Meet members of the LQ community who are inspiring inclusion

To mark International Women’s Day and embrace its theme of ‘Inspiring Inclusion’ we’re sharing the stories of five amazing women from the Leaders’ Quest community.

Renewable energy systems and community empowerment

Empowering marginalized leaders

Artivism and immigration

Transformational thinking in prisons

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The renewable energy of inclusion – and how it can power business

Leadership

The renewable energy of inclusion – and how it can power business

I’ve noticed that when things in the world feel particularly fragile, we tend to look for ways of avoiding conflict. There are so many painful and complicated issues that seem to be demanding we take a stance or form an opinion. Yet, there is more evidence that the risk of getting it wrong far outweighs any benefits of engaging at all.  

One thing that feels clear, however, is that the pressure on leaders across sectors to respond to these societal tensions and geo-political conflicts is only going to grow. So, as I’ve learned over my years facilitating across contested spaces, conflict is unavoidable.

I’ve been working with companies following the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7 and subsequent War in Gaza to help leaders navigate the intense emotions and deep challenges showing up across the workplace.

More often than that, I’m partnering with DEI teams to deliver this delicate, nuanced work. But leading through conflicts and crises is the responsibility of all leaders. Not because of any moral imperative – that’s not what this article is about. Rather, the quality of inclusion and generative conflict across organizations ties directly to the health and resilience of your business.

Conflict avoidance vs generative discomfort 

My biggest takeaway in doing this work is that the default corporate culture of niceness and acting like a ‘workplace family,’ where conflict avoidance is a stronger skill than working through generative discomfort, is inhibiting the true power of inclusion and is one of the biggest risks to business success. 

Of course being nice is a prerequisite for inclusion, but true inclusion requires much more from us. It requires us to go through difficult things together. Instead of looking for safe spaces as the hallmark of inclusion, we should be creating challenging spaces, where there is psychological safety for real conversations about the things that matter in the world and in business.   

I’d like to share some learnings from our work at Leaders’ Quest, and some of the ways we help people acquire the tools and language to better foster inclusion.

Why now?

The intensity of the current geo-political situation has brought our attention to which voices get heard when there are multiple powerful, and seemingly conflicting, perspectives. The same principles apply within businesses, and skills which used to be considered ‘soft’ such as deep listening, empathy, and seeking out different perspectives, are now top leadership competencies.

Inclusion is about making sure people feel like they belong in a system; providing access to the tools and information they need to act from a place of belonging and shared value. I think of it as a design principle for resilient systems. When the force of inclusion is released, it’s powerful: catalyzing radical collaboration, and transformative innovation.  

Meaningful inclusion (as opposed to performative inclusion) enables organizations to be more efficient, decisive, courageous and healthy. Organizations are more connected and in flow – and inclusion becomes a renewable resource inside the organization, rather than something that takes energy from it. 

But while inclusion is a non-negotiable in terms of future-fitting culture and weathering disruption, there is sometimes an aversion to conflict within organizations that erodes the potency of what it could really foster. 

To move beyond this, we need to build our collective capacity and courage. Our work is focused on equipping people with the language and tools to engage and the space to build a deliberate leadership practice fit for the future.

Releasing the power of inclusion

I’d like to share my three takeaways from this work:

• Engagement is crucial and shouldn’t be taken for granted. Even if you don’t get it right, have the difficult conversations. There is a transformative power in listening to someone without judgment and there are simple, effective tools like Marshall Rosenberg’s structure for nonviolent communication that help people to create these important spaces. We’ve been working with teams and companies to facilitate sessions that allow people to connect, question and engage with deeply challenging issues ranging from Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia to the future of Democracy.

• We need to go to the edges of our comfort zone and create generative conflict to move towards inclusion. This is an individual and organizational muscle that must be exercised consistently. We’ve partnered with incredible leaders from across our global community whose lived experiences grant them wisdom about how we go through contested space. They include CORO based in India and Chance for Life based in Detroit (at the end of the article I’ve included a link to learn more about their work). 

• Ownership across teams and leaders is fueled by inclusive cultures, where people have permission to lead and where empowerment is woven into the incentives and processes, not just the lexicon. Organizations have an opportunity to accelerate inclusion by looking at where there are structural and procedural barriers. It shifts the ‘burden’ of inclusion away from the individual and signals to your workforce that an inclusive culture, where people have access to what they need, is a business priority.  

