In my latest audio post, I share how insights from an Alliance Magazine piece (a philanthropy-focused publication) align with what I’ve seen in change making and leadership in the sustainability and climate world.
My argument for making change that matters has long been that we have to get a bit uncomfortable and give ourselves permission as leaders to be seen living our climate values in order to have peer nudging, social norm shifting impact. Being seen as a traditional idea of a thought leader is not working.
The key here is to be seen leading through personal climate values as a reflection on how those then are interpreted in your business decisions.
In other words, if you're seen leading in a way through your personal climate values, You're going to be more trusted as you start to change policies in your work.
And:
The authors of the article, Maria Chertok and Chandrika Sahai, then wrote about how, in their research, the people who have transformed their work so that actions now truly embody change all started with a “nagging sense of dissatisfaction with the current system in which they worked.” Does that sound familiar?
Then:
…in order to embrace this change, these participants had to let go of their power, privileges, and comforts. What are we all willing to let go of in order to counter this nagging dissatisfaction and really do things differently? Are we at all ready to get uncomfortable and be more visible with our personal values, especially at a time in history like this?
And:
(Listen to full audio post below.)
It's you as a leader recognizing that you are both a participant and somebody with a platform who can really boost it. I mean being part of something and perhaps having an extra edge on being able to jumpstart climate leadership momentum feels like a thrilling prospect.
In this audio post, I also point to my recent LinkedIn piece on how words matter - even if that means you need to omit them, and even when it comes to omitting the terms I, myself, use frequently :-): “climate” and “influence”.
Words do matter. And, any good editor will tell a writer to cut, cut, and cut again. So, removing cl#m%te may be a good option that also energizes our storytelling creativity. Then, we can all more loudly “love up” those words that cannot become triggers no matter what: joy, health, money-saving, and thriving, resilient communities…
We don’t need one specific label to innovate, make huge progress, build community, and love our neighbors. So many of the shifts we will continue to forward simply make good health and economic sense.
What do you think? Are we ready to, as Buckminster Fuller suggested, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete? Can a focus on health and economics - no mention of climate - drive climate action even in this moment? Are there leaders out there who you see nimbly shifting in this messaging direction? (Love them UP, and then let me know who they are so that I can, too!). I’d love to hear from you.
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#ISpyClimateInfluence : You are always invited to use this tag and share (here or on Bluesky or LinkedIn) where you’ve noticed the actions of a surprising-to-you person or a new policy that may look small, but that you expect will have long term climate impact. I am growing this Climate Influence platform, including my new podcast (stay tuned) to CELEBRATE just those people, and to share as many examples as I can to prove that we already are “social-normifying” true climate values-driven leadership.
As ever, thank you for your interest in my work! I look forward to your feedback and our developing conversations, as we grow this newsletter together.
In the meantime:
I podcast. (I’d love your feedback as to whether this working-draft title would inspire you to listen to the first episode of my new show: Climate Influence, with Andrea Learned: Surprising Stories of (Doable) Heroic Disruption )
I write. Here, and via my LinkedIn newsletter - which has some additional unique content - are the best places to find my writing, but there’s also a book in the works.
See you next time!
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