Brief Summary of Systems Inspired Leadership

Brief Summary of Systems Inspired Leadership

How to tap Collective Wisdom to Navigate Change, Enhance Agility and Foster
Collaboration

Frank Uit Weerd and Marita Fridjhon

• Systems Inspired Leadership is part of an emerging leadership approach that helps leaders
deal more effectively with accelerated change and complexity in the digital age – the VUCA
world
• It moves away from top-down leadership paradigm and promotes shared leadership at all
levels in the organization
• It invites you to create from the wisdom of the system rather than to react and it reduces
the feeling that everything depends on you.
• Instead of asking “Who is doing what to whom”, the Systems Inspired Leader asks “What is
trying to happen”
• The prime focus of Systems Inspired Leadership is on the relationship between the parts (the
web of relationships) rather than on the parts themselves
• At the core of Systems Inspired Leadership is Relationship Systems Intelligence – the ability
to interpret an individual’s own experience and that of the others as an expression of the
system. It is about tapping the collective wisdom and leveraging the intelligence and
creativity of all

What is Systems Inspired Leadership?

• In Systems Inspired Leadership, the focus is on people rather than on tasks – it is about
seeing people first of all as human beings rather than as resources to get the job done
• It is about valuing the whole human being and respecting all parts within self and the
relationships between them
• It requires you to see people first as human beings acknowledging their dreams, needs,
strengths and emotions – “We are not thinking machines that feel, we are feeling machines
that think”
• A clear focus on relationships, relationship system and Relationship Systems Intelligence –
and a shift to the web of relationships is critical to address the challenges of the 21st century
• “We are all part of a bigger whole, the whole is more than the sum of the parts, and every
voice counts and has wisdom”
• There is a notion that leadership is a role that belongs to the system rather than the person
with the word “leader” in their job title, making leadership so much easier, lighter and less
stressful
• Systems Inspired Leadership can be defined as the ability to create and lead from the
system, trusting that the answer is already there and waiting to be revealed
• It is the adoption of relationship systems, philosophy, principles, skills and tools in the realm
of leadership
• Systems Inspired Leadership aims to accomplish a shift in attention in terms of the
leadership approach from
o Parts /Individuals to Relationship system / web of relationships

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 Brief Summary of Systems Inspired Leadership

o Task/process to people/relationships
o People as objects/resources to people as whole human beings, in relationship
o Me to the system of We and the system of the larger whole
o Being in the world of thoughts to being present to all channels of experience
o Directing/telling what to do to revealing the system to itself
o Analyzing to Sensing
o Solving problems to Inspiring solutions
o Known to Unknown / emergence
o Reacting to to Creating from
o Speed of change to pace of evolution

• The five major impact areas of Systems Inspired Leadership are

o Personal growth and well being
o Engagement and Sense of belonging
o Collaboration and We-cultures
o Agility and Innovation
o Sustainable Results

Relationship Systems and Relationship Systems Intelligence

• Relationship system can be defined as a group of interdependent entities with a common

focus or goal
• A key challenge in systems thinking is how to remain aware of all the nested systems in
action in any given situation
• We look at the parts or the individual players not the complex web of connection between
the parts.
• William Tate, a well-known scholar on Systems thinking, talks of metaphor of the fish task
with sick fish. Our focus is normally on the fish, while the actual issue is the water in which
the fish live. The narrow view of replacing the fish does not make sense as every fish
eventually would fall ill
• We need to distinguish between Complicated and Complex challenges (Cynefin)
o Examples of Complex challenges include how to build a driverless car, how to build a
spaceship to transport people to Mars, how to develop nanobots to attack cancer
etc. – it is basically a technical issue
o Complex challenges include how to create a high-performance culture in an
organization, how to build more safety and trust in a team or how to become more
purpose driven

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 Brief Summary of Systems Inspired Leadership

Complicated Challenges Complex Challenges

Technical / Mechanical issues
Cause and effect approach
Focus on the parts
Interdisciplinary team of experts to
determine the right answer
IQ
Metaphor: Machine
Human / Relationship issue
Systems approach
Focus on the interconnections
Tapping the collective wisdom to
determine the course of action
Relationship Systems Intelligence
Metaphor: Living organism

