I'm also dealing and welcoming when stuff comes up, knowing that in my case, at least often a lot of the collective stuff that happens in our work is also becoming visible in in microdoses in myself. And so I maybe pick up a tension that may resonate with an own pattern in me, but it also of the collective, so it's not just this um reduced um this is me, and then the collective work starts, but acknowledging also the interdependence that they takes place there, and the importance of really paying attention again to these small cues that if I would override, I would either pretend I'm totally fine or I'm getting sucked into overwhelm or whatever forms of stress. So it's that constant equilibrium finding that dancing with how can I ensure I stay aligned in me, with me, and therefore also bringing clarity in the way I show up, in the way I speak, in the way I relate with everyone involved and the work uh at hand. And the stilling of the mind is not to say stop, I don't want to listen, but more like ah, you can also relax, and again, that deconditioning, that unlearning of what would be the you know, the normal patterns or behaviors, and to ensure that while we do the work, and I think that's for me also resonating to what we said before. Part of that unlearning is the work. It's not just where do we end, where do we get to, what outcomes do we produce, but acknowledging the relearning and the being inspired by each other, being expanding our own capacities and expanding our own understanding of being in a relation with giving shape to a culture of care and kinship, is the work. So it's not just the results and how we bring it into our different places and contexts, but it's also how we ourselves allow ourselves to be re-patterned and rewired, including restoring fractured understandings from these global patterns, these collective patterns that we see that live in us equally as they live in communities and our society at large.

Speaker 26:59

Thank you. I love that you spoke of mastering the craft. And I'm I've been thinking of the craft as something that picking back up what you were saying of humans as being able to contribute to something, to the care for the world, craft as this way that we can relate to the material world and find the beauty in the piece of wood or find the beauty in the clay. And so I was wondering, it's sort of a question for both of you, but with this craft of ecocentric leadership, what becomes possible? What kind of beauty can we reveal about the world through this craft?

Speaker 2 27:40

Well, the beauty of joy, of wonder, of awe, of belonging. I think to these in these days, in these times, many of us actually seek belonging. And this craft of care, this craft of relating means that you can sink into this very deep knowing of belonging, that you belong to this planet, that you're part of it, that you're meant to be here right now. And I think that is one dimension of it. The other thing, the more material dimension, is to value again the material things. In a time when we have been taught to just purchase something, use it, and discard it. If you really look at any object with care, be it for example, let's take a jumper, and you know, you mend it when it breaks, you repair it, maybe you've you give it to someone, maybe you got it from someone, then this material objects object actually becomes something which carries a story, and this storyline weaves across different beings, it maybe weaves across the sheep from which you got the wool, it weaves across maybe your friend who wore it before you, it weaves across um your own efforts to mend the hole, and so it becomes something special, it's no longer something which you kind of order on the internet, you wear it once or twice, and then you think, oh, fashion has changed, and you know, you discard it or give it away, but the material in itself becomes valuable again, and so I think this craft of relating has some very, very, very profound implications also in our relationship and to the material world, and it leaves us also with a feeling of abundance. So, sufficiency, you know, when we actually only take what we need is something so beautiful when then every object that we have, you know, is attended to with care and meaning and becomes something that we can relate to very deeply.

Speaker 1 30:58

There is also this tendency that beauty is a is a form of resistance. A lot of people speak about hope or having given up hope or being in despair and overwhelm or still, you know, or still having hope. And for me, beauty and the the tending to beauty means I relate to, I I see, I'm in awe, I'm enchanted, I'm I'm I'm not taking things for granted. Again, highlighting what Ana is just said about that sufficiency. I'm I'm I'm allowing things to touch me, and in in country, also being aware I do touch others, so it goes both ways. But seeing beauty as a statement of not just beautifying in terms of like, I'm not speaking here of Botox lips and I don't know what, uh, and a standardization of beauty, that's not what I mean. And of course, again, I'm just aware while speaking of how beauty has become an industry and a money-making machine, but from a very limited understanding, instead of seeing the beauty of a flower that cracks through the concrete, or the beauty in the morning hearing the first birds, or the beauty of being given a little gift that has meant for someone something very special and is now being given to me. So it's this beauty in the ordinary almost as a as a way of yeah, a form of cultivating, watering that that culture, that soil of care and kinship. And that of course requires, first of all, seeing beauty beyond the standardization of beauty, seeing the magic of life by a pulsing, ongoing heart that I don't take for granted until it stops, or until I have maybe a problem with.

Speaker 35:06

Stewardship as the art of perceiving beauty in the world that we have and caring for it when it is there. Thank you both. Uh thank you for joining me for this podcast. Thank you for joining us today. We're making this podcast to track the ripples of our inquiry and harvest some of the learnings we make along the way. It's our attempt to name and articulate things that are often left unspoken, too subtle to capture in words. If something resonated with you, we hope that it can inform your practice and benefit the collective spaces around you. Everything we mentioned in this episode is in the show notes. You can also find more at WorldethicForum.com. In our next podcast, we will be talking about fire keeping. We look forward to having you with us again.