Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Hosted by Maureen Metcalf

Conversations with global thought leaders on leadership, culture, and innovation—designed for executives navigating complexity and building resilient organizations.

How Do Leadership and the Environment Connect?

Episode Description

Kathleen Allen and Rian Satterwhite argue that leadership itself must adapt to a changing world, and that leaders should now treat the biosphere as one of the primary frames of leadership. Rather than viewing environmental concern as peripheral, they position it as central to building resilient, sustainable organizations. Drawing on Allen’s nature-inspired leadership work, they suggest that living systems principles and nature’s adaptive cycles can serve as models for how organizations develop, adapt, and endure.

Key Takeaways

Leaders should treat the biosphere as one of the primary frames of leadership.
Nature offers a powerful model for adaptive, effective leadership practices.
Living systems principles and adaptive cycles can inform organizational development.
Environmental consideration is central, not peripheral, to resilient and sustainable businesses.
Adapting leadership to a changing world means learning from nature’s own resilience.

Why This Episode Matters

Executives come away with a fresh, nature-inspired frame for leadership, one that treats environmental resilience as central to building organizations that adapt and endure.

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Featuring

Rian Satterwhite & Kathleen Allen

Episode Topics

Enterprise Risk • Ethics & Moral Decision Making • Organizational Transformation

Podcast Air Date

January 22, 2019

Episode Duration

43min

Watch the episode

Season 5

Episode Number 2

Episode Content:

Leadership is changing in so many ways, in large part because our environment is changing in so very many ways. That’s true of the business climate as much as nature’s environment. Are the two related?

Absolutely, according to guests Kathleen Allen and Rian Satterwhite. From both Kathleen’s senior organizational perspective and Rian’s academic research findings, leaders must now consider the biosphere as one of the primary frames of leadership. The result? A more resilient and sustainable business. They provide some background and practical practices you can take.

Produced in partnership with the International Leadership Association: https://ilaglobalnetwork.org.

Other episodes you’ll enjoy:

– Stewarding the Future of the Planet: Views from the Boardroom with Helle Bank Jorgensen

– Delivering the Future: Amazon’s Innovation Culture with David Carbon, John Love, Dr. Vin Gupta, & Tye Brady

– Reflections on Women in Leadership with the Right Honourable Kim Campbell

Resources:

Both of our guests have books explaining more about their leadership and environment principles. Rian co-edited Innovation in Environmental Leadership: Critical Perspectives, on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3QpaxnM. Kathleen’s book is Leading from the Roots: Nature-Inspired Leadership Lessons for Today’s World; it’s available in paperback at https://amzn.to/45ZdlO3 and for Kindle at https://amzn.to/3tUc11y. (Note: as an Amazon affiliate, we may make a small commission on any of these book sales.)

You can also learn more about Kathleen’s work on her website: https://kathleenallen.net/works.

Our host, Maureen Metcalf, posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI. Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Books we’re reading for fun or personal development right now include:

Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood by J. Michael Straczynski
Own the AI Revolution by Neil Sahota
Time and Chance by Kim Campbell
Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, the Man Who Created Nancy by Bill Griffith

Other episodes you’ll enjoy

Inside Amazon’s Big Bets: Leading on Climate and Delivery with Kara Hurst and Sarah Mathew
Leading in Circles: The Inevitable Circular Economy with Christoph Hinske
Leading Indigenous Clean Energy with Chris Henderson

Guest(s):

Rian Satterwhite & Kathleen Allen

Guest(s) Bio:

Dr. Kathy Allen helps organizations and individuals create meaningful change using Nature as a model for more effective leadership practices. In recent years her time has been spent writing, presenting, and consulting on ways to incorporate the concepts of living systems and Nature’s adaptive cycle to leadership, human, and organizational development. Dr. Allen’s clients include executives, non-profit organizations, businesses, and collaborative networks based in the United States and in countries around the globe.

She is the author of the popular book Leading from the Roots: Nature Inspired Leadership Lessons for Today’s World. Along with Dr. Cynthia Cherrey, she is the co-author of Systemic Leadership: Enriching the Meaning of Our Work.

Rian Satterwhite’s research focuses on understanding and examining effective leadership. As Director of the Office of Service Learning at UNLV, Satterwhite helps to advance leadership development and community service. He advises UNLV faculty in building meaningful partnerships into their courses, and also supports students experiencing food and housing insecurity.

Satterwhite has delivered more than 30 national and international conference talks and presentations. He is active in the International Leadership Association, the Association of Leadership Educators, NASPA, ACPA, and the National Association of Campus Activities, among others. He has been featured in numerous publications about leadership and co-edited the 2018 book, Innovation in Environmental Leadership: Critical Perspectives.

Transcript