Five Principles of Relation Systems Intelligence

• Each relationship system has its own unique identity or personality

o The moment people come together, an identity is created with its own unique set of
qualities or characteristics – example Beatles
o Each relationship system is a living organism, with its own identity, purpose,
consciousness, strengths, desires, needs, wisdom and potential
o It will shift your focus from yourself and others to the relationship system – this is
called the 3rd Entity – the web of relationships between the members of the system
• Every member of a relationship system is a “voice of the system”
o Each voice is both deeply personal and an expression of the whole relationship
system
o The system itself is limited in how it can communicate – it relies on individual
members to express itself.
o As a Systems Inspired Leader, it is important to invite input, allow every voice to be
heard and hold it as having value – every voice counts and has wisdom
• Relationship systems are naturally intelligence, generative and creative
o Knowing the system is creative, generative and creative gives people the confidence
and strength to “sit in the fire” and wait for insight to emerge
o The mindset is to see “disturbance as an ally” – how could this help us and be a
trigger for innovation and development. What is the deeper learning here? What is
the opportunity?
• Relationship systems rely on roles for their organization and execution of functions. Roles
belong to the system not to the individuals that inhabit the system
o Considering a relationship system as a living organism with its own needs – the
needs would need to be fulfilled by roles taken up by individuals in the system
o There could be Outer roles – covering the job and tasks required to keep things
running smoothly like the CEO, VP Operations and Inner roles for the emotional
functioning of the relationship system like the initiator, pursuer, visionary, disturber,
finisher etc.
o Inner roles are usually occupied unconsciously often based on someone’s natural
strengths or preferences – for some it is easier to challenge, for some harmony is
important
o Leadership is also a role of the system – it does not belong to one person even if the
job title suggests they are one. Leadership should be assumed by all members of the
system in a organic way

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 Brief Summary of Systems Inspired Leadership

• Relationship systems are in a constant state of emergence, always in the process of

expressing their potential
o Emergence is the way to deal with complex challenges and changes in the
relationship system
o It is more about sensing and acting on what is trying to happen rather than applying
standard problem-solving techniques to identify the next interventions. Otto
Sharmer calls it “Leading from the emerging future”
o Sending and knowing what wants to emerge, tapping into the collective wisdom and
creating from the system are very different and new ways to engage with the
challenge

• The art of Systems Inspired Leadership is to deal skillfully with emergence, pausing and
distilling what is wanting to happen then to prototype that, discover how the system reacts
and then take it from there
• Systems Inspired Leadership can be seen as part of an emergent wave of a more collective
and collaborative leadership needed to address the complexities of the 21st century
• An important indicator for emergence is disagreement and conflict – conflict is the engine of
change. It is not problematic if there are different points of view in a system – it is only a
signal that change is needed, something new needs to be born
• Systems Inspired Rule – everybody is right – only partially. you are open to influence – you
are willing to reframe from judgement and you ask questions for which you have truly no
answers
• It is important to be interested in the marginalized voices since they may contain the seed of
the new

The Doing side of Systems Inspired Leadership – the S-CI-R-E-S model

• Systems Inspired Leaders five competencies that enable them to create from the system and
tap the collective wisdom
• The five competencies are
o Seeing, hearing, sensing the System
o Holding Conscious and Intentional Relationship
o Revealing the system to itself
o Working with conflict to facilitate Emergence
o Creating Systems Inspired Safety
• These competencies are not distinct – they are interdependent, they need each other and
they interact.

