Reflections of a humble servant

At this week’s B For Good Leaders Summit there was a recurring theme I can’t get out of my head: power.

Taken on its own I find it a pretty scary word, particularly in light of current world events. But at Marcello Palazzi and Leen Zevenbergen's carefully curated event in Rome it manifested in many different ways:

• The power of oratory, as you would expect from a gathering of the top table of the global sustainability movement, was in abundant evidence. Emmanuel Faber, Paul Polman, Sandrine Dixson-Decléve (President of the Club of Rome) and others all spoke passionately and persuasively about the state of the world and our role in making it better. History tells us that it’s the presence of individuals such as these that catalyses change: Mandela, Ghandi, Attenborough to name but a few.
• The power – given a fighting chance and the right conditions - of earth’s systems to regenerate and human systems (especially economic) to evolve out of the current extractive disaster zone towards a sustainable regenerative and resilient new version. This provided great stimulation at breakout sessions facilitated by the inimitable Hunter Lovins, Walter Link and the BMW Foundation.
• The power of corporate spin was never far from our minds, and crept close at times with rather more keynote net-something-by-twenty-whenever commitments than I’d travelled so far to hear.
• The power that comes with the privilege of being leaders was openly acknowledged and hit me between the eyes today as I contrasted last night’s lavish celebration overlooking the Vatican with the boarded up shop fronts in central Bristol. We were right to enjoy our party (for reasons I come on to) but we must shoulder the responsibility we all have.
• The power of togetherness was in ample evidence: the community of Certified B Corporations, represented by B Lab co-founder Bart Houlahan, our friends at B Labs UK, Europe and Germany plus countless B Corps (large and small), had the spotlight of the righteous shone on it more than once. But we are all ultimately citizens of the same planet and we need to start behaving like it.
• And the power of joy, reflected in the incredible camaderie, Aperol spritz-ed connections around shared values and called out by Sandrine as essential fuel for the change ahead. “This must be fun,” she said, and it must: this is a marathon not a sprint and we need each other’s energy to keep us at the top of our game.
• But it was the power of humility – embodied by the timeless Satish Kumar - that caught me most off guard. For change to happen we must “move from ego to eco”.

"Leadership needs courage free of ego" Satish Kumar, lifelong activist

We need to put aside ego, fear and the need for control and instead ask, listen and respond. We need a new approach to the challenge that is based in a shift in leadership consciousness – away from the need to understand and manage everything and into an era of learning by doing. Try, fail, learn, repeat. Empower your teams and ecosystems to do the same. “The more you are an expert, the less you know. If you follow the rules you won’t change anything” because the rules are no longer fit for purpose.

"I don't want to talk about myself or my company. I am just a humble servant of Planet Earth."

Olivier Legrain, CEO of IBA

We, as leaders with the privilege of power, are all just the humble servants of all those with whom we are interdependent and particularly those most affected by climate change and social inequality but don’t have the voice we do: Planet Earth, the underrepresented in our communities, our children and all who follow. We owe it to them to up our game.

Trust your intuition, have faith and humility and, above all, just get on with it.