The head, heart and hands of inclusive leadership

Inclusive leadership requires a mix of awareness, skill and courage. Sometimes I describe the capacity building work we do as falling across head, heart, and hands. We give people access to information so that they can build their knowledge in spaces that are non-judgmental and allow for curiosity to match convictions. We connect people to their shared humanity and activate their compassion, even when facing issues or perspectives that they deeply disagree with. And we have a duty of care to provide leaders with the tools to show up skilfully in situations of heightened tension and conflict. 

At Leaders’ Quest, the experiences and wisdom of our community play a huge role in the journey towards inclusion. If you’re interested in hearing from some of them, visit Celebrating Female Leadership on International Women’s Day.

It can sometimes be hard to describe what we do at Leaders’ Quest. One of the things that we do with deep skill and care is help leaders have better conflicts about the things that deeply matter – as individuals who want to be good ancestors for our children to business leaders looking to do good and do well. The skill of inclusive leadership and value of generative conflict will only appreciate in our challenging, yet beautiful world. 

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As each new year rolls in, Jayma is known to choose a word to serve as her North Star for the journey ahead. This year, we are both also drawn to a phrase that our colleague and mentor, Bill Sharpe, has shared with us: deep realism and active hope.

Looking out at the start of 2024, it can be easy to slip into the despair of our daily news feeds. Yet beyond the disheartening headlines, there is also evidence of incredible progress — both globally, and within the communities and organizations around us.

At the global level, we’ve seen significant reductions in the past year in child mortality and the number of those living in extreme poverty. We’ve made big leaps towards eradicating diseases like polio, and we’re seeing exponential change in renewables and electric vehicles at rates faster than predicted.

At the regional and local levels, we see inspiring leaders who are innovating courageously to make progress, often under the radar and in the face of great odds. This includes people in the Leaders’ Quest community with whom we are privileged to spend time, learn from and call our friends:

• In the face of unimaginable loss and trauma, the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) is a coalition of over 160 organizations — including tens of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians — that is working to build cooperation and mutual understanding. ALLMEP’s community of leaders is meeting this moment with deep empathy and the conviction that peace is possible. Experience some of their stories from the field.
  
  
• Akshaya Patra is an organization based in Bangalore that prepares and delivers two million meals to children in 20,000 schools across India every day. The team applies a sense of mission to build the world’s largest school lunch program, showcasing purposeful ambition and innovation at scale to combat food insecurity and malnutrition.
  
  
• Sweden-based Northvolt is a global leader in battery technology that is using its capacity for innovation to transform supply chains and transportation. Emma Nehrenheim, Northvolt’s Chief Environmental Officer, is working on delivering the world’s greenest battery. Her TED Countdown Talk in Detroit last July is an inspiring summary of what’s possible through clean energy, and how we can vastly reduce environmental impact while powering the future.

These stories demonstrate how facing the truth of our circumstances does not negate hope, but fuels it. We highlight these not to detract from the conflict and crises we face collectively, but to remind ourselves that human beings can accomplish extraordinary things when we choose agency over despair. Drawing from the insights of author Joanna Macy, Bill Sharpe defines hope as ‘the belief that in acting from our own sense of human integrity we are creating the possibility of a wider pattern of human renewal around us’.

Our intention for 2024 is to use deep realism and active hope to guide our choices at LQ. We see it as a leadership muscle to build daily – to stay awake to the challenges in the world, while seeking out examples that demonstrate extraordinary change is possible and is happening around us every day.

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Celebrating female leadership on International Women’s Day

Leadership

Celebrating female leadership on International Women’s Day

With so many leadership development programs on offer, ranging from business schools to the big consultancies, how can you decide which is the right choice for your senior leaders or high potentials? In this article we’ll be exploring what makes a leadership development program succeed.