Doing – Sensing, Hearing and Sensing the System

• Seeing, Hearing and Sensing the system is about

o Having the ability to focus on the system as a whole and apply the principles of
Relational Systems Intelligence
o Ability to “see” the systemic whole or constellation, “hear” the system by holding
every voice as an expression of the system and by creating opportunity for collective
input and sense what is happening in the culture and atmosphere of the relationship
system at any given moment
• Ways to grow this competency

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o Shift the focus from the individual parts to the systemic whole
o Engage with the relationship system as a living organism with its own identity and
wisdom
o “See” the system – look for systemic constellations and metaphors
o “Hear” the system – hold every voice as the voice of the system
o “Sense” the system – track and work with energy and emotional field
o Educate your team/organization on Relationship Systems Intelligence and systems
Inspired Leadership
• Shift the focus from the individual parts to the systemic whole
o Challenges in the relationship systems usually reside in the connections between
the parts rather than the individual parts themselves – Systems Inspired leaders
focus on the systemic whole and the web of relationships that hold that as the entity
o Consider errors/failures first as systemic events – if someone is performing poorly,
ask yourself, how is this an expression of the system? Where else is this happening
in the system? What could be the systemic reasons for this? What about the
team/organization contributing to this failure?
• Engage with the relationship system as a living organism with its own identity and wisdom
o Modern Systems thinking focuses a lot on systemic processes and evolution –
Systems Inspired Leadership builds on this and brings a strong focus to the
relationship system as an entity with its own personality and unique qualities and as
holding information above and beyond the individuals populating the system
o The third entity is the unique identity of a relationship system separate and different
from that of the players within in. This is the team, the group, the duo – which
highlights its unique qualities, personality, character spirit, culture and
consciousness of that relationship system
o It is the relationship system as a living organism as a creature that breathes, sees,
feels, moves and makes sounds
o For a person standing in the 3rd entity position, you look at the issue with a different
lens and provides powerful information.
• See the system – look for systemic constellations and metaphors
o Constellations are a natural and easy way to “see” systems – to see how they are
positioned relative to each other.
o Constellations may appear in many shapes – by the way people sit in meetings, who
is sitting together? Who is sitting with the boss? Who is having coffee conversations
during the break? For virtual meetings, who has the video turned on and who has it
turned off? All these are unconscious manifestations of relationship patterns
o Constellations often given us insight into unconscious bias and is therefore
important to notice
o Another way to see the system is to listen for metaphoric language in meetings to
describe patterns, teams and workgroups. Ask members to draw an image/select an
image that reflects their experience.
o Paper constellation and use of thick / thin lines to depict connections and
relationships is a good way to look at where you are in relation to the system.
o A realistic paper constellation and an ideal paper constellation would help the
person identify areas of improvement in terms of their relationships and identify
actions for the same

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• Hear the system – Hold every voice as the voice of the system
o It is important to hold every voice as the “voice of the system” rather than
something personal.
o This along with the belief that all voices have a wisdom aspect, ensures that
different information comes to the surface which helps you build the big picture
o In change initiatives ensure that there are sufficient possibilities for input and
feedback. Similarly set up structures that enable everyone to participate
o Another way of looking at is viewing conflict as an unopened packet of information
that has been thrown under the label of “poor communication” – and ask around
the table what might that unopened packet of information have
• Sense the system – track and work with the energy/ emotional field
o In Systems Inspired Leadership, we pay a lot of attention to how people feel and
experience things
o We focus on monitoring changes or “shifts in the emotional field” – which provides
important footprints and snapshots about the invisible experience of the system
o A significant percentage of what drives decision making happens at this invisible and
unconscious level of experience
o We often feel the emotional field – while entering a meeting or entering a
restaurant – you really cannot put a finger on it – but you can sense it.
o For a Systems Inspired leader it is important to notice and work with these shifts –
though for many it is initially challenging to work with the emotional field
o Emotional fields are like pockets of weather – it may feel cloudy for a section of the
team, for others it may be sunnier.
o When working with an emotional field, it is important not to interpret what you
experience – but to use neutral language, asking questions like What is happening
right now? What are you becoming aware of?
o In some team meetings, the Systems Inspired leader gets into a situation where the
team is stuck and is unable to move forward. In such cases, he/she needs to explore
and navigate a way forward and that might open up new insights and action.
• Educate your team on/organization on Relationship Systems Intelligence and Systems
Inspire Leadership
o Educate them about relationship systems, 3rd entity, the importance of shifting focus
from the parts to the whole, seeing and hearing systems, sensing the emotional
field, and Relationship Systems Intelligence – one might have to do with a light
touch and possibly organizing some training sessions

