In our research, we have found that certain paradigms have the power to open new possibilities and disclose new worlds for leaders, businesses, and organizations. These paradigms are based on the work of leading thinkers across various disciplines ranging from science, organizational behavior, philosophy, and the social sciences.

What is a paradigm ? A paradigm can be defined as a group of assumptions, beliefs, values, social practices shared by a community of people. The paradigm is an invisible cultural structure through which we perceive, filter, and make meaning of the world. These sets of filters are so transparent that we are unaware that we are looking through them. A paradigm influences what we perceive as reality, our possibilities and what we believe is beyond question.

Therefore, it is important for leaders who are in the business of creating
possibilities for their people and their organization to be able to examine their personal and organizational paradigms. Having an understanding of paradigms is also important skill for leaders who also want to shape the future for the better and, in an sense, become History Makers or Evolutionary Leaders.

We offer you the following paradigms as the foundation upon which to build your leadership style, institutions, communities, and social systems:

The Whole Systems and Systems Thinking Paradigm

This paradigm centers on understanding the dynamics of wholes, not simply parts or events, and explaining how the wholes are connected, i.e. the interdependencies of the parts to each other and to the whole. This paradigm complements the Analytic paradigm, which focuses on the parts and dominates most of our thinking and organizational structures.

Systems thinking demands that we understand a system and how it fits into the larger system of which it is a part. Organizations, institutions, and economic systems all exist within social systems, and those social systems exist within larger ecological and biosphere systems. Systems thinking expands the horizon from which we observe organizational behavior and the behavior of other systems. It also deepens the observations of dynamics in a systems going beyond the visible events in that system to the deeper patterns and often invisible forces giving rise to those patterns and events. From this vantage point, leaders have an opportunity to become a different observer of the dynamics and behaviors of their organizational systems and, therefore, are able to shape the systems' future. Leaders may also observe the long-term behavior of their own systems and anticipate the long-term impact on other systems, including social and ecological systems. Thus, they can develop a global and systems perspective of our world and our future world. Senge in The Fifth Discipline and Capra in The Web of Life provide an excellent introduction to systems thinking.

The Biological and Cultural Matrix of Human Existence:The Biology of Cognition and the Biology of Loving.

The BMHE is the latest work of Humberto Maturana and Ximena Davila. Maturana states that:

The Biology of Cognition is an explanatory proposition that attempts to show how human cognitive processes arise from the operation of human beings as living systems. As such the Biology of Cognition entails reflections oriented to understand living systems, their evolutionary history, language as a biological phenomenon, the nature of explanations, and the origin of humanness. As a reflection on how we do what we do as observers, it is a study in the epistemology of knowledge. But and at the same time as a reflection on how we exist in language as languaging beings, it is a study on human relations.

The Biology of Cognition offers an evolutionary perspective on how human beings are the kind of observers that they are and how they interact with each other and the environment in a process of learning and bringing forth our world together.

For leaders, the Biology of Cognition offers an opportunity to reflect on the kind of observers that they are and on their process of learning. It also allows leaders to shift from the mechanical worldview/paradigm that has dominated our culture to a living systems paradigm. In addition, it provides an opportunity for leaders to begin to understand how, as linguistic beings, they bring forth consensual reality through language. As a result, leaders at all levels of the organization will have new ways to: 1) facilitate the construction of our human relationships based on love and trust; 2) build systems of ethics; and 3) build organizations as living systems and as linguistic systems. In this type of organization, conversations for learning together, collaboration, and dialogue can emerge and become the standard. Once organizations are understood as living systems, the connection to larger social systems, the biosphere, and ecological systems becomes more clear.

The Language and Conversations Paradigm

As the Biology of Cognition and language are understood as a biological phenomenon, it becomes evident that human beings exist in language. Indeed, language plays a major role in our human existence and in our species. As emotional and linguistic beings, human beings use language to construct their social reality and their world. Keen observers of leadership and leadership development have made the connection between language and leadership. If leaders at all levels of the organization are responsible for constructing the social reality of their organization, then language and conversations become a key competence for their development.

In Leading Minds, Howard Gardner points to this relationship between language and leadership and illustrates how leaders bring forth a vision through the stories they tell.

