User:Manuri Lakmali

Introduction
Regenerative leadership has become the latest leadership that is required at the present context in leading organizations, business or any other entities in the society. The call for regenerative leadership was further highlighted after the COVID 19 pandemic that has embraced the world at the moment.

This article tries to highlight how regenerative leadership can and has the capacity to lead a business out from a crisis. And why every business should have a part to play in regenerative leadership in world that is over populated by human demands where it has adverse impact on the advancement of the sustainability in the natural resources, which questions the availability of natural resources for the consumption of the future generations.

What is "Regenerative Leadership"?
According to Laura Storm and Giles Hutchins, “Regenerative Leadership: The DNA of life-affirming 21st century organizations”. It is the application of knowledge that helps to formulate an organization as a living organism or a system much more alive than the conventional "Mechanical non living system" that needed correction and fixing. A systems that constantly evolves in the environment surrounded by it. Further Storm and Giles Hutchins elaborates it is a new form of leadership that brings together and connects many aspects involving the human beings (e.g.biomimicry, circular economy, adult developmental psychology, anthropology, biophilia, sociology, complexity theory and next-level of leadership development) via a form of living organization system that is a part of expanding development prosperity and tenacity. Achieving sustainability via business that contributes to the preservation and recreation, restoration of the natural resource are the call of the 21st century leadership, And the leadership overcoming the challenges that stems from resources scarcity, social inequality, disruptive innovations, increasing workplace stress, competition in skills and talents, etc.

How can regenerative leadership help to overcome in a crisis situation?
The 21st century is all confronted with the burning issues like the global warming, climate issues and sustainability of natural resources. With the recent disasters like Australin bush fires that burnt more than 12.5 million of hectares, 2006 Zakouma elephant slaughter that occurred in Zakouma national park in the republic of Chad , the Salinity of both dryland and soil that has become irremediable due to European farming methods used in agriculture where 2.5 million of hectares being salinised , the 2000 Baia Mare cyanide spill in close proximity to Baia Mare, Romania by gold mining company which is a joint venture between Australia and Romanian government  , etc. are few of the catastrophes that had taken place in many areas concerning environment, agriculture, business so on and so forth. Therefore, the world is calling for new leadership style that takes every aspect of the community and the environment that the businesses operate in when running businesses.

A regenerative leadership is a form a sustainable leadership style. First we need to understand the definition of the sustainability leadership. "“A sustainability leader is someone who inspires and supports action towards a better world.” Further the Sustainable Leadership Institute says that people driven by a sense of interest that intensifies awareness about the interaction and the relationship with the world around them that enables them to develop new perceptions that are innovative. Which results in development of new ways of thinking, interacting  that leads to sustainability. The World Conservation Strategy in 1980 defined and introduced sustainable development as  “the integration of conservation and development to ensure that modifications to the planet do indeed secure the survival and well-being of all people” and the need for leadership driven by sustainability in organizations were surfaced. Due the rapid change in technology and developments taking place, more and more natural resources are needed and consumed to cater to the high market demand. And with the advancement of the communication industry that had made a large impact on the advancement of mobile (hand held phone) device has enabled people all around the world to stay connected 24 x 7. And thereby making information at their grasp like never before in the world history. Therefore, the demand for the phones sky rocketed making it an almost a basic need of everyone. At the same time the organization had to fine-tune and develop their infrastructure and its resources in line with supply chain to cater for the huge demand. In this process, adverse effects for the sustainability on the society, ethics and environment are inevitable. The question relies on who strives to act responsibly and act to minimize these negative impact on the environment, humans, ecosystem and the labor. For example, Apple faces environment impact and child labor issues in the production of their products. The IT giant has taken adequate steps to minimize the impact. The mining for mineral for production of their products from in the Democratic Republic of Congo. that also involves child labor. Walmart's greenhouse gas emissions and disposing of plastics are major concerns and some threats to the environment. And bad policies like acquiring undeveloped land and selling for short life span products are some of other threats Walmart faces. Anyway, Walmart has made a commitments to overcome these threat in moving in to renewable energy sources and recycles packaging in the next decade.

The above examples shows how a business that caters to the modern day market impacts negatively to the society and to the ecosystem that we live in. There are hundreds of businesses and organizations that strive to supply to the modern day demands that have impacts like a chain reaction to many areas. Hence, the call for regenerative leadership is to ensure that organizations are complying to the sustainable rules and regulations in conducting their businesses. And take adequate steps to rectify the issues, mitigate threats and help in any form to preservation, restoration and conservation of the natural environment,. And its resources. Regenerative leadership is following the sustainable standards and rules in their businesses. And making effort and initiative to conserve and protect the ecosystem ( including the human, cultural aspects) of the world. Many actions have come forth in the form of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) to give back something good to the society and the environment.

In order for regenerative leadership to overcome a crisis situation, multiple stakeholder involvement through shared collective ethos involving business, community and education should be carried out. According to Singer, to have sustainability it is essential to involve many people with different perspectives that are induced by different subjects on to the table. And leadership is the ability to bring in people to the table that could add and contribute scenarios to the actions. Singer ensured that wider participation of people are involved in to their projects ranging from social anthropologists to ethicist, religious leaders. Hence, it the initiative and the ability to keep intact an ongoing shareholders with different capacities working towards a common goal. A regenerative leader is a democratic leader that believes and tolerates voice, ideas from different perspective that could be controversial and encouraging the scenarios presented on the table. Hence, it is evident that regenerative leadership is bringing all aspects such as social, religious, environmental, business, technological and legal in to a common forum that exercise freedom speech and ideas. And with shared leadership, with empowerment, relevant resources available to proceed with the agreed outcome. Regenerative leadership in contrast to sustainable leadership is the continuous struggle or attempt comply with all aspects in the society and the world. Which benefits each human being, the ecosystem and in compliance with the legal, ethical terms. Any crisis is overcome by regenerative leadership with the shared views, ideas, recommendation and collective decisions that are spearheaded by passionate leader with charisma whose ultimatum is finding working business model or output that is compatible in fulfilling the sustainability of all aspects. Which will ensure that graceful transferring of natural resources and social values to the generations to come. According to Martin Melaver, share leadership paves the way for the expression of needs and values in an organization. And will empower people that they will exercise their leadership capacities and capabilities. Such attributes will drive the individuals to come up with many intrinsic ideas to uphold sustainability methods and actions that will make a permanent change in the organizational culture. Different ideas from different people with different perspectives will help to tackle a problem effectively. A mix of linear thinking and non-linear thinking will help to look at a crisis in different angles. And will help to come up with profound solutions that will have acceptance in par with sustainability. The Sustainability Consortium of the Society for Organizational Learning claims that frequent and regular meetings, conversations is the key that enables to hear out all voices in the organisation. New knowledge and ideas are received, they are shared with outside organizations as Harley Davidson so that the best methods and policies of implementation are searched for.