This goes out to you, business leaders in the world. It’s on you!
Well, it’s also on me and on all the other business leaders.
What is on me, you’re thinking?
To solve the climate crisis and sustainability crisis that we put ourselves in and to give hope to the people.
Ernest and Young have just released a report based on a study they do that they call “Connected citizens”.
In here you can read a conclusion that is well in line with what other studies and reports have found. Just one third of the global citizens find their government trustworthy and just slightly better on local government – 36% trust their local government.
The world needs leaders right now, leaders that can give people hope that despite this endless string of bad news about climate disasters, about biodiversity loss and so on and so on, that they should not give into despair and should not lose hope.
On the contrary, they must continue to believe that it’s doable and we can actually regenerate the ecosystem and turn it into this safe, rich and pleasant system that we can all thrive in.
And with the numbers I just mentioned before about politicians, there is no way that we can rely on politicians to take that leadership role. Or to be more accurate, there is no way that people will allow them to take such a role, even if they’re ready to do it.
So that’s why it’s up to you, up to business leaders to actually be leaders.To be the leaders that the world needs.
The question is, are you ready to take on that role that’s been chosen for you?I sincerely hope so.
I can promise you it will be hard, but I can also promise you that it’s gonna be extremely rewarding and the recipe is actually quite simple.
You will most likely need to upgrade your mission into something about leaving a lasting positive impact on the world, in whatever area that fits best to your company and your competences.
You will also need a trusted roadmap of some form on how are you going to progress in the years to come.
And then most importantly, you must act and create results,
But hey, that’s what you do every day, right? That is the core of what business is all about. You solve meaningful problems for your customers and you create results.
You might have to upgrade your domain a bit to get sustainability to be part of it and to be part of the results that you create.
You will probably need to upgrade your mindset a little bit, to get a different understanding about how business and sustainability connect, but that’s absolutely doable.
And finally, you have to go out and talk about it.
This is the step where you magnify both the impact and the business value of your effort, because by going out and telling the world about the results you create and the journey you’re on, you create the hope and you get the positive feedback from the marketplace, from the media, from talent, from partners, by communicating on the results you create and the journey you’re on you will turn yourself into a magnet for clients, for partners and for talent.
And at the same time, you inspire others to go down the same path as you are on.
It does not matter if you’re a big or small, if you are a local, regional or global in your business, because action is needed and leadership is sought for and hope is needed on all levels.
So we all have a role to play here.
I deeply thank you for joining this community of global leaders.
If you need a bit of a strategic benchmark on how you’re doing on integrating sustainability into your business, then there is a free self-assessment tool I created that you can find at https://greenprofit.scoreapp.com/
It will take you less than five minutes and it will give you suggestions to next steps for you depending on how you score.