Types of leadership development and how they work

Leadership development programs come in various forms, each designed to enhance different aspects of leadership. Different types may be needed depending on the ambition of the individual leader, and their organization. Types of leadership development include:

• 1.    Formal leadership development programs such as MBA programs and executive education are offered by universities and business schools. These are educational and usually include a blend of in-person and online courses.
• 2.    Workshops and seminars provide shorter-term, more intensive sessions with a specific focus such as communication, change management or strategic thinking.
• 3.    Coaching and mentoring, often seen in high potential development solutions, offers one-to-one guidance by experienced leaders or professional coaches to address individual development needs, career goals and leadership skills.
• 4.    On-the-job training includes organization-based programmes, again often for high potential development, and provides practical experience through job rotations, project leadership roles, and stretch assignments to develop leadership skills.
• 5.    Immersive programs such as leadership retreats and offsites are immersive programs that take participants out of their usual environment to focus intensively on their personal leadership and to reflect on their role as leaders.

What is experiential learning and why is it relevant to senior leaders?

At Leaders’ Quest (LQ), we believe in the power of experiential learning for successful leadership development. Experiential learning is the use of hands-on, real-world experiences that build skills, shift perspectives, and create the conditions that enable change.

This ethos has been with LQ since our inception and it’s reflected in our Quests: effective leadership development programs that we design and deliver throughout the world, that immerse leaders in the forces shaping business and society.

Quests offer a dynamic and immersive approach to the learning process that propels leadership development and enables positive change. We dial up creativity and edge to maximize engagement and cultivate learning that sticks and can be applied in a real world leadership role.

How do experiential learning programs improve leadership style?

A Quest is animated by the environment on the ground and the people we meet — not only the changemakers who inspire participants to see their roles and the challenges they’re facing in a new light, but also fellow leaders and peers who are on their own journeys alongside our clients.

To maximize impact, we embed the objectives and themes that matter most to each organization into the design of each Quest. This approach enables participants to experience the real-life application of the skills, values, and solutions they seek to emulate in their leadership style.

Factors that make Quests so effective at leadership development include: 

•  Active engagement: Quests catalyze learning in real-time, with hands-on experiences centered on achieving personal leadership and organizational goals.
•  Real-world relevance: Quests provide a front row view to the change and results that leaders and potential leaders seek, with participants gaining immediate applicability as they learn.
•  Emotional connection: Participants come away moved and inspired, with memorable insights that support their growth for years to come and enable them to become a more effective leader.
•  Diverse perspectives: On a Quest, senior leaders have the opportunity to learn from members of our global network of change-makers, ranging from business leaders to community leaders, on every continent.
•  Multi-sensory learning: Quest visits contain visceral activities and experiences that engage multiple senses and reinforce learning for participants, boosting their leadership skills.

Why Quests provide impactful learning experiences for senior leaders

On a Quest, clients don’t just see change, they also feel something different. Unexpected connections and exposure to new behaviors inspire in ways that last for years beyond.

Participants might meet a company that struggled and then succeeded at a technology transition, or scientists inventing low-carbon building materials. We might spend time with ex-offenders now working in a bakery that produces sweets for a beloved ice-cream manufacturer and learn about potential, inclusivity, and empowerment. In parallel, we could speak to the CEO of a multinational corporation on leading with purpose and fostering trust.

We build in space for reflection and sense-making, enabling participants to surface insights and share perspectives. We then discuss how to apply what they’ve learned that can be applied to their personal leadership.

What makes a successful leadership development program?

A successful leadership development program should:

• Set clear objectives with well-defined goals aligned to organizational needs or ambition
• Be highly personalized to address the needs and aspirations of individuals, and group dynamics.
• Include highly experienced facilitators who can enable participants to get the most out of the program by providing direction, or by holding space for reflection and learning.
•  Have practical application by incorporating hands-on experiences to reinforce learning and development of leadership skills.

At LQ, we deliver programs that offer this, and more. 

About Leaders’ Quest leadership development

At Leaders’ Quest, our programs provide learning, growth, and connection that set participants up to be effective leaders capable of motivating teams and helping their organization thrive.

For over 20 years, we’ve delivered Quests to clients across industries and sectors and have helped them achieve:

1. Sustained confidence around navigating complex challenges, and finding the opportunities of the future.
2.  New leadership skills that support individual and collective resilience, agility, and creativity.
3. Establishing future-focused, strategic thinking practices that leverage your strengths and create alignment across all levels of teams from high potential development to senior leaders.
4. Stronger collaboration, trust, and cohesion — underlined by renewed excitement to work together on something big.
5. A shared sense of purpose and following through on values to better serve all stakeholders.

