Conscious Leadership for Sustainability:

How leaders with a late-stage action logic

design and engage in sustainability initiatives

Barrett C. Brown, Ph.D.c

bbrown@integralinstitute.org
 Our Path Today
The Context

A Little Theoretical
Background

The Research

Key Findings

Major Outcomes

Q&A
 The Context

1. Its a messy, complex world out there,

with some big stakes at play
ecologically, socially, and economically
2. Wiser and more compassionate
leadership seems to be neededbut
what does it really look like?
 It is the best of times, and the worst of times,
the age of wisdom, and the age of foolishness
We are facing issues of near-
overwhelming complexity and
unprecedented urgency. Our
challenge is to think globally and
develop policies to counteract
environmental decline and economic
collapse. The question is: Can we
change direction before we go over
the edge?
~ Lester Brown, World on the Edge: How to
Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse,
ch. 1

Title from the opening to A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Wise and compassionate leaders and change
agents are essential for a healthy future
From Enlightenment radiate
the insight, compassion, and
power needed to resolve
individual and collective
human problems as they
continue to arise endlessly.

~ Les Hixon, Coming Home: The

Experience of Enlightenment in
Sacred Traditions, p. xi
What if we could cultivate deeper capacities
amongst todays leaders and change agents?

Chris Bucklow
A Little Theoretical Background

1. Consciousness and its development

can be studied
2. Leadership effectiveness has been
correlated with being more conscious
 Consciousness is often studied
through different developmental lines
Developmental
Primary Concern Leading Scholar(s)
Line
Cognitive What is? Piaget, Kegan
Ego/Self-Identity Who am I? Loevinger, Cook-Greuter
Values What is important? Graves, Beck & Cowan
Morals What is right? Kohlberg, Gilligan
Faith/Spiritual Spirit Fowler, St. John, Aurobindo
Needs What do I need? Maslow
Interpersonal How should I interact? Selman, Perry
Adapted from Wilber, 2000, 2006
Alchemist)
 Late-stage
action logics

Alchemist)
 What is an action logic?
Describes the developmental stage of
meaning-making that informs &
drives an individuals reasoning &
behavior.

It includes what we see as the purpose

of life, what needs we act upon, what
ends we are moving toward, our
emotions & experience of being
in the world, and how we think about
ourselves & the world.
The model was developed by Bill Torbert when working with organizations & leadership, based upon ego- development
& self-identity research by Jane Loevinger & Susanne Cook-Greuter.
(Cook-Greuter, 1999; Torbert et al., 2004)
 Strengths as % of US adult
Action Logic Main focus Characteristics organizational population
member (n = 4,510)
Institutionalizes developmental Catalyze the deep
Ironist Being; experience
processes through liberating development of
[under moment to moment
disciplines. Holds cosmic or individuals and
0.5%
research] arising of consciousness
universal perspective; visionary collectives

Interplay of action,
Generates social transformations. Good at leading
awareness, thought, and
Alchemist effects; transforming self
Integrates material, spiritual, and society-wide 1.5%
societal transformation transformations
and others

Generates organizational and

Linking theory and
personal transformations. Exercises
principles with practice; Effective as a
Strategist dynamic systems
the power of mutual inquiry,
transformational leader
4.9%
vigilance, and vulnerability for both
interactions
the short and long term

Interweaves competing personal

Self in relationship to
Individualist system; interaction with
system
and company action logics. Creates Effective in venture and
unique structures to resolve gaps consulting roles
11.3%
between strategy and performance

Meets strategic goals. Effectively

Delivery of results, Well suited to
achieves goals through teams;
Achiever effectiveness, goals,
juggles managerial duties and
managerial roles; goal 29.7%
success within system and action oriented
market demands

Expertise, procedure, Rules by logic and expertise; seeks Good as an individual

Expert and efficiency rational efficiency contributor
36.5%
Adapted from Rooke & Torbert (2005). Percentages from Cook-Greuter (1999.) Ironist material from Cook-Greuter (1999, 2004, 2005) and Torbert (1987)
Each new action logic
involves the reorganization
of meaning-making,
perspective, self-identity,
and our overall way of
knowing.

