The only way to solve the environmental crisis is for leaders from all sectors to transform the way we work together to create lasting change.
The new book Our Next Evolution: Transforming Collaborative Leadership to Shape Our Planet’s Future by Laura Calandrella provides leaders from the business, non-profit, and public sectors with the framework needed to take collective action on the intersectional challenges of our environmental issues.
The Pitch
Our Next Evolution introduces four leadership practices that are essential to integrate collaboration successfully into conservation and sustainability strategies. It outlines an approach to leadership that we have yet to embrace fully, but is critical to ensure a better world for people and our planet.
The book equips leaders with the tools to leverage the power of relationships among diverse stakeholders as we tackle our most complex issues. It takes cutting-edge leadership development research and applies it to practical methods for scaling conservation efforts.
Calandrella has twenty years of experience as a collaboration strategist, dialogue facilitator and leadership coach across the environmental community. In Our Next Evolution she guides leaders to strengthen their capacity to sustain natural resources, support vibrant communities, and build thriving economies – together.
The Collaborative Leadership Model
The way we approach collaboration today is outmoded. It is no longer sufficient to meet the pace and complexity of the change we currently face. Our Next Evolution presents a collaborative leadership model that puts relationship at the center of the solutions that create systems-level change.
The model calls cross-sector leadership to master four interlinked practices: Cultivating Presence, Creating Space, Leveraging Diversity, and Sustaining Dialogue. Gaining fluency in these practices and consistently applying them within collaborative efforts results in Collective Action.
It carves the path for current leaders to deliver on the promise of collaboration, the promise of a more inclusive and sustainable future. Through their own commitment to development, they leave a legacy that enables the next generation to have more success and an even greater impact.
The Four Leadership Practices
Cultivating Presence
What is the compelling reason for doing this work today?
This practice focuses on connecting – individually and collectively – to our deepest purpose for doing the work. No matter what issue we are addressing, the mindful articulation of our intentions heightens our focus and strengthens our ability to respond to the ever-changing nature of our challenges.
Creating Space
How do we create environments that foster inclusive, trusting, and engaged partnerships?
Building commitment to any effort requires creating an experience where people can do their best work. The spaces we choose for collaboration determine whether our partners feel understood, valued, and able to contribute their most creative ideas. Leaders have a responsibility for shaping those spaces – whether physical or virtual – and creating powerful experiences within them.
Leveraging Diversity
What barriers need to be broken to ensure that diverse, lived experiences are the fuel that ignite lasting change?
Diversity is not a problem to be solved, it is the heart of our solutions. This practice pulls back the curtain on biases we’ve long held as a society, but particularly within the context of our environmental issues. It challenges leaders to confront the structural dynamics that prevent diverse participation in collaboration.
Sustaining Dialogue
How do we elevate our communication with one another in a way that continuously generates novel pathways to action?
Collaboration is not a one-off activity. To sustain momentum requires that, together, we develop the capacity to learn and think about our challenges in generative ways. This practice gives leaders a formula for communicating courageously, authentically, and with the responsibility for balancing group dynamics.
Applying the four practices
Taking Collective Action
What is the process we must follow to make substantial gains on our most pressing issues?
Collective action is the result of applying the four leadership practices to a five-step collaborative process. To achieve powerful outcomes requires that we develop the mindset that collaboration is a journey, not an activity. Through this lens we learn to: define our vision, align to shared purpose, build adaptive strategies, reframe our measures of success, and evolve our leadership impact.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LAURA CALANDRELLA is a leadership strategist and consultant. She has spent the past two decades working with organizations from across the environmental community to design collaborative approaches to our most pressing issues. Her career began as a conservation biologist and international development practitioner. These experiences gave Laura firsthand knowledge of the power of collaboration, but also the difficulties that arise when diverse perspectives align under a shared vision for change. Now she guides the growth of sustainability and conservation partnerships by teaching the practices of collaborative leadership. Her work strengthens relationships, delivers more holistic and creative solutions, and allows her clients to achieve impactful results at increasingly larger scales.