At Leaders’ Quest we support our clients with leadership development and ambitious, purposeful culture transformation to achieve their strategic aims. We do this by immersing leaders on a journey to deepen their wisdom and capability through unforgettable programs that are aligned to strategic goals, achieve long-lasting results and prime organizations for a sustainable future. 

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It’s estimated that 800,000 manufacturing jobs are unfilled in the US alone, and experts say that the gap could rise to 2.1M by 2030. The manufacturing industry is also grappling with its emissions and waste footprint – and the irreversible effects of climate change we are already seeing as a result.

The imperative to change how we make things has never been greater. 

Last week, as part of #tedcountdown I had the privilege of leading a Quest to see firsthand the future of manufacturing in Detroit with LIFT and Siemens. It was an immersive masterclass in change management and leadership at the intersection of people and technology.

Here’s what I learned:

A stronger workforce starts with inclusive skills development

Walking through Detroit’s oldest surviving neighborhood, a juxtaposition of trendy new developments and long abandoned properties, you might be surprised to stumble upon $50 million of leading edge manufacturing research and development equipment. 

In Corktown, Detroit public-private partnership LIFT operates a 100,000 square foot facility where they are shaping new ways to accelerate technology, develop talent and convene collaborators in service of smarter manufacturing. 

Our Quest began with a visit to LIFT’s Learning Lab, a place for local high school students to gain immersive training and certification in high-demand manufacturing skills, such as robotics. They let us try out virtual welding (much harder than it looks!) — which uses VR to teach and practice welding skills and is one of many tracks offered to gain career credentials. LIFT also hosts Operation Next, a program supporting military personnel to transition into manufacturing careers. One veteran spoke candidly with us about the challenge of building a civilian career after 20 years of active duty, emphasizing the importance not just of building skills but also being given chances to apply them. 

LIFT creates career opportunities but it’s up to industry to give chances to a new, highly trained workforce by expanding hiring practices. 

The Industrial Metaverse and Digital Twins are the tech you didn’t know you need to know about

We then moved to a vast production floor to see how Siemens, a leading global technology company focused on industry, infrastructure, transport, and healthcare and one of LIFT’s industry partners, is applying emerging technologies to develop and commercialize products more sustainably, and faster. Drew Whitney showed us how the Industrial Metaverse (or IMV for those in the know) and Digital Twins allow engineers to build and test in the virtual world before any production begins. Imagine testing a car in all kinds of weather conditions but without…the car. They do that here. The reduction of waste — in materials, byproducts, and time — opens up a world of possibilities for the entire manufacturing sector, and offers a path to drastically reduce emissions from manufacturing.  

The Industrial Metaverse is critical to building a more sustainable future – and we need more passionate people who know how to work in it.

Software and robots are not replacing us (just one example)

While technology can do more and more (including teaching itself), people are driving tech’s use. Drew and his team, including mentors who have decades of experience in industry, showed us how expertise is being passed down not just through word of mouth but meticulous documentation in tech systems, supplemented by AI which updates learnings at scale. 

Highly skilled work requires mentorship and apprenticeship. New tech is enhancing, not replacing these activities. 

This work takes a whole lotta love

We rounded out the day in conversation with Christine Longroy, Senior Director of Ecosystem at LIFT and Barbara Humpton, CEO of Siemens USA… which brings me back to my title: what’s that smell? 

The smell of the production floor is almost an absence of smell — fresh, not sterile, and too subtle to be familiar. Only half jokingly, a participant asked what gave the floor its ‘I can’t put my finger on it’ scent. Likely, it’s simply the result of a clean space and clean production processes. But some of our participants observed the beauty of the production floor, describing what they saw as processes that mimicked nature — so maybe new American industry looks and smells a lot more like the natural world than we’d expect. 

Of course, the questions for Christine and Barbara went much deeper. We discussed the complexity of managing a vast global value chain, the importance of glocalization and frameworks for decision making, and how investment in communities accelerates innovation. Knowing stakeholders where they live and work, knowing what you value as an organization, and learning from experience are essential. 

We need more leaders like Barbara and Christine, who despite the challenges of the world see possibility and hope, who believe in people and innovation, who create opportunities and inspire others to do the same. 

(On that note, I highly recommend listening to Barbara’s podcast, The Optimistic Outlook.)