Steve Self
(Cook-Greuter, 1999)
What gradually happens is not just a linear accretion
of more and more that one can look at or think about,
but a qualitative shift in the very shape of the window
or lens through which one looks at the world.
--Robert Kegan, Harvard developmental psychologist

(Kegan, 2002)
Action logic development is like climbing
a mountain we can see further
The more I can see, the
wiser, more timely, more
systematic and informed
my actions and decisions
are likely to be because
more relevant information,
connections and dynamic
relationships become more
visible.

(Cook-Greuter, 2004, p. 277)

Action logic development = Increasing
capacity to take perspective

(Cook-Greuter, 1999)
 As we develop through action
logics, new capacities emerge
Increased cognitive
functioning
Increased personal &
interpersonal awareness

Increased understanding
of emotions
Increasingly accurate
empathy
(Manners & Durkin, 2001)
 Later action logics and more complex
meaning-making has been correlated
with increased leadership effectiveness
How a leader knows is
at least if not more
important than what a
leader knows
There are other key
factors, e.g., personality
Very little research on
Rommel de Leon

the latest action logics

(Fisher, et al., 1987; Fisher & Torbert, 1991; L. S. Harris & Kuhnert, 2008; Kuhnert & Lewis, 1987; Lewis, et al., 2005;
McCauley, 2006; Rooke & Torbert, 1998; Strang & Kuhnert, 2009; Torbert, et al., 2004)
Responding to a more complex world may
require greater leadership capacities
 At the later action logics, quite
powerful capacities seem to arise
Systems Unitive perspective on reality
Deeper access to intuition; rational mind as
tool, not the dominant vehicle to understand
Deep acceptance of self, others, the moment,
without judgment = open, flexible, attuned
Toleration of ambiguity Collaborative
engagement with ambiguity to co-create
Frequent flow & witness consciousness
Simultaneously hold & manage conflicting
frames, perspectives, emotions

Craig Cavalluzi
+ Dozens more
(Cook-Greuter, 1999, 2000, 2005; Joiner & Josephs, 2007; Nicolaides, 2008)
What do conscious leaders actually do in
the face of complex sustainability issues?
 The Research
1. Review of leadership studies related to adult
development and to sustainability
2. Interviews and psychological assessments with
nearly three dozen sustainability leaders and
change agents
3. Deep analysis of 13 participants approach
 Research Question

How do leaders with a late-stage action

logic design sustainability initiatives?
Conceptual Framework

Leadership

Adult
Sustainability
Development
 Literature review conclusions
Adult development literature
Leaders, in general, are perceived as more effective if
they make meaning in more complex ways
Little empirical research on late-stage action logics
Sustainability leadership literature
New, more complex, postconventional worldviews and
capacities are needed and seem to be emerging
amongst sustainability leaders
No empirical research (some theoretical) related to
action logics at all
No research on how to design sustainability initiatives
 Methodology
Epistemological framework
Postpositivist, based in critical realism
Qualitative approach
Purposive sampling to identify outliers
Developmental psychology assessment
to assess participants action logic (33)*
90-120 min. semi-structured, open-ended interviews (32)
Initial pilot study (2)
Thematic analysis to classify and interpret the data (13)
* Sentence Completion Test Integral - Maturity Assessment Profile (SCTi-MAP), a variation of the
Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT) . Highly validated, commonly used.
 Final Participant Sample
13 sustainability leaders and
change agents
Late-stage action logic: Strategist
(6), Alchemist (5), Ironist (2)
Mid- & senior-level management in
business, government, civil society +
consultancy
Engaged in initiatives that impact
>1000 people
Doing sustainability work for at
least last 3 years
North & South America, W.
Europe, Oceania
5 women, 8 men; 33 66 years old
Key Findings
 Theme 1 Being:
Design from a deep inner foundation

See sustainability work

as a spiritual practice
Ground sustainability
work in deep meaning
Embrace uncertainty,
with trust in self, others,
and the process
 Example: Sustainability practice
as a yoga and grounded in the One
Luz (Ironist): What could be more generative than setting
oneself to engage with the complexity of life and support
flourishing and consciousness to develop?...Karma yoga [is]
most definitely is one way I hold [sustainability work]....the
three moves of the karma yoga [are] surrender to the divine,
release attachment to fruits of your labor, and work as hard
as you can; and that theres a quality to that that I bring to
[my sustainability work].
What I do [to design a sustainability initiative] is follow the
evolutionary arc. Right from the outset, What is the first
emanation of spirit and how can I align to that? This might
sound really weird but it just helps me really to anchor [in the
One], first and foremost. And then from there, looking at,
Okay, what exactly is arising here?
 Designing in collaboration with the
unknown due to deep trust
These leaders are willing
to not know, and will
work with the
uncertainties of the
design process, trusting
themselves, other actors,
and the process to
navigate through the
ambiguity.