Holding Conscious and Intentional Relationship

• Holding Conscious and Intentional Relationship is about

o Choosing upfront and rehearsing how you want to show up as a leader
o Codesigning how to be together in a relationship system including when things get
difficult
o Adjusting the energy, you bring during a meeting based on what the relationship
system needs at any given moment of time
• Ways to grow this competency
o Practice conscious and intentional relationships with self and others

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 Brief Summary of Systems Inspired Leadership

o Choose and rehearse your Metaskills

o Design the Team Alliance
o Model co-responsibility
o Slowing down
• Practice Conscious and Intentional relationships with self and others
o Creating conscious and intentional relationship is at the core of Systems Inspired
Leadership and builds an important bridge between the “doing” and the “being”
aspects of your leadership
o It is about being present and choosing consciously and intentionally who you want
to be both as an individual and as a team
o Creating right relationships, about being present and choosing consciously and
intentionally who you want to be, is dependent on the context of the relationship
system and a functional of what people want to achieve together
o “You can help an elephant trying to get up. You may not be able to help an elephant
that is trying to fall down”
• Choose and rehearse your Metaskills
o Metaskills refers to the feeling quality that brings your skills to life and makes them
more effective
o What is your stance, attitude, “come from place” in any situation? What is the
energetic impact you want to make on the system? What is your intentional? What
is the atmosphere you would like to create?
o Metaskills are not fixed – you choose them depending on what is needed. It
intentionally perfumes the room in service of the objectives of the meeting to
enhance the impact. It helps you create from a situation rather than to react
o The seven Metaskills that are powerful for building conscious and intentional
relationship and creating sustainability are
▪ Heart – being empathetic, bringing warmth and understanding
▪ Deep Democracy – honoring all the voices in a system are important and
bring wisdom
▪ Playfulness – bringing lightness and positivity
▪ Respect – accepting others as valuable human beings
▪ Collaboration / Partnership – willingness to work together
▪ Curiosity – willingness to explore and learn, creating new awareness
▪ Commitment – showing that you want to achieve something together
• Designing the Team Alliance
o One of the most powerful ways to build conscious and intentional relationships is to
Design the Team Alliance
o This is about designing a “social contract” with your team to be more collaborative
in a specific meeting while you are tackling the challenges of the task at hand
o It creates the culture within which you will be able to thrive as a team even when
things get difficult
o Designing the Team Alliance centers around three questions
▪ What atmosphere / culture do we want to create together to achieve the
objectives of the meeting?
▪ How do we want to be when things get difficult?
▪ What will help us excel and be masterful?

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o The final action is about creating accountability for the delivery of the alliance – ask
team members to choose one or to elements of the team alliance for which they will
take responsibility
o Next you design how the team wants to work with you as a Systems Inspired Leader
and the leader alliance
o The questions for Designing the Leader Alliance are pretty much the same – how do
you want to be with you? What expectations do we have of each other? What will
help our partnership to thrive?
• Model Co-responsibility
o When something goes wrong, it is easy to point fingers on someone else . A Systems
Inspired Leader focuses first on their role in the situation – “Given that systems are
interdependent, how did I contribute to what has happened and what can I do to
change the situation?”
o The notion of co-responsibility is sobering and empowering – by owing the 2% truth
of what might have been your blind spot, you create the safety for others to own
their failings and create new learning from that.
• Slowing down
o This is an important skill and is quite challenging in fast paced and stressful
situations.
o The speed of change is so high that it is easy to slip into a reactive mode.
o It is only by slowing down that deeply engrained patterns become visible and
insights emerge that creates sustainable change and converts the speed of change
to the speed of evolution

Revealing the system to itself

• Revealing the system to itself is the

o Ability to mirror what is happening or trying to happen in a relationship system in
order to create systemic self-awareness and enable conscious choice and self-
correction
o Ability to make the invisible visible and the unconscious conscious
• There are five powerful ways to grow this competency
o Revealing the system to itself is your superpower
o Use the edge model as a lens to navigate and facilitate emergence
o Monitor the ground conditions for change
o Be neutral when revealing the system to itself
o Remember that change is an emotional journey
• Revealing the system to itself is your superpower
o It invites the team to create from any change the system is experiencing and to
leverage its intelligence, creativity and wisdom
o Once the system is revealed to itself, new information enters the system making the
system self-aware and activating its natural ability to self-correct
o Revealing the system to itself makes the invisible visible, the unconscious conscious
and opens the possibility to create answers and solutions together leveraging the
collective whole – making leadership a team sport
o Summarizing, asking powerful questions, sharing learning, and giving feedback are
powerful ways of revealing the system to itself

