The Leadership Moment We Are In

The screen lights up. We need to act now. Mobilize. The words hit like a spark to dry leaves. Your pulse quickens. The stakes are high, the moment feels too fragile for hesitation. Move—do something, fix it, respond immediately. Your body tenses, your thoughts race, and before you even register the weight of the moment, you’re already in motion—reacting, not choosing.

We know this feeling. We live in it now. A world unraveling, systems breaking, harm cascading. The fires keep coming—some slow, smoldering underfoot, some flashing like lightning, demanding everything, now. It feels like if we don’t act, something precious will be lost.

We’ve been taught that leadership means always answering the call, always moving, always doing something. And urgency—real, bone-deep urgency—comes from a place of love, from the ache of knowing people are hurting, from the fear of what happens if we don’t act.

But what if this model of leadership—one fueled by exhaustion, pressure, and the fear of stopping—isn’t leading us toward change, but further into depletion?

The very thing we’ve been conditioned to do—the relentless reaction to urgency, the instinct to act first and think later—isn’t just unsustainable, it’s harmful. Leadership is not about moving faster. It’s about standing steadier. Leadership is not reacting. It is rooting, connecting, and moving together.

Urgency alone is not a strategy. It can burn so hot that it leaves nothing behind but smoke and exhaustion. It does not nourish us or the folks we love. It does not build the type of leadership required for long-term change. It traps us in cycles of relentless action that usually produce only band-aid solutions, keeping us from pausing to ground ourselves, reflect, build community, and strategize for lasting impact.

We know this rhythm all too well—pouring everything into the work, stretching ourselves thin, mistaking depletion for devotion. We move until we have nothing left, until we are disconnected from the very values that called us to leadership in the first place. And still, the work keeps coming. But here’s the truth: we were never meant to carry this alone, never meant to run until we collapse. Somewhere along the way, we were told that exhaustion is proof of commitment, that leadership is measured in how much we can give before we break.

And, of course, we feel this way. We are living inside a rupture. A country that once draped itself in the language of democracy is shifting—fast and hard—toward something colder, crueler: neo-fascism, authoritarianism, and oligarchy. Power is being hoarded, drawn further away from the people most impacted. Institutions once seen as unshakable are buckling under their own weight and the public’s eroding trust. The political and economic systems that were never built for justice are unraveling rapidly, harming communities instead of protecting them. Every day, we feel the crush of it—the uncertainty, the fear, the question of what will be left for those who come after us.

In moments like these, leadership can feel both essential and impossible. So what does it look like to lead when the ground is shifting beneath us? How do we build something that lasts—something rooted in care, in community, in a way of leading that does not just resist, but reimagines?

Participatory Leadership Offers an Alternative

Somewhere deep down, we know this isn’t the only way. We feel it in the quiet moments, in the deep breath before the next battle, in the way our bodies ache for something different. This doesn’t have to be our reality.

Participatory leadership is not just an alternative—it’s an act of reclamation. A way of leading that does not demand we burn ourselves out for the cause but instead teaches us how to build something that lasts. It is not about reacting from exhaustion, not about moving just because movement feels necessary. It is about rooting ourselves in care, in community, in a collective power that energizes rather than depletes.

Because leadership should not leave us empty. It should sustain us, so that we can sustain each other.

Bridging the Gap: Shifting From Urgency to Sustainable Leadership

Shifting from urgency-driven leadership to participatory leadership doesn’t mean pulling back from the work—it means choosing how we move. With intention. With alignment. With the kind of sustainability that keeps us in it for the long haul. It means leading in a way that doesn’t just fight against collapse, but builds toward something better.

This shift requires more than just new strategies—it demands that we unlearn the habits urgency has etched into our bones and choose a different way:

🔹 From Individual Burden to Shared Power – We were never meant to carry this alone. Leadership isn’t about authority or control; it’s about leading from the middle, not from above. It’s about weaving ourselves into the collective, making space for others, and co-creating change instead of shouldering the weight in isolation.

🔹 From Constant Action to Strategic Engagement – Leadership is not a measure of how much we do, how many hours we put in, how exhausted we feel at the end of the day. It’s about intention. Impact. Alignment. It’s about knowing when to pause, when to ground, when to reflect—because leadership that is scattered and frantic does not hold up over time.

🔹 From Burnout to Well-Being as a Leadership Practice – Rest is not weakness. Taking care of ourselves is not selfish. Sustainable leadership requires practices that replenish rather than drain us. A movement that does not make space for well-being will not last.

