Shifting The World

Inner Work That Yields Outer Change

Let’s be honest. There are moments in leadership when it feels like the world is failing — rigid systems, stubborn people, tired cultures. You plan, communicate, lead with care, and still the external reality seems to work against you. But here’s the deeper truth that the world you’re experiencing is often a reflection of your inner state.

Society Lives in Us

I am not saying that you control or responsible for everything (I can hear the disappointment or some and relief of others). But it means that through changing your internal relationship to a problem (shifting perception, intention, and energy), the external reality often responds to match what is inside. Not always instantly and the way you want it. But profoundly.

“You are the world, and the world is you. Without understanding yourself, you cannot possibly understand society.” J. Krishnamurti

Krishnamurti said it clearly: “Society is not separate from us. We are society.” In leadership terms, this means your culture, your team dynamics, and even your sense of what’s possible are not out there waiting to be fixed — they are shaped, moment by moment, by the energy and attention you bring to them:

• When you feel unseen, you may lead from withdrawal or overcompensation — and your team reflects that in either being stressed or complacent.

• When you’re anxious about control, your systems tighten — and people begin to hold back and be resistant to anything you propose.

• When you lead from presence, trust, and alignment — even subtle shifts in tone — the team starts to mirror back coherence and respect you.

Changing how you see the world changes how you are in the world. And how you are changes what becomes possible.

A 7-Step Leadership Practice To Shifting The World

This isn’t just philosophy — it’s practice. Here’s a process I use myself and teach in executive sessions to help leaders shift from reactivity to creative agency.

1. Become aware of your feelings: Before you act, pause. Check your inner climate. Are you tense? Calm? Frustrated? Hopeful? Emotion is the first signal. It tells you that something matters.
   

2. Give feelings a voice: What’s underneath the emotion? Anger might be fear. Impatience might be grief. Ask: What’s this part of me trying to protect or reveal? Don’t rush to fix it. Just give it space to speak.
   

3. Integrate with Other Parts: You’re never just one feeling. You’re a whole ecosystem. Once the deeper truth is seen, ask: How does this voice integrate with other parts of me? Bring coherence between your courage, care, fear, and focus.
   

4. Set an Intention for the Outer World: What quality do I want to bring into the world?Not a goal. A presence. A tone. A shift. It might be: Calm. Courage. Generosity. Trust. Precision. Your inner state becomes the seed of the outer reality.
   

5. Move as If You Belong to That World: Ask yourself, if I was in a world that already has achieved my intention what would I feel? This needs to come from the heart not head, e.g. not 'I want a peaceful world' but 'I want to feel peace in this world' Once you do this, generate that feeling through imagination or memory till it becomes you.
   

6. Stay Open to Inspiration: When you're not fragmented inside, inspiration finds you. You become more available — to ideas, to people, to solutions that weren’t visible before. You will then start attracting small and big ideas that will lead you there.

7. Enter the World You Believe In Through Aligned Action: by following that inspiration you start entering the world you believe in. You will notice shifts and perhaps changes. However you need to do two paradoxical things: let go of getting it your way and letting go of the fear of results.

Inner Work, Outer Change

This may sound mythic — but it’s profoundly practical for shifting the world. Your belief shapes your perception. Your perception shapes your decisions. And your decisions shape the world. What you believe is possible — with your team, your organisation, your leadership — influences the version of reality you co-create. If you are a successful leader, this is what you do everyday. When managers and leaders do this inner work, here’s what changes:

• Teams start to feel safer — not because of HR policies, but because the leader carries safety in their body.

• Conflict becomes creative tension — because the leader isn’t afraid of emotion.

• Strategy gains soul — because it’s no longer just goals, but guided by intention.

• You don’t need to fix the system. You need to become the condition in which change becomes possible.

References

• Brown, B. (2018). Dare to lead: Brave work. Tough conversations. Whole hearts. New York: Random House.

• Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. New York: Bantam Books.

• Krishnamurti, J. (2000). The first and last freedom (Reprint ed.). San Francisco: HarperOne. (Original work published 1954)

• OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT (July 18 version) [Large language model]. Available from https://chat.openai.com

• Scharmer, O. (2009). Theory U: Leading from the future as it emerges. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

• Siegel, D. J. (2010). The mindful therapist: A clinician’s guide to mindsight and neural integration. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

• Wheatley, M. (2006). Leadership and the new science: Discovering order in a chaotic world (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.