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 Brief Summary of Systems Inspired Leadership

o Systems Inspired Leaders value diversity of input, encourage out of box thinking and
leverage conversations of creativity from which more informed action can be taken
o This involves “hearing” (deep democracy), “seeing” (polling, constellations) and
“sensing” (tracking shifts in energy/emotional field) all voices on a subject – and
inquiring about them to build awareness of what is not consciously experienced
o Use of Lands work – what do you love about our department? What is difficult in
your land? What do you want other members to know about you land? For visitors,
what is like to step into this department/land? What is important here? What are
the challenges or pressures? What help or support do you want from other
departments?
• Use the edge model as a lens to navigate change and facilitate emergence
o The Edge Model is basically a pyramid shape where an edge divides the known and
the unknown, the existing and new, the present and the future, and the foreground
and the background
o The edge separates who I identify myself to be from what I am becoming, or forced
to become

The Unknown
The Known, the Where are we
Existing – Where we going to?
are now? Desirable Futures
Possible Futures,
Emerging Futures

o This model is about the growth curve of evolution.

o Edges are often not chosen – they tend to find us within the growth curve of normal
human evolution. Even positive changes like getting married, getting a promotion –
is about identifying the new “you”
o It is also present at the team and organizational level – it separates who we identify
ourselves to be from what we are becoming or forced to become. A team or
organization can only cross an edge until the majority of stakeholders are ready.
o For a Systems Inspired Leader, it is not only important to support the whole system
to cross an edge, but also aware of the individual edges
o From a Relationship Systems point of view, it becomes interesting to notice when a
change feels “edgy” or not so comfortable.
o For Systems Inspired Leaders, it is key to recognize name, and normalize these edges
– you have signals of discomfort, disturbances in the emotional field and edge
behaviors such as nervous laughter, change in tone of voice, confusion, being frozen,
fidgeting, uncomfortable silence etc.
o It is the birthplace of emergence, the place where learning deepens and growth
flourishes. “There is no learning in the comfort zone, there is no comfort in the
learning zone”

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 Brief Summary of Systems Inspired Leadership

o In the pyramid, the smallest edges are at the top of the pyramid. Here, the distance
between the current identity and the new/expanded identity is at its shortest –
which is the Minimum Viable Edge. The biggest edges to cross are at the bottom of
the pyramid
o As a Systems Inspired Leader, it is important to become masterful at identifying the
Minimum Viable Edges as ways to reduce the magnitude of change and ease the
crossing of edges
• Monitor the ground conditions for change
o New information must enter the system – who, what, when and where
o There is a sense of shared purpose about the change – how is this going to be
meaningful for me and us?
o All voices are invited to give input on how the change will occur
o Everyone understands how input will be used and final decisions are made
• Be neutral when revealing the system to itself
o Revealing the system to itself must be done in a neutral way, without judgement
o You need to embrace everything that is present knowing that all voices carry
wisdom
o This is a place where consciously holding Metaskills(Deep democracy, respect,
curiosity) would make a difference
o It is also important to be aware of the different hats’ leaders wear – that of a
colleague, leader, out of box thinker etc. – always preferable that the one with the
leader hat goes last
o A good practice is to use blank access questions when you are revealing the system
to itself and reading the emotional field – they are called blank access as people can
choose from which information channel they answer.
o Some of the blank access questions are
▪ How is this landing?
▪ What are you becoming aware of?
▪ What is happening? What is trying to happen?
▪ What else? What next?
▪ What would be a metaphor for this?
• Remember that change is an emotional journey
o Revealing the system to itself helps the system to navigate change skillfully
o Going through change is an emotional process – the key is to meet people where
they are on the change curve

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Source: The five stages of grief, The Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation

Working with conflict to facilitate emergence

• The ability to view and work with conflict as a systemic event and a signal that change is
needed and something new is trying to emerge, shifting the perspective from “who is doing
what to whom” to “what is trying to happen”
• Five ways to grow this competency are
o Hold conflict as a signal for emerging change
o Cocreate systems inspired safety
o Honor the stages of successful conflict resolution
o Decrease negativity during conflict
o Create clarity upfront on how decisions are made
• Hold conflict as a signal for emerging change
o The word conflict often evokes negative reactions – people call themselves “Conflict
averse”
o There is a fear that it could damage the team spirit, cause hurt and separation and
can even lead to somebody being fired
o We hold conflict as something valuable and a key area to be worked on and
revealed. – seeing it as an indicator for change
o The challenge is to deal with conflict skillfully and create “productive conflict” –
turning conflict into rich, generative conversations

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o It is important to think of conflict as an unopened package of information that is

being thrown around the room. Recognizing it as such is often a good metaphor for
slowing down and getting curious about what is wrapped up in the package
• Co-create Systems Inspired Safety
o Co-creating Systems Inspired Safety is a vital condition for dealing with conflict
effectively
o It creates a space for people to speak up and engage in difficult and courageous
conversations
• Honor the stages of successful conflict resolution
o Ideally a conflict is constructive and serves the system well by creating new insight
and change
o Conflict can also be unproductive – when it starts polarizing the system and
emotions run high
o When a conflict gets really hot, it is useful to apply the basic principles and
techniques of mediation – pause the escalation of blame, frustration and criticism.
Allow people to ventilate and let off steam - in small chunks and ensure everyone
has equal time, listen to interests in common, and seek alignment etc. and finally,
problem solve and come to an agreement
o Key questions to get alignment are
▪ Why is it important to resolve this?
▪ Are you willing to resolve this without blame?
▪ What is it that you notice as aspects of the agreement?
o Alignment is looking for a common goal, purpose, vision or strategy and agreement
is landing a concreate solution to move forward. They key to alignment is that the
parties involved are looking in the same direction – they are side by side
• Decrease negativity during conflicts
o Conflict can create negativity and toxicity and can impact team efficacy
o John Gottman – Four horsemen – blaming, defensiveness, stonewalling, contempt –
four toxins reinforce each other one evokes the other and creates a negative spiral
o Some of the ways to work with it are
▪ Educate your team on the toxins and conflict protocol together
▪ Reveal the toxins
▪ Choose powerful metaskills
▪ Refer to the Team alliance
▪ Train the team to use the I language rather than the you language
▪ Use soft-startup when addressing an issue – present an issue neutrally
without attacking the person

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 Brief Summary of Systems Inspired Leadership

Toxin Behavior Possible antidotes

Blaming/criticism
Finger pointing, aggressive Skillful feedback
attacking, bullying, dominating Feed forward
Soft Startup
Genuine curiosity
Use I language rather than You
language

Defensiveness Saying it is not their fault, Genuine curiosity

refusal to take responsibility,
not open to influence
Stonewalling Disengagement, passivity,
avoidance, withdrawal
Contempt Personal attacks, sarcasm, eye
rolling, demeaning gossip
2% truth – if some of it were
try – what would it be:?
You are the voice of the
system – speak up.
Transparency
Skillful feedback
Practice respectful community

• Create clarity upfront on how input will be used and decisions are made
o As a Systems Inspired leader, you have worked with your team/stakeholders
extensively to tap the collective wisdom and establish what is wanting to happen
o Decisions can be based on everyone’s input, majority vote, by consent, or consensus