Conclusion

On the surface, this Quest visit was about infrastructure and technology – but it ended up really being about love, abundance, and optimism. A fun example: At one point, Cathe Reams, Siemens’ Communications Director, generously shared the shoes off her feet so a participant could explore the production floor (talk about walking the talk!).

To anyone serious about change, I leave you with this: You have to see it to understand it. You have to meet the people driving it and ask good questions to adapt yourself. And you have to put people in the center to solve the challenges we collectively face — in industry and beyond.

I’m grateful to LIFT and Siemens for inviting us to step into their world, the future. I hope their work inspires you too. 

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When I invite friends and colleagues to join me at the TED Countdown summit, I always tell them the same thing: That I find it an invaluable use of time because the three days are highly energizing and I leave optimistic that we actually have the tools to decarbonize our economies. 

This year was no exception. More than 800 people from across the globe came to talk about challenges that are alarmingly real, but where the palpable energy around solutions is also real.

What struck me the most this year was the seriousness with which people are trying to move outside their own individual lanes to understand how entire systems fit together. As we all know, one of gordion knots of tackling climate change is the need to impact all parts of systems simultaneously. My specific lane or lens in this knot is investment and climate finance.

This year at the summit we offered three breakthrough sessions— small group interactive dialogues — on finance. And to our surprise – the finance sessions filled first. A session called “Climate Finance 101” was so in demand that we ran it again. The demand came not from finance folks — but from everyone else: business leaders, NGOs, climate scientists.

Some folks confessed to finding climate finance like a black box — something they know is important but where the jargon and acronyms make it hard to access.

So we talked about finance as tools: What net zero means for the finance sector; how carbon markets fit in; what green bonds are and whether they work. What exactly is transition finance?

We talked about the successes being seen — the number of clean industries that are now profitable and at scale where money is moving easily. And we talked about the challenges — the harder to abate sectors, and in particular the urgent need to shift financing to the global south — why that’s hard and why we must do better.

That so many people showed up looking for better understanding on how money fits into the need for systems change says to me that we are all trying hard to understand parts of the system that aren’t our lane. The we increasingly collectively get that that all sorts of levers need to be pulled at the same time — and that as a part of each of our individual strategy to effect change, we all need to get more comfortable with more levers. That we need to demystify any black boxes out there so business leaders, policy makers, civil society leaders can draw on as many tools as possible as they try and drive us towards a less carbon intensive future.

So, as I promised the folks I invited, the summit was hugely energizing. And I personally left with evidence that we are getting better and better at amassing the technologies and tools that we need — and that we are looking systemically to pull multiple levers at the same time which is key. The tougher, lingering question is whether we collectively will take the tough decisions and use those tools now.

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It’s often said that we are the average of the five people with whom we spend the most time. In our globally connected world, there is almost endless scope for choosing whom we want to shape our worldview. 

Who is shaping yours?

I’ve found that since the pandemic, the circle of people that I spend time with has shrunk. I expect this may be true for you too. Despite the globalisation of work and the benefits of technology, our bubbles have actually become smaller.

In fact, the five people we spend our time with might be more homogenous than ever! This has consequences because diverse thinking is vital to working through the global challenges that CEOs are facing. By limiting perspectives to those very like our own, I believe that we lose out on some of the most special and unique parts of being human. Conversely, by expanding our worldview, we can become more rounded and more successful in all that we do.

The magic of Questing

What if you could expand your worldview in a safe space with time and guidance to make the most of it? If you could be immersed with a diverse group of people, what unexpected perspectives this might bring to your business and your own leadership?

Imagine spending time in an incredible place with fellow CEOs, plus artists, activists, indigenous people, policy makers, environmentalists, refugees, ex-offenders, and community leaders. This is the magic of a Quest (my colleague, Kim Coupounas, shares additional insights on what Quests can achieve).

What is a Quest?

When I joined Leaders’ Quest 15 years ago, I had little awareness of what Quests could achieve. I knew that Leaders’ Quest ran what sounded like leadership development events, some of them taking place in emerging markets. That sounded pretty interesting to me and so I took up the role without many expectations. It was only after I became immersed in the LQ approach that I witnessed the fundamental ‘rewiring’ that participants experience when they have the opportunity to touch and feel the world in a new and interesting way.

