Successful Social Impact Leaders Know This 1 Key Lesson

Over the past 20 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of social impact leaders around the world.

The leaders who’ve achieved long-term sustainable impact, all know this 1 Key Lesson:

Lead from healing, not from pain.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

1/ Lived Experience Informs Passion

Social impact leaders are attracted to issues because they themselves have been personally affected:

• The Environmentalist who lost a home in wildfires

• The Anti-Bullying Activist who was once unpopular

• The Equal Rights Advocate who identifies as LGBTQIA

Lived experience is a valuable perspective. However lived experience includes personal pain. When we lead from pain, we unconsciously project personal wounding into the system.

We negate the very shifts we want to see in the world.

2/ Healing is Responsible Leadership

Yes, hurt people, hurt people.

But healed people, heal people.

And Leaders have a personal responsibility to attend to their healing journey. When leaders transcend their wounds, they are informed, no longer consumed by their pain. Energy that was once festering, is now free to create and innovate.

This is the path towards sustained, actionable progress.

Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog