This book review first appeared in The Journey of The Scientific & Medical Network, and was written by the Director of the Scientific & Medical Network, David Lorimer.

‘The is a brilliant, timely and paradigm-shifting book — required reading for all business leaders!’

Leading by Nature – Wordzworth 2022, 227 pp., £23.99, p/b – ISBN 978-1-78324-242-9

Following up on his & Laura’s 2019 book on regenerative leadership, Leading by Nature is Giles’s most accessible and highly acclaimed book, which is not only required reading for business leaders, but also for those who would like to understand in more detail the transition from the old industrial age of top-down organisation-as-machine metaphor to the new organisation-as living-systems metaphor based on systemic quantum complexity.

The three parts of Leading by Nature address opening into the shift of world view, embodying the shift, and manifesting the shift. Both the crisis of meaning and the environmental crisis demand this shift, which also entails developing our inner nature and an outlook of relational interconnectedness corresponding to a partnership rather than a dominator culture. Only in this way can organisations achieve future-fitness. Correspondingly, leadership consciousness needs to shift from achiever to regenerative, which Giles explains in terms of seven developmental stages, each of which has corresponding drivers, strengths, limitations, and attitudes to feedback.

Embodying the shift begins with a journey inward of knowing the self and using the three lenses of the voice in the head (developing a notice-allowing process), deeper nature and the field. Giles gives a number of bodymind coherence practices and ways of opening into deeper nature including what he calls ‘panarchy’ in terms of understanding the rhythms of transformation, letting go and acknowledging insecurities – potentially uncomfortable processes for executives, but essential if one is to change one’s embedded behavioural patterns and gain control over one’s energy and reactions. He explains how to live the virtues of regenerative leadership: balance, patience, courage and purposefulness.  

The third part discusses the principles of transition with a very interesting case study of the Vivobarefoot regenerative leadership journey by its chief executive, which makes fascinating reading and which represented a transformation of corporate culture supported by various new employee allowances for personal and professional development as well as regenerative breaks. The last two chapters introduce the systemic innovation playbook and argue why the time has come for a transformation of business culture.

Leading by Nature is a brilliant, timely and paradigm-shifting work. 

– David Lorimer, Director of The Scientific & Medical Network, and Editor of Paradigm Explorer

For more on leading by Nature, the book, tools, practices and the podcast series visit https://gileshutchins.com/leadingbynature/

You can join the LinkedIn group Leadership Immersions here https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13767578/

Here is a short video about Leading by Nature

and here is a short video about Leadership Immersions with Giles Hutchins: