Smart mindset on leading sustainable organizations: a look at systems thinking

This piece is meant for readers to reflect on how we can help facilitate management education and leadership skills development in face of today’s challenges on how to lead a sustainable organization on sounding grounds.

On that, we first must address that smart mindset is a concept we urge leaders to understand well, as it integrates essential skills that help one (and his/her team) to develop a responsible approach to sustainable progress in business today. In fact, capital with purpose smart mindset corporate training is a prominent way of running businesses today and develop its leadership communities.

Let’s begin by stating that smart mindset can be viewed as a set of crucial leadership skills that are best addressed as a combination of:

~ management ethics,
~ social governance and good entrepreneurship,
~ environmental studies and green economy debate,
~ systems thinking,
~ self-awareness and mental skills, and
~ self-connection (spirituality development) ~ which all reflect on how educators, consultants, mentors and coaches are facilitating this smart mindset in the context of management education and leadership development.

The fact is that there are many ways one can develop and implement these skills set, leading to a smart mindset way of management in today’s corporate environment.

One of the most efficient trainings I find suitable on the triple bottom line framework (people, planet and profit) is the Bio-Leadership and Smart Mindset Program designed for the private and public companies, NGOs and individuals or group leaders to assist businesses and teams to better align with the wider nature of the ecosystem we are a part of. This Program is given on a hybrid and/or online environment (e-learning set) and the length and specialty of it can be adjusted on a case-by-case basis.

Now, if readers prefer first to get acquainted with this topic and help them build this mindset culture, there is the co-authored “Bio-Leadership Guide” available for the general public for only a small fee, and what I believe can be a well-meaning source of stronger link with this matter.

At a deeper level, and going into the work in the training “Bio-Leadership and Smart Mindset Program”, it is about shifting a mindset of separation and individualism to one of a more flexible, collaborative and open-minded mentality, working with the concept and practice of systems thinking, bringing to the table a much more responsible approach to management and innovation, by working more closely with nature’s needs, sustainability, ethics and governance, and yet keeping businesses goals, compliance and financial expectations in focus.

Being a bit more specific, let’s dive into the concept of systems thinking (Magnus Ramage and Karen Shipp. 2009. Systems Thinkers. Springer), which is basically a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and interconnected relationships rather than by splitting it down into parts.

Now, as in any learning and/or professional-personal development program, becoming a system thinker begins with a strong commitment to focus on awareness (inside and out), asking powerful and different questions than you were used to, noticing your current mindset and the systems around you.

Applying systems thinking to solve problems and improve the performance of complex projects in any organization is something leaders can expect when working with our Smart Mindset Programs. To name a few important key themes in systems thinking, we have interconnectedness (with ourselves, with each other, and with all things in the universe), synthesis (the combination of parts or elements so as to form a whole) and feedback loops (that come in the form of best practices, recurring meetings, and other tactics to keep an open flow of communication and collaboration).

Systems thinking has been used as a way of exploring and developing effective action in complex contexts, and truly, the invitation here is to help transform you (and your co-leaders) into agents of change through smart mindset, helping humankind, and at the same time, preparing your leadership team better for the environmental, socio-governance (ESG), economic and political challenges businesses are facing now – and ahead, bringing the bio-intelligently-smart-mindset into your corporation’s experience.

If you stayed with me until here, I pose this question to you:

Isn’t it time, already, for that smart mindset move of yours (and of your business)!?

Note: this article was first published at the LinkedIn Author’s Page on July 18th, 2022. Small adjustments on the text were made to fit this page.