Fifteen years later I still get great joy from witnessing the change and catalyzing these moments. It is incredibly rewarding to be part of a project that offers up the conditions for change and enables people to tap into perspectives that they would simply not get in any other area of their life.

Changing the status quo

There is no doubt that we are hugely influenced by those with whom we spend most time. This feels comfortable for us as our natural confirmation biases are rewarded when we hear or see things that validate what we already suspected to be true. But in many spheres of our lives, including at work, our cognitive biases are keeping us trapped in the status quo and, since we are attracted unconsciously to people who think like us, we lose out on the power of diverse thinking.

Our perspective can be expanded in many ways whether it be through hobbies, travel, volunteering or being intentional about who we spend time with in our organisations. But for senior business leaders who have very little free time, these opportunities can feel few and far between. This is why Questing is such a rich experience. 

We know that many senior leaders no longer commute. They no longer travel as much. They no longer come across the diversity of people that they did in the past. So, cocooned in an ever-shrinking bubble of CEO forums, business travel and time with like-minded peers, the perspective of these global leaders risks being not very global at all.

If we can break this habit, we have the opportunity to live a much richer life. When we take intentional steps towards more diversity in our lives, we broaden our horizons, find common ground and create meaningful interactions. A worldview that is informed by diverse perspectives, such as those we enable during our Quests, brings personal enrichment, better communication skills, more capacity for empathy, and career advantages. In a world where we seem to be ever more global, yet ever more isolated, I believe taking time out to expand our worldview is invaluable. 

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Celebrating female leadership on International Women’s Day

Leadership

Celebrating female leadership on International Women’s Day

How did you react when you heard the news from the IPCC that scientists now believe with 98% certainty that we will cross the 1.5-degree threshold sometime between now and 2027?

Speaking for myself, I felt two conflicting emotions:

Firstly, I tried to switch off from the overwhelming news. Secondly, I felt numbness. nothingness. I’ve seen so much of it that it feels normalized, even though it’s anything but normal.  

As I paused and really paid attention to this piece of news, tears began to stream down my face. Tears for the injustice that those who will suffer the impact of this have contributed least to the cause.  

Citizens of Earth

I’m a proud ‘third culture’ kid. Born in Japan, Nigerian by origin, and with very deep roots. I maintain a close relationship with my mom who is from a village in South Western Nigeria called Igbojaye. In her village some of the wealthier homes just got running water – sporadically — about five years ago. So, most people still walk several miles to the river to get water for daily use.

I was fortunate to move to the US on a scholarship for high school and then to the UK on a Master’s degree scholarship. I’m now a proud Londoner and mother to a two-year old Londoner who only knows life in London so far.

I share this to articulate that I am a ‘citizen of nowhere’, and proudly so, because I consider myself a citizen of Earth. Earth is my home because I’m fortunate to have had several places on Earth I’ve called home — some in the global north, some in the global South. And I hope — along with my son — to have many more.

As a citizen of Earth, I felt a deep sadness when the UN declared the damning news that the 1.5-degree world is coming and even a bit fearful. I have friends who have chosen not to have children because of the climate emergency. I’m confident in the motherhood path I chose but I do sometimes look at my son and wonder what the world will be like when he’s my age?

And because of that question, the much bigger feeling I have — stronger than my sadness and fear — is one of urgency. Of a fire in my belly to accelerate the transformation that I believe is already underway to change the global economy into a vehicle that delivers positive outcomes for people and nature.

What does a 1.5-degree world mean for you? For your home, your country, this world you are a part of?

I will be a Hummingbird

When I think about what is required of me and of each of us working on this challenge, I’m reminded of the story of the hummingbird; told so beautifully by Wangari Maathai — the first African woman Nobel laureate.

She and several women put their lives on the line to protect and restore Kenya’s nature. Those of you who have been to Nairobi know that there’s a beautiful urban forest called Karura right in the heart of the city. This forest exists thanks of the efforts of Wangari who suffered police brutality and death threats to protect it.

Asked how she found the courage to persevere, she tells the parable of a hummingbird in an African forest: 

There is a huge forest fire, threatening to clear the whole forest. All the animals are standing by in fear and shock, and watching the forest burn. The elephant with its huge trunk. The cheetah with its fast legs. All standing by, panicked, watching. Except one little hummingbird.

