8 Impact-Focused Executives on What It Means to Lead Consciously

As we put this issue together each week, we learn. The people we spotlight are beacons of forward-thinking lessons, and we imbibe from them insight that evolves our perspectives.

While each changemaker we feature is unique, so much of their collective wisdom falls into similar categories—with conscious leadership being one of the most common. Rather than feed diversion and force outcomes, these leaders choose to help individuals see the best in themselves.

Here, we’ve rounded up some of the greatest insight on how to lead with heart, inspiration, and intention.

Elizabeth Funk

“When I was thinking about the homelessness problem, carrying that word [dignity] forward to this new endeavor makes a lot of sense. When we treat people as humans, and you don't shoo them away from park benches and tell them they're not welcome anywhere, but to say, “Look you fell on hard times, so let's help you help yourself. Let's get you somewhere safe so you can get out of survival mode.” The dignity that comes with that is powerful. When you believe in someone, and they feel someone believes in them and that's going to be the encouragement that they need to believe in themselves, that is powerful.”

Read Elizabeth’s feature here.

Jenna Anita Nichols
“Another [leadership] quality is a sense of compassion… I would link that to humility. So many of the founders that we invest into have an orientation towards empathy. They really try to understand the communities that they're seeking to serve and engage rather than having a fixed idea of what success looks like and not being responsive to the needs within the particular stakeholders or communities that they're working in.”

Read Jenna’s feature here.

Rebecca Eastmond
“On the organization side, we’re trying to create non-hierarchical relationships across the whole ecosystem of social change. From the people that have money to the young people who might benefit from a program supported by them. Dignity and equality are critical to real change.”

Read Rebecca’s feature here.

Carrie Freeman
“We know that everything works better when we come at a collective and community perspective versus an individualist perspective. So much of our economy is so focused on, especially in the west, the notion of the individual as the center. Our belief is that we need to be coming at things from the perspective that we’re relational beings. The more we can come at things from a community perspective and actually design for that, we’re going to be in a much stronger place.”

Read Carrie’s feature here.

Anu Gupta
“Empathy isn't something you're born with. Empathy is a skill we can cultivate. This is where the science around this is just so exciting. There's an entire department at Stanford Medical School that's committed to studying compassion and empathy and altruism.

For me, these are not lofty, soft things. Coming from the legal background and business background, people think about these things as soft skills. But actually, we know that these are not soft skills, these are essential skills. You can have all the hard skills around coding and working, creating financial projections, and other things, but if you don't have these essential skills you can't get stuff done, because you're working with humans. We’re not robots.

And that's another paradigm shift that we're going through, particularly as more and more people are entering various industries. Because of our history, most professionals could only be straight white men—for the most part—before the seventies. And since then, that's why we've had to create a lot of commissions and agencies to ensure there's anti-discrimination, so all people—a hundred percent of our population—can actually be part of the labor market. And as we're doing that, we have to also be mindful of how we operate as a human species.”

Read Anu’s feature here.

Hooman Yazhari
“We are all happiest when we are giving. I believe this is the ultimate goal in any role and in any endeavor. Those who are not ultimately focused on giving are usually purely motivated by personal advancement, persuaded that the world owes them a living, and convinced that they are indispensable to the fortunes of their team. This brand of CEO stands in sharp contrast to leaders who seek to understand the diverse perspectives of others, see the needs of people around them, and realize that success means sowing seeds that benefit others. It means being a servant leader.”

Read Hooman’s essay here.

Richard Steel
“When I started my first company, and every company since, we always made a point of knowing what we'd say no to as well as knowing what we'd say yes to. So you know your target, who your clients are, and the space in which you operate, but you also have to understand what you're not willing to do. There's a story in the book about us not taking money from R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company when it would have been very lucrative. It was a pivotal point in the business and it would have set us up for a lot of success. But I said that I didn’t want to make money that way. And I don't think any of my employees wanted to make money that way. We had five times the industry retention rates in my first company, and I think that was hopefully in part due to employees respecting the way that we did business—and how we made money and from whom.”

Read Richard’s story here.

Ian Walker
“As you start wanting to expand or improve your impact, you realize there's a lot of other stakeholders- farmers, processors, distributors, retailers, consumers. So we asked: How can we help change things outside of our business? As we assessed we realized our employees were a fairly easy area where we could help make a difference. How can we help them make better choices in their life without telling them they have to do something? We're not dictatorial that way. We don't want to have a company where we tell people how to act. We just want to have a company that treats people well and that people are excited to be a part of.”

Read Ian’s story here.

—

At The Conscious Investor, it is our goal to shed light on topics that we find interesting, inspirational, and educational. Therefore, this article is strictly for inspirational and informational purposes only. It is in no way intended to substitute for professional investment advice, professional financial advice, or general counsel. To the extent that an article features the insight, opinions, or advice of an expert or company, the expressed views are those of the cited person or company and do not necessarily represent The Conscious Investor and its employees or affiliates.