In this paradigm, the focus is on the power of language and conversations in several domains: 1) Language as a Generative Process Strategic; 2) The Language-Action Approach; and 3) Conversations and Dialogue.

The Learning Organization and Living Systems Paradigm

Transforming the kind of observers that human beings are as managers and as leaders shifts the common sense understanding of language,
human relations, organizations, and systems. As a result, new paradigms and possibilities for designing our organizations and our social systems begin to emerge. The concept and the possibility of designing our institutions as learning organizations is a result of these shifts in paradigms. A learning organization is a system that not only adapts to new and changing environments, but also is able to generate its future. A learning organization is both a space for transformation and an evolutionary corporation.

The process of organizational learning requires that we begin to see human beings as designed for learning--life long learning. The purpose of leadership is to lead human beings in democratic, loving, trusting, and collaborative ways and to engage in conversations that produce intelligence, expansion of talent, knowledge, performance, and a humane culture of trust.

Leaders can facilitate the shift in paradigm from the mechanistic worldview, which has dominated our thinking, to a learning organization/living system organization, where human talent can flourish and people contribute their higher aspirations. In this paradigm, leaders assume the roles of teachers to facilitate collective intelligence in order to solve adaptive challenges and of coaches to bring out the best in people. The learning organization builds on the previous paradigms--Systems Thinking, Living Systems, the Biology of Cognition, and the Paradigm of Language and Conversations.

The Ecological and Sustainable Paradigm

As the machine-industrial paradigm begins to fade and human beings start to envision a truly post-industrial age, it becomes clear that the current economic system is not sustainable. A systemic perspective recognizes that our economic systems are embedded in larger social and ecological systems and that the different global problems are interrelated and can not be solved as isolated parts. Solving these problems requires a whole systems perspective.

If our current economic system is not sustainable, then the great challenge is to create sustainable communities of all types: businesses, institutions, and sustainable societies. Peter Senge and Goran Carstedt in their recent article "Innovating Our Way to the Next Industrial Revolution" in MIT Sloan Management Review, Winter 2001, state: "Our real future lies in building sustainable enterprises and an economic reality that connects industry, society, and the environment." The new context for this post-industrial age maybe called the Ecological-Sustainable paradigm. This paradigm requires that our leaders become systems thinkers, acquire ecological and evolutionary literacy, and new values in their lives and their organizations. Leaders should acquire values that are integrative, such as conservation, cooperation, collaboration, quality, love, trust, and partnership.
Lester Brown of the World Watch Institute provides a definition of sustainable society: "A sustainable society is one that satisfies its needs without diminishing the prospects of future generations." We have knowledge and disciplines to build such sustainable enterprises and sustainable communities. We invite you as leaders to be part of bringing about this post-industrial age and creating a sustainable society.

The Conscious Evolution Paradigm

Human beings are becoming more aware that they have a responsibility and a choice about the kind of future that they want to see emerge. The knowledge generated by leading thinkers in this century has given human beings new perspectives and paradigms with which to perceive the world and invent the future. We believe that the knowledge and collective intelligence embedded in these paradigms could serve as a foundation for creating a new renaissance in our culture and civilization. This foundation could be used to build sustainable enterprises, institutions, communities, and societies.

Learning organizations, evolutionary corporations, and ecological and sustainable communities could be built without diminishing the chances of future generations and the extinction of more species.

This new renaissance is possible if our leaders and people engage in a conscious evolution toward a better future. Conscious Evolution is a worldview and a metadiscipline for designing our future together.

As a metadiscipline, Conscious Evolution integrates the knowledge and wisdom from many disciplines and paradigms, such as those presented herein. When these paradigms are understood as disciplines for Conscious Evolution, human beings can begin to design and build better futures and sustainable societies. Barbara Marx Hubbard claims that to make this conscious evolution happen, human beings need to adopt Conscious Evolution as a worldview and to awaken the power of our social potential.

At the Center for Evolutionary Leadership, we also believe that the world needs evolutionary leaders who can contribute to this conscious evolution and shape a better future. We invite you to become an evolutionary leader and to be a part of bringing forth a new renaissance.

Send mail to manuel@evolutionleader.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: December 4, 2008