The One Question to Ask About Your Actions as a Leader

Last week I was in South Africa facilitating a leadership conference for a client I’ve been working with across different countries for the past 6 years. It was a wonderful experience not only because I love working with him but also that the conference was held in the Pilanusberg Game Reserve. It’s an incredible ‘Big 5’ reserve with the opportunity to visit the animals early in the morning and have a BBQ dinner under the stars at the resort. I felt truly humbled and blessed.

My client had asked me to facilitate a discussion with his leadership team on how they could turn their business around. We spent two days taking big strides in creating an environment where people felt safe enough to open up about their issues and to commit themselves to a jointly created action plan. What was even more powerful and what shows the magnanimity of my client was that according to him:

“[I’m] Not really interested in resolving the current business challenges [since I’m] confident the leaders would do this. Instead I want to create a platform from which the company and they as a team can make a direct and significant impact on the South African society we are operating in”.

For this reason my client had invited Peter Willis, previously South Africa Director of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and now a facilitator and thought leader on Business and Sustainability, to share his insights on the responsibility of business leaders to create value in a sustainable manner. During the session and subsequent long drive to the airport I had the wonderful opportunity to pick Peter’s brain. He shared a quote that blew me away from Ray C. Anderson, the founder of Interface Carpets and a global role model in the drive for sustainable business. This realization drove him to transform his manufacturing business:

“In thirty years business leaders will get imprisoned if they do the things to the planet they currently do.”

To help business leaders think about sustainability and the importance of it Peter makes leaders contextualize what they are doing today in a larger time frame by showing that their 80 years on Earth is just an insignificant fraction of the age of our planet. And more importantly he makes it personal. The question that really got me thinking was:

What am I doing today that will help create a better life for my favorite ten year old for when he / she is 80?

I was shell shocked – I didn’t have an answer…..

We are often so self-absorbed and focused on the ‘here and now’ that we forget to step back and recognize that we are borrowing this planet and its resources from our (future) grand-children. We forget to reflect and think on how our actions as leaders today impact the world 80 years from now.

And yes, it’s about the small things we can do on an individual basis but I think we can have a multiplier effect within the organisations and teams we are leading. Who stops you from:

• Having a vision to make your organisation carbon neutral?


• Making the company an integral and net contributor to the community you are part in?


• Making sure you genuinely and sustainably impact peoples lives with the products you sell?


• Having a vision of creating a manufacturing organisation that gives back and offsets everything it takes?


• Reducing inequality and creating a platform of equal opportunities for all?

When you look deep inside you, the answer is simple, no one! In this age of the hyper-empowered and connected individuals the only person that stops you from doing this, is you.

Photo Credit: Sam Howzit via Compfight cc

The One Question to Ask About Your Actions as a Leader