The hummingbird is flying back and forth, from a local stream where it collects water in its tiny beak to the roaring fire where it drops the water. Back and forth, back and forth over and over — seemingly making no difference at all.

A lion asked the hummingbird, “what are you doing? You’re only a tiny hummingbird. What difference can you make?” And the hummingbird replied “I am simply doing the best I can”.  

Do the best you can

Wangari says “I chose to be the hummingbird. We must all be the hummingbird. We cannot just stand by, no matter how overwhelming the challenge”. I agree, one hummingbird does not make a movement, but if we all — those with small beaks, and huge trunks — do what we can, I have NO doubt in my mind that change is not only possible but is already coming.

Why am I so convinced about that? Because we as human beings have made similarly difficult large-scale changes to the way we live in the past.

If you think our task is impossible, remember that 200 years ago, slavery was the basis of our global economy.

If you think our task is impossible, remember there was a time, merely 100 years ago, when I, a woman, would not have had the right to vote in most countries around the world.

Changing those systems seemed impossible. It was too lucrative, too baked into our economic models and too embedded in societal norms. It seemed unimaginable. And yet, here we are. And what seems unimaginable now is that these systems ever existed.

The second reason I believe change is coming is because I can see examples of the positive future that’s coming, everywhere. Let me give you some examples:

• For the first time ever in the UK, in Q1 of this year, wind turbines generated more electricity than gas. 42% of the UK’s electricity came from renewable energy and 33% came from fossil fuels.
• Amazonian deforestation is down 61% year on year.
• Kenya now generates 93% of its electricity from renewable sources, and is building the potential to power the world with clean energy, which could provide jobs and sustainable development for millions of people.

These statistics, plus economic signals, political signals and polls that represent what people want, are pointing in the right direction. Change is happening. The question is how we can make it happen faster? How can we make it happen fairly? And what is our role as leaders in accelerating that shift?

We need wise leaders

I’m a Partner at Leaders’ Quest, an organization dedicated to growing wise leaders for a regenerative future. I use the word ‘wise’ very deliberately.

As human beings, we have grown in what we can call our ‘cleverness’ at a remarkable rate. That is – our technical abilities. We’ve put a man on the moon. We’re on the cusp of the next wave of artificial intelligence that will transform the way we live.

But as our cleverness has increased exponentially, you can see a similar exponential increase in many of the world’s problems. Global temperature rise. Loneliness. Obesity. Deforestation. Inequality.

So, while we have grown in cleverness exponentially, our growth in what we might call “wisdom” has been much slower. It has flatlined.

What I have learned in 10 years of working on systemic global challenges, is that technical solutions are only part of the picture. As leaders, part of our task is to grow our ability to see this bigger picture. To develop our wisdom alongside our cleverness.

This starts with deepening our self-awareness and understanding how to see the world from multiple points of view. Understanding that our mindset really shapes how we see the world, can shape how we then choose to act as a result.

A 1.5-degree world is coming. We are failing our fellow human beings on that front. But it’s not too late to create the movement of clever and wise leaders that can change the trajectory of our future. And that movement begins with each and every one of us.

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“You’ve changed my life,” he said.

He then proceeded to share the kind of radical shifts that happened in the months and years following his experience on a “Quest” led by Leaders’ Quest.

I’ve heard this same personal transformation story at least 10 times from LQ alumni these past six months since joining this company, each story with its own twists, personal epiphanies, and subsequent life changes.

Some individuals found the courage to radically change the direction of their companies.

Some quit their jobs and changed careers.

Some shifted their gaze and work to figure out how they can make a difference in the world.

I’ve heard it from global multinational CEOs, climate change agents, everyday citizens, nomadic adventurers, and everything in between.

When I decided to join LQ in 2022, I’d been drawn into LQ’s orbit by the brilliance they lent to the co-founding of TED Countdown. I got to know LQ a bit and its luminous founder, Lindsay Levin, leading up to TED Countdown’s launch in 2020. The genius, passion, and commitment of the people behind that launch – including both TED and LQ – were evident and stunning in every aspect of the event. 

And I committed to finding ways to collaborate with them again in the future. Little did I know that I’d be joining LQ full-time as a Partner in 2022! 

When I joined LQ, my knowledge of their work was colored primarily by TED Countdown. I didn’t really have a sense yet of what LQ is most known for: its signature Quests.