Creating Systems Inspired Safety

• The ability to co-create a space where people feel comfortable to speak their truth, share
vulnerabilities, and ability to hold and open up a creative space
• A belief that members will not be punished or humiliated for speaking with ieas, questions,
challenges or mistakes
• The five ways to advance this competency are
o Consider Systems Inspired Safety as the foundation of people, teams and
organizations to flourish
o Leverage Systems Inspired safety to create productive conflicts and emergence
o Hoor and normalize that it takes time and effort to build Systems Inspires safety
o Amp up positivity
o Be aware of your special position as leader
• Consider Systems Inspired Safety as the foundation for people, teams and organizations to
flourish
o Systems Inspired Safety is about intentionally co-creating the systemic conditions for
people to speak up and share their truths – and is closely linked to psychological
safety – which is a “belief that no one will be punished or humiliated for speaking up
with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes”
o For Amy Edmondson, it is a fearless organization that promotes learning, innovation
and growth and a key to great team work
o Systems Inspired Safety emphasizes that the psychological safety is created from
and by the relationship system itself.
o The key role of the Systems Inspired leader is to invite, nurture and empower it

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 Brief Summary of Systems Inspired Leadership

o Systems Inspired Safety allows people to be truly human, to step into their purpose,
to share and live their dreams and show their vulnerability and mistakes.
o The challenge for organizations is to create a work place in which people speak up
rather than stay silent, challenge rather than conform, take initiatives rather than
react and known it is okay to fail rather than avoid taking the risk
• Leverage Systems Inspired Safety to create productive conflict and emergence
o Systems Inspired Safety helps to create a space where people speak the truth,
where diversity is fully leveraged and where productive conflict can flourish
o It enables the information to flow freely and unlocks creativity and collective
wisdom
o Asking a “What if” question on an important topic – asking every team member to
reflect on what would be possible or available when all constraints/barriers are
removed and ask them to share stories would be one of the ways to move forward.
• Honor and normalize that it takes time and effort to build Systems Inspired Safety
o Building Systems Inspired Safety takes time and is easily destroyed – “it comes by
foot and goes by horse”
o Systems Inspired Safety is not an end state nor a place of arrival. It needs to be
created moment by moment
o It starts with building relationships, connecting, showing interest, knowing people’s
aspirations and dreams and having a sense of their personal life
o Designing the Tea Alliance is a powerful way to co-create Systems Inspired Safety –
about how you would will flourish together and what you will do when things get
difficult
o Sharing your vulnerability is important – it is okay to say you don’t know and can be
motivating and inspiring for the team to hear you say that your are confident that
this team can find the answer
o Encourage people to experiment, try things out and learn and come back with new
insights are ways to encourage innovation
o The timing of when you say things is also important – go first when showing
vulnerability or courage (admitting a mistake, committing something edgy) and go
last when exploring a new topic or a sensitive issue
o A Systems Inspired Leader should be open, neutral and non-judgmental
• Amp up positivity
o Another powerful way to co-create Systems Inspired safety is to build positivity
o Positivity is about acknowledging a person, a partnership or a team
o According to research by Gottman, healthy marriages have a positivity/negativity
ratio of five to one. Barbara Frederickson talk of how the positivity ratio should be
higher than three to make the relationship flourishing.
o Celebrations, positivity exercises and championing are powerful instruments to
create positivity
o Positivity is strongly linked to growth mindset – those who believe they can learn
and improve and see failure as a learning opportunity
• Be aware of your special position or rank as a leader
o If you hold the outer role of leader in a team, be aware of the special position that
goes with it and the privileges that comes along with it.
o People may try to please you and if not safe, they may not tell you

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o Feedback, feedforward or anonymous 360 feedback are good tools to provide