Todd Guess
 Theme 2 Reflecting: Access to
powerful internal resources and theories

Use of intuition and

other ways of knowing
than rational analysis

Navigate with systems

theory, complexity
theory, integral theory
 R

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 Example: Initial design kernel from a
source different than the rational mind
Matthew: (Strategist) I went to [a sustainability
seminar] andthe level of consciousness at that seminar
and the resonance and where it brought me in terms of
my level of consciousness and being, allowed me to just
relax and open up to what would come. I didnt work
through the normal design processes that I normally
work through. I got in the right frame of being or space,
level of consciousness, and just wrote it down. Within
the space of 12 hours just sitting just sort of in a
heightened state of awareness, it all just kind of came
out. And that design, that core, that kernel design, I've
been unpacking it and trying to understand it and make
conscious the theory behind it for four years.
 Navigation with systems theory,
complexity theory, integral theory
 Theme 3 Engaging:
Adaptive design management
Dialogue with the
system to consistently
adapt the design
Adopt the roles of
catalyst, creator of
supportive conditions,
space holder
Cultivate development
in self, others, the
collective
 Example:
Dialoguing with the system
Roberta: In my design, it was just this constant looping, looping,
looping of, Okay, if we do that, what are they going to think and
what are they going to say? And so I became quite familiar, I
could inhabit [the client organizations] perspective and I could
inhabit Andreas perspective, and I could inhabit the various
perspectives easily of the environmental organizations. And so I
did a lot of kind of testing and anticipating and imagining what
things would work and what things wouldnt. And then I would [do
a lot of] back channel work with individuals in advance to kind of
seed that as an initiative. ...So again, much of the design was this
interstitial political listening looping multiple times and then
offering back potential trajectories of movement to the various
stakeholders, and then allowing things to coalesce.
3 ways of dialoguing with the system

Look at the system

(Strategists)

Look through the

system (Alchemists)

Look as the system

(Ironists)
Go with the energy

Flow where the

openings are

Inquire into the

blockages within self,
others, and the
collective
 Adopt different roles as needed

Catalyze (Strategists)

Create supportive
conditions (Alchemists)

Hold space and wonder

(Ironists)
 Cultivate development in self,
others, and the collective
Journaling, meditation,
work with a coach or
mentor
Work through
psychological dynamics,
shadow issues, the ego
stuff learn to become
energetically clean in
order to get out of the
way
Support others to
transform as part of the
design and engagement
process
Chris Bucklow
Major Outcomes
15 competencies that may support the
development of a late-stage action logic
Ground sustainability Self-transformation
practice in deep meaning Create developmental
Intuitive decision-making conditions
and harvesting Hold space
Embrace uncertainty with Shadow mentoring
profound trust
Systems theory and
Scan and engage the systems thinking
internal environment
Complexity theory and
Inhabit multiple complexity thinking
perspectives
Integral theory and integral
Dialogue with the system reflection
Go with the energy Polarity management
 Principal role and design approach
for different action logics
Strategists
Catalyze. Ground service in personal meaning.
Operate on systems by actively influencing those with authority, power, and
influence to make the perceived changes needed in the system.
Alchemists
Create supportive conditions. Ground service in transpersonal meaning.
Dialogue with systems via experimentation and probing, concurrently
creating conditions that help systems and the individuals that constitute
them to develop.
Ironists
Hold and Wonder. Ground service in unitive meaning.
Anchor in Oneness and design as the system. That is, wonder into what the
system (or individual) needs and wants to become next, listen closely, and
principally hold the energetic tension for that next stage of maturity to
emerge.
Supplemental Materials
What is the ego?
It is what each of us
considers I.

Whenever we say:
I am
or ,
The way I see it
we are referring to our
ego.

(Ingersoll & Zeitler, 2010)

 Ego

Witness Self Proximate self Distal self

Object of I

Unconscious of Relationship to
Subject to Perspective on
Embedded in Ownership of

Antecedent Self (I-I) I I/me me/mine

(Ingersoll & Cook-Greuter, 2007)

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