What is a Quest?

Quests are powerful learning experiences designed to inspire and equip leaders to tackle complex global challenges by taking them into unfamiliar environments to be immersed in the forces shaping our future.

I had my first real taste of Questing when I led visits for a group of rising Partners at a major global consultancy in London this past November.

During one Quest, we visited Shashi Verma, the Chief Technology Officer at Transport for London who was also the creative genius behind the Oyster card, the largest smartcard-based ticketing system in the world.

The conversation between Shashi and the Partner was dynamic and inspiring. The Partners were wide-eyed and fully immersed in the experience. It was a delight to witness and be a part of. My love affair with LQ-style Questing was born that day.

A Quest can change your life via:

Active engagement: It emphasizes hands-on experiences and active participation, allowing you to engage directly with the learning material, enhancing retention and understanding as compared to passive learning methods.

Real-world application: It provides you with opportunities to apply both theoretical concepts and practical skills learned in real-world contexts, such as leadership, decision-making, adaptability, and problem-solving, which are transferable to different settings, including educational, professional, and personal contexts.

Emotional connection: It often involves emotionally engaging activities that elicit strong responses. By experiencing a wide range of emotions, you are more likely to remember the associated lessons and develop a personal connection to the learning process.

Reflection & sense-making: It emphasizes reflection where you analyze your experiences, draw insights, and connect them to broader concepts or principles. This reflection process deepens understanding and helps you extract valuable lessons from their experiences.

Collaboration & communication: It involves group activities that require collaboration and effective communication among participants. These experiences promote teamwork, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills, which are valuable in many aspects of your life.

Personal growth: They challenge you to step out of your comfort zone, confront fears, and push your limits, building self-confidence and developing resilience as you realize your capabilities and learn to overcome obstacles.

Long-lasting impact: It creates memorable and transformative experiences. The immersive nature of these programs can have a lasting impact on your attitudes, behaviors, and perspectives, leading to continued growth and development even after the program ends. When experienced at an organizational level involving multiple participants, it can drive culture change at scale. Many of the LQ “alumni” I’ve met these past months talk about their transformational LQ Quest experience as if it happened yesterday.

Who is Leaders’ Quest?

I’ve never shied away from ambitious, world-changing organizations, and Leaders’ Quest is no exception. LQ’s mission is “to develop wise leaders to build a regenerative future.”

One of the key ways LQ achieves this is through Quests. They’ve been leading Quests for over 20 years, delivering 500+ transformative learning programs around the world. And they’re not just good at it, they’re GREAT at it, by which I mean they deliver a world-class level of facilitative genius applied to humans and organizations in ways I’ve never seen before.

This is no ordinary c-suite advisory and consulting firm. Given my short time at LQ, I can brazenly say and with zero concern about it coming across as a sales pitch:

Leaders’ Quest changes lives. And it’s changing the future.

As a result of LQ’s genius, we’re been hired by some of the smartest, most successful and purposeful leaders and companies in the world, including Google, PwC, Bain & Co., Lord Abbett, PepsiCo, S&P, Daimler, Vodafone, CEMEX, HSBC, P&G, and many others.

Coming full circle in my career

I’ve recently realized how my professional life has come “full circle” in joining LQ. I spent several pivotal years early in my career in senior leadership roles at organizations that drove personal growth through experiential learning.

I was drawn to those roles because my most powerful personal learnings in life have come through real-world experiences – especially travel and outdoor adventure. I believed so much in this style of learning that I even became an Outward Bound instructor in my spare time because I wanted others to have the kind of life-changing wilderness journeys I’d had the privilege of experiencing.

Now and then, I tell my husband that I’ve got “itchy feet,” and he knows he’d better start packing for another crazy boundary-pushing expedition into the unknown. Every odyssey deepens me, changes me in fundamental ways. To realize that I’m once again having the privilege of supporting individuals on similar transformational journeys is almost too good to be true.

Every day I discover more and more powerful ways that this small-but-mighty consultancy is forging leaders who have the courage and perspective to tackle today’s most complex global social and environmental challenges.

Every leader I know deserves an LQ Quest experience.

To learn more about why I believe that every company I know NEEDS this experience for their team to help them meet the challenges of our day, take a look at a more in-depth piece on Medium here. 

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