Do you feel it? How do you experience it?

As political interests weaponise religious and economic levers, reinforcing limitations and polarisation, many people are attempting to find a position to take that will help them find an answer, a “right” side, or a way to relate to the world around them.

It could be argued that complexity is increasingly giving way to chaos as patterns become more challenging to discern, let alone predict.

By now, most of us have an understanding that our current systems are failing, and we share a heartfelt desire to experience and even co-create something new.

Some of us are building microcosms and blueprints to foster a better relationship with ourselves and our planet. As an inspiring example, check out the work my friend Jirra is doing in envisioning eel-centred urban design with a next-gen advisory group here. 

Others are working to support the transformation of existing systems, often seeing themselves as death doulas to the existing dominant paradigm.

For some, holding our own centre in our communities and spheres of influence and moving from reacting to responding is our most profound work at this time.

The microcosm 

Imagine this. A room where members from different teams within the same organisation come together with a vision to collaborate toward better customer societal and environmental outcomes. Many believed they had been working at cross-purposes, both figuratively and literally, from different teams.

As we work together, an insight dawns, “We all wish for the same things – so why are we not able to live what we wish for?”

I have heard this refrain often over the last year in response to political, social, and organisational realities – and through in-depth work with teams in organisations. A brighter vision for what could be possible is shared – the pathway, as always, is something to be lived.

Often dismissed as competing priorities and a lack of alignment, individuals, teams and organisations often fail to examine the real priorities that keep them stuck, or understand what they are truly aiming to align with. The need is to invest effort in confronting often uncomfortable and deeply ingrained defensive-based patterns that hold them back.

To invite and enable this examination is my work, and depending on how people choose to meet me there, we find pathways of progress.

There are multiple frameworks and explanations for the stuckness and culture clash we face – one of which is our individual and collective immunity to change. This includes the subconscious and even conscious programs that run our behaviours and choices, despite our best intentions. 

And there is a larger macro program that continually reinforces these conflicts – the one built on codes of scarcity, control, and dominance, based on false or at least partially flawed assumptions that the growth of capitalism has held as gospel. 

These codes keep us trapped in a cycle where energy is invested in remedial solutions that fail to address the deeper codes or levels of the programs that run us. Instead of experiencing the liberation that comes from going deeper and confronting the underlying codes that need rewriting—many leaders and cultures mask these codes with statements of purpose, humanity, and care but do not interrogate or transform the patterns that would allow congruence with those statements.

I see humans coming alive when they explore healthier visions and the freedom and possibility that these visions reveal. There is an energised relief at the prospect that we can co-create a better way.

The initial energy released is often stifled by a combination of a lack of courage and character to take the first steps, as well as by systems and structures that make it easy to let go of, commodify, or justify away the vision. These systems make it easy to stay in the status quo and difficult to live a new way.

If we are to lead and live with greater integrity, coherence and justice, it takes conscious discipline to bridge our intentions into actions and to no longer be subject to the systems that would keep us stuck.

I am aware of effective ways to approach this conflict from my many years working in transformation; however, these solutions need to be met with a willingness to step outside of the comfort zone of our current codes.

When we are one of the first to make that leap—whether in a team, an industry, a family, or the world—it can feel very unwise to do so. And yet, to do so is the epitome of leadership.

The choice we face now as ever – not only have consequences for our future generations and our own soulful integrity. How we chose now, stifles or invites others to take the leap or stay trapped in old codes. 

For those retreating into apathy or attempting to force different outcomes, I invite you into a space of hopeful reflection and action, free from attachment.

Apathy is an understandable response to a loss of hope; however, it does not provide the protection it promises. It erodes our life force and our soulful expression.  Attachment to outcomes can often push away the very outcomes one seeks. Force usually creates the same violence it seeks to combat. 

Instead, find a positive flow of action that comes from within and creates a blueprint of open possibility for yourself and others.

It’s simple to say, and often difficult to achieve, given the conditioning and codes we’ve absorbed. If you’d like support in this journey, we offer the Academy, which helps deepen your understanding of who you are, what you stand for in life, and develops leadership qualities that can positively influence your world.

If you’d like to find out more, email us at experience@newmillenniumleader.com. 

Generative Questions to expand and explore  

• How might I be at least 1% more courageous today in claiming the privilege of leadership?

• How might I demonstrate 1% more character and integrity in standing up for the visions we share for greater freedom, love, systemic health, justice and integrity?

• What might this look like in my community, team or world?

• How could I more deeply nurture and nourish a gentle, kind heart to enable me to lead with a balance of love and power?

• What does hope look like for me now, and how can I cultivate hope without becoming attached to outcomes?

Quotes on our theme: The Culture Clash – What is my role? 

“When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure” – Rudolf Bahro

“You can never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller  

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” – Albert Einstein 

“I release you, my beautiful and terrible fear. I release you. You were my beloved and hated twin, but now, I don’t know you as myself.” – Joy Harjo 

To learn more about how you can claim your inner peace regardless of the context we are in, read Leadership for the New Millennium.  

The book is available in paperback, e-book, and audiobook (narrated by me).

How are you navigating these times? Send your thoughts or reflections to alison@alisoncameron.com.

With love,
Alison.