🔹 From Reactivity to Relational Leadership – Urgency tells us to act alone, to react fast, to push through. But participatory leadership asks something different. It calls us into relationship, into deep listening, into the kind of trust that builds strategies—not just responses. This work is long. We cannot do it without each other.

Because the truth is: we do not lead alone. We never have.

What is Participatory Leadership in Practice?

Participatory leadership isn’t about having the right answers—it’s about asking the right questions. It’s about leading in ways that align with our deepest values, deepen collective power, and sustain us for the long haul. It’s not a fixed blueprint, not a rigid system—it’s a practice, a rhythm, a way of being in relationship with the work and with each other.

Here’s what that practice looks like:

🌱 Practicing Deep Listening & Relational Leadership – Leadership doesn’t start with speaking—it starts with listening. It means making room, creating space, building trust before action. We do not lead alone; we lead in conversation, in community.

🔄 Moving from Individual Leadership to Collective Power-Sharing – The best leadership isn’t about standing out—it’s about weaving in. It happens in collaboration, in shared decision-making, in the trust that leadership is strongest when it’s distributed, not hoarded.

🎯 Cultivating Intentional Decision-Making & Aligned Action – Not every call to action is ours to answer. Leadership means pausing before we move, making sure our choices align with what truly matters. It’s about leading from purpose, not pressure—from clarity, not obligation.

💆🏽‍♀️ Sustaining Ourselves So We Can Sustain Our Communities – Leadership isn’t a sprint; it’s a lifetime of showing up. And that means taking care of ourselves so we can take care of the work. It means rest, nourishment, knowing when to pull back so we can keep going.

🧠 Shifting Mindsets to Strengthen Leadership – Leadership is as much about how we think as what we do. Moving from scarcity to possibility, from control to trust, from isolation to interdependence—this is the shift that allows us to lead with resilience, to build movements that last.

💡 Defining Purpose as a Leadership Anchor – Without purpose, we drift. Leadership needs an anchor—something steady beneath us, something deeper than urgency. Knowing why we lead, what values guide us, and how we contribute to the whole—this is what turns reaction into transformation.

Because in the end, leadership isn’t about the person in charge. It’s about the people in motion. It’s about how we move together.

The Shift: Leadership as Reflection

We shift our leadership when we shift the way we make sense of our work—when we slow down enough to ask the right questions, to examine our instincts, and to align our movement with our deepest values.

One of the most powerful tools we have for this shift? Reflection. Not just an internal dialogue, but a leadership practice—one that allows us to step out of urgency, notice our patterns, and make intentional choices about how we lead.

We talk more about this in our next blog, “Reflective Practice: The Key to Self-Leadership.“ We invite you to read it, sit with the questions, and explore how reflection can deepen your leadership.

How We Lead in This Moment

The weight of this moment is real. The urgency is real. The crises we face—climate, political, economic, spiritual—are relentless. And we are not wrong to feel the need to move, to act, to work for something better.

But if urgency is all we have, it will hollow us out. If we do not build the leadership to sustain the work, the work will not sustain us. We will keep cycling through burnout, through exhaustion, through movements that surge and fade, leaving us depleted in their wake.

Participatory leadership offers something different—a way of leading that doesn’t just resist but radically reimagines. It is a practice that calls us to do more than react—it calls us to root down, to move with intention, to build something that can last. It asks us to show up fully—not just for the work, but for each other. Not just to resist collapse, but to co-create the future that is not yet visible.

So pause for a moment. Where are you in your leadership practice today?

🔺 What might shift if you moved from urgency to collective strategy?
🔺 From isolation to shared power?
🔺 From depletion to rest and recovery?

This moment is calling for more than just action. It’s calling for us.

---

An Invitation to Practice

If you are looking for a space to reflect, engage, and build a leadership practice that sustains both you and the movements you care about, we invite you to join us for Participatory Leadership: Cultivating Care, Community, and Collective Power—a 6-week lab designed to explore leadership as an emergent, relational practice.

📅 June 3 – July 8, 2025
🕛 Tuesdays | 12:00 – 1:30 PM EDT
💲 $249 per participant, scholarships available
🌱 A space for deep reflection, shared learning, and leadership that sustains.

We are committed to accessibility and equity. For information about financial aid, email newschool@participatorychange.org.

Together, let’s cultivate leadership that sustains, empowers, and reimagines how change happens.