Gisela Wendling

How Visionary Leaders Guide Their Organizations Through Change

As the pandemic transforms into a new normal, organizations will rely on visionary leaders who are skillful at navigating change.

What is Visionary Leadership?

Visionary leaders’ essential capability is being able to connect to their own north-star vision (a general direction or calling, if you will) and simultaneously being able to engage the larger organization in a change journey to find out what it will take to develop and manifest a shared organizational vision.

Because all change processes go through an “in-between” or liminal stage, often feeling like a crucible, visionary leaders’ early grasp of what is possible helps create a container for everyone else to contribute and join them in the visioning process. The key is to hold both their own vision as well as accept emerging ideas long enough that a synthesis emerges that is energizing to all.

Success Models in Practice

The Grove has a history of supporting visionary leaders in both shaping and realizing their visions. We looked back at some we have worked with to harvest learning.

Erik Rolland, who we have written about before, emerges as a classic example of a visionary leader. He has just accepted the presidency […]

Responding to the Global Emergency from the Inside Out

A heightened sense of interconnectedness of our human community is awakening around the world. It is an interconnectedness that is threatening in one way and is life affirming in another. Being confronted with this paradox is a dizzying experience. I believe we are experiencing a global reset that overshadows all other attempts we have made to make pervasive and needed change in the world. To meet this challenge, we need to cultivate an inner resourcefulness and resilience.

Compared to how we have responded to mitigating climate change thus far, this crisis has intervened in our lives in previously unimagined ways. No one is exempt from this impact. There are two pieces of good news. First, for the first time in a very long time the earth is taking a breath of much cleaner air. And as local, regional, and federal governments respond, and as many of us do what we can to not spread the virus, a global protective shield or safety net is developing. Of course, we don’t know what this will mean in the long term for our global community, our economies, and our daily lives. What we do know is that as this […]