insights on leadership and help create safety

The Being side of Systems Inspired Leadership

• Systems Inspired Leadership is a journey towards personal growth

o The being side is about who you are and how you view yourself, others and the
world
o It is about your own personal development and mindset.
o As a Systems Inspired Leader, there should be an awareness and willingness to be
open to influence, step away from judgement, move into curiosity and empathy,
listening to the voices of the system – all this creates a sense of belonging within the
team and enterprise
o Systems Inspired Leadership can be seen as a journey to deepen your own wisdom,
your personal evolution in service of yourself and the larger whole
• The System of Me
o As a human being, you are a relationship system as well – Self is the first system
o Discovering one’s inner system is being committed to continued evolution – so much
to discover as to who you are, strengths, values, what holds you back, your traumas
etc.
o Vertical development is the path of personal evolution as we navigate and create
awareness of the complexity of all the different voices within in.
o If there are internal conflicts, there is emergence in action – what is trying to
happen? What is wanting to come to the surface?
o It is about honoring all the different voices and inner roles making up the complexity
of what makes it uniquely you
o Cynthia Loy Darst “when your inside team is working together, everything can be
great, and life is wonderful. But when your Inside team is not aligned you can feel
stuck, anxious, confused or judge and beat up on yourself
o From a practical point of view, take a challenging situation, identify the various
players who might have a point of view, map them on a piece of paper and design a
team alliance focused on how you want to be together with different voices as you
tackle the challenge
• The System of We
o This refers to a relationship between you and one or more persons – We = I + you.
o There are three aspects to explore – how to be in a right relationship with yourself,
and the other person and how to be in a right relationship with the 3rd entity.
o Being in the right relationship with yourself is the place of Emotional Intelligence,
being in right relationship with the other is the place of social intelligence, and being
in the right relationship with the 3rd entity is the Relationship Systems Intelligence
o Peter Hawkins “It is the purpose that creates the team – not the team that creates
the purpose. The purpose is already out there in the world waiting for a team to
respond”
o Practically, take two situations where a person who irritates you and some one you
have a good relationship with.
▪ What is the quality of the relationship?
▪ How could this be useful?

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▪ What is the purpose of goal of your relationship?

▪ What information do you get from that perspective?
▪ What does the relationship want you to do?
▪ What does it need from you?
• The System of IT (larger whole/ ecosystem/ cosmos)
o This notion focuses on systems that are bigger than the system of we and more
anonymous – it shifts the gaze from the team to the bigger enterprise, from
government to country, from individuals to country, from system to ecosystem
o It includes new and big ideas, dreams and longings that want to manifest themselves
in the world
o It is about the subtle interplay between yourself and the bigger 3rd entity
o Systems Inspired Leadership could be defined as a masterful conduit of what an eco-
system wants or needs to achieve – about serving multiple 3rd entities, about
accelerating human evolution

Implementing Systems Inspired Leadership

• Systems Inspired Leadership relies on getting information from the system and its members
and to co-create with the system from that
• This goes beyond establishing ground conditions for change, moving away from a top down
leadership – more of a shared leadership model, of self-managed and distributed leadership
teams
• Its core value is to create from the system trusting that the answer is already there and
waiting to be revealed

Key challenges in implementing Systems Inspired Leadership

• Overcoming personal barriers as part of your personal growth

o Becoming a good leader starts with leading self – a personal journey based on
background, personality, experience and organizational culture
• Balancing task and relationship
o People often have a natural preference for being either task focused or relationship
focused – to be effective you need both
o Systems Inspired Leadership has a bias towards the people/relationship side – there
is a focus on results as well
• Switching hats and roles
o As a Systems Inspired Leader, you often have a “holding” or facilitating role – you
reveal, ask questions, and enable emergence.
o At the same time your role requires you to make decisions, give directions, appraise
and sometimes dismiss people – be clear on what hat you are wearing at any given
time – mentor, facilitator, coach, line manager, decision maker
• Making your own voice heard
o Sometimes as a facilitator, it is difficult to make one’s voice heard – it is important
voice your needs since you hold vital information
• Educating / enrolling the organization
o Systems Inspired Leadership takes time to master – not everyone will be convinced
and not everybody will be willing or capable of making the change.
o It is important to create a common language and develop role models

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• Language
o The jargon used by Systems Inspired leaders may not appeal immediately to
everyone - the relationship system vocabulary is different with words/phrases like
3rd entity, Metaskills, emotional field, voice of the system, edge etc.
o Meet the system where it is – use the language it can relate to and gradually
introduce the language used by Systems Inspired Leaders

Key practices to implement Systems Inspired Leadership successfully

• At the individual level practice is key – see things systemically, work with the emotional field,
see edge behaviors, deal with own uncertainty and triggers
• Educate your team
o Enrolling your team by introducing the language, give examples, use light tough and
repeat often
• Role modeling
o Be an example – let people see you doing it and notice the impact it makes on the
culture
• Make it the core of a culture and/leadership program
o Engage in training and ensure that conditions are created where the new approach
can be practiced and implemented

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