We are aware of the multiple crises our world is facing. We know that change is needed, urgently, across all areas of society. But what if the missing piece is not a better strategy, a smarter policy, or a more efficient organization, but a more honest relationship with ourselves?
In the early years of 2000, as a young cognitive psychologist, I became increasingly concerned about the severe crises our societies and our entire planet are facing. I remember many conversations with my then partner, some of them heated discussions, where I argued that to solve them, individuals have to change their values and actions before anything else. His position was that, above all, politicians would have to make new regulations that force business organizations to do less harm and do more good, and only then individuals would follow. Back then, he convinced me: I shifted the focus of my research interests to organizations, especially businesses, and the question of how to change them, and became an Associate Professor specializing in organizational change toward sustainability.
Now, some 20 years later, I feel that I have come full circle. I firmly believe that large-scale change is rooted in individual change — more precisely in a profound, embodied change in our understanding of how the world should be, what is feasible and desirable, what is valuable to achieve and protect, and what is allowed to die. In her foreword to the book “Earth for All”, Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC and the person who shepherded the Paris Agreement, put it succinctly: “Large-scale change is surprisingly personal.” Her words serve as a constant reinforcement of my conclusion.
Let me be clear: I do not think that governments and businesses don’t have to change. But I am now convinced that a personal change is a requirement for this — not only from these decision makers, but in the end from all of us. Not only in our private lives as consumers or parents, but also in our job roles as researchers, policy-makers, business leaders, and employees across all domains. This personal change lies at the core of what is needed.
The reason is that all of us, every day and in every single decision, act based on our concerns — the matters that are relevant and that we care about — as well as our needs. These needs can be basic, such as putting food on the table, or more sophisticated, such as being successful, or being seen. The latter may often feel nearly as urgent as the former. These needs and concerns are, in large part, based on what society has told us is necessary to be accepted, admired, and loved, and what we believe our peers, acquaintances, or family members expect us to achieve and to do.
As long as we have those needs, as long as we crave to meet those expectations, we won’t be free as change leaders. This is uncomfortable territory. I know, because I have had to sit with my own needs and concerns, and it was often not pleasant. I am still learning which of my them drive me toward the work, and which ones have been quietly keeping me from the work I most want to do. And while I am in no way near the end of this process — if there ever will be an end — I have also seen what becomes possible on the other side of that sitting. So here is what I have found most helpful.
Become aware of your field of concerns.
Begin to consciously feel the needs and concerns that drive you. Sit with them. Explore them. Which of these are physical, existential needs, and which are deeper ones? Which arise out of care, and which out of fear, fear of failure, of being seen, of not being enough, of losing what you have built? Where do these come from? How do they feel in your body? What do they make you do, and what do they stop you from doing?
Be kind with yourself. Each of them is with you for a reason. They served you once, and perhaps they still do. But some of them are also quietly running the show, shaping your decisions, the moments where you remain silent in the face of injustice or harm, the compromises you make despite better knowledge — without you even being aware of it.
Freeing yourself from concerns that no longer serve you cannot be forced, only invited. Through reflection, sensing, meditation, and patience. It requires honesty and courage to look at what is actually driving you beneath the rational arguments and good intentions. But on the other side of that looking lies something that is harder to find any other way: the freedom to act from what actually matters to you, rather than from what you fear.
Become aware of the stories you carry, and the stories you tell.
About how the world works. About what is possible and what is not. About who gets to lead, what a leader looks like, who gets to speak, and what counts as serious work. About whether and how things can really change.
Pay attention especially to the stories that feel most obviously true. Those are often the ones most worth questioning. The ones we defend most fiercely are usually doing the most work to keep us safe.
Begin telling them differently. Different beginnings. Different heroes, or no heroes at all. Different endings that haven’t been written yet — about alternative futures. Notice what becomes possible when you stop narrating the world as fixed and start treating it as unfinished.
Co-creating and telling different stories is not just a thought exercise. It is a radical act of leadership. Because the future will be built by people who could imagine it before it existed.
Show yourself in your relationships.
Change at scale requires collaboration, and collaboration requires trust. Not the managed, professional kind of trust that comes from reliability and competence. The deeper kind that comes from actually knowing someone and being known.
We are often skilled at being present in a room while remaining fundamentally invisible in it. We share opinions, strategies, and concerns about the work. We rarely share what the work costs us, what keeps us awake, what we are afraid of, what we quietly hope for. We have learned to show a carefully maintained surface. But people do not follow surfaces — they follow humans. And they can feel the difference.
The practice is simple and genuinely difficult: let others increasingly see you. Not your role, not your vision, not your carefully framed narrative. You. Your joy, your gratitude, your hope. But also your uncertainty, your frustration, your discomfort. And in return, let yourself actually be moved by what others carry. That kind of encounter changes both people.
Creating the conditions
None of this can happen in the middle of a busy life. It requires something most of us have systematically eliminated from our days: time and space, solitude, and silence.
Staying with oneself, without words, without distraction, long enough that the noise inside begins to settle and something quieter can surface. This is quite uncomfortable at first. We feel we are wasting valuable time on things that need to get done. But when we overcome that initial resistance, we discover, when we stop moving, just how much we have been running from. The concerns that have been driving us. The stories we have never questioned. The feelings we have been too busy to feel.
The body is our most honest guide in this process. The mind is skilled at defending, reframing, and explaining away. The body simply registers what is true. It notices where we hold tension, where we contract, where something lifts. We can learn not just to think about a decision but to sense into how it feels to carry it. This is the most practical form of intelligence available to us, yet most of us, myself included, have learned to ignore it entirely.
When we do slow down, when we do listen, emotions may come. This is not a sign that something is going wrong. It is actually a sign that something is going right. We may find fear we have been outrunning for years. We may find grief, for what is being lost in the world, for paths not taken, for the gap between who we are and who we sense we could be. It helps to let all of it come. Emotions that are felt move through. Emotions that are suppressed leak into cynicism, numbness, and exhaustion.
And it is often easier not to do this alone, but together with others who have also chosen that path. There is something that becomes possible in a group of people who have all decided to go to this territory together. When you see someone else name what you have never been able to name, something in you unlocks. When you are witnessed in your own truth, it becomes more real.
A space for this work
The question is where to find those conditions. This kind of process does not fit neatly into a conference, a workshop, or an online course.
Together with Anneke Sools, story expert and Associate Professor at the University of Twente, I have begun creating such a space: our Leadership for the Future program. A small group of daring pioneers just completed the first round, and we are now learning from them how the program landed, to develop a new version for next year.
If something in this post has named something you have been carrying, we would love to hear from you.
Photo by Sabri Tuzcu on Unsplash
Dr. Barbara Kump 