In almost all of my sessions with leaders over the last week, the focus abruptly shifted from all things AI to exploring resilience in their systems. The main themes: energy, supply chains, and people.
If we were in any doubt as to the usefulness of thinking in multiple futures, aka “futures thinking”, recent events in the Middle East will surely have set all of us straight. While the escalation itself didn’t come as a complete surprise, the scale of the response and the unfolding impact on world trade have caught many off guard.
Whatever your role, wherever you are in the world, you will know that your business is (or will be) affected by what’s going on in the region and beyond. From a leadership perspective, there is much to consider, various scenarios to prepare for, and decisions that require immediate action to mitigate risk.
And while the current context is complex, noisy and uncertain, there is one thing you do have control over - your inner game.
When the world is shifting beneath our feet, our mental and emotional stability is our most undervalued strategic asset – especially when leading or advising others. Creating and maintaining space between what’s going on ‘out there’ and what’s going on ‘in here’ is where we get to make sense of things, find the clarity to make decent decisions, and act on them.
This spaciousness isn’t an abstract concept, and it’s not difficult to cultivate once we’re aware of what it feels like.
It’s in the steady pace of a morning run, the quiet focus of gardening on a Sunday morning, or the simple act of kneading bread or fixing a broken gate. It’s to be found in the moments where we’ve transcended our thinking minds in a yoga class, while organising a bookshelf or walking the dog – without listening to a podcast.
The good news is that once you’ve identified what it feels like, where to find it, and how to open up the expansiveness of this space, it’s yours to keep. The next step is to nurture and protect it.
As with all good things, there is a trade-off. It takes self-discipline to prioritise the ordinary when the extraordinary demands your attention. That non-negotiable morning walk or the time spent journaling isn’t a distraction – it’s the practice that keeps the space open, ready for you to tap into, as and when you need it.
A clear inner game is what gives us the emotional bandwidth to actually see and hear other people. We can't connect to others, be empathetic, or enjoy the expansiveness of situational awareness if we’re locked into our own stress response.
One of the things that has been worrying me over recent months and years is how easy it is to become desensitised in the face of world events, situations and revelations. Unless we are living in a war zone, have lost our job due to our company automating our role, or someone we know has been personally affected by an abuse of power, it’s all too easy to think it could never happen to us or ours.
Late last week, I was working with the leadership team of a medium-sized company, and while we were in session, I asked whether any of their staff were personally affected by the events playing out in the Middle East. I was met with blank stares. No one had thought to ask.
I got a call from the CEO this morning to say that they had made it a priority to find out – and were surprised by how many people were directly impacted. He went on to say that the simple act of asking people how they could be of support had positively shifted company dynamics.
I’ve often talked about how we have way more agency over the future than we might realise, and in this leadership team’s act of care, they exercised that agency, altering their ability to lead effectively. Corporate culture is a strange beast. It’s essentially a living, breathing, human-centred system, and communication (or lack thereof) is the lifeblood that courses through its veins.
P.S. If you’ve noticed any signals of change emerging in your business or sector over the last week or so, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Until next time, wherever you are in the world, take good care of yourself.
Best, Louise
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