Tell me about your vision. Well, it's something
that's developed over quite a long time. But
I've been teaching leadership for 30 -odd years,
33, 34 years now. And it's clear to me that the
skills of leadership that are taught today not
the ones that are going to take us forward we
need new mindsets we need a new idea about what
leadership is and how it's going to bring about
real change that we can live with so my vision
is is bringing the concept of rewilding into
leadership So I'm writing a book at the moment,
which is called Rewilding the Corporate Mind.
And it's well, that's that's what it is. I don't
know whether everybody's familiar with the term
rewilding. It's not in the dictionary. Each time
I write it, my computer wants to put something
else in. But yeah, that's that's what it's about.
That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. What
would you say, Tom, that why do you think that
leadership needs to change and why is it not
working? I want to get to know about your vision
a little bit more. Can you tell us more about
it? Yeah, well, I think that the world is in
a mess right now. On a political basis, there
are moves. either left or right mostly right
uh and um there's an enormous amount of damage
being done to if i can call him joe normal uh
the rich are getting richer and the poor are
getting poorer and this is if you look at history
over the last two three thousand years you can
see how quote civilizations have risen and then
they've fallen and We are in a very typical Downward
spiral now and I think that in order to You know
in order to for us to prevent us just going down
the way that literally every civilization has
over millennia, then we need to behave differently
to all the ones that failed. And part of that
is bringing in the traits of kindness. I'm talking
about kindness, compassion, the willingness to
bring on the strengths of community. I think
that an awful lot of you see it all over the
world, really. Community is being destroyed and
people are being encouraged just to be individuals.
And you never have success that way. what where
we have success is when people come together
as community and support each other um i mean
i could go on about this for quite a bit but
i remember when i lived in colorado um there
was all the flooding in boulder what i did was
to bring out a sort of a pioneer spirit where
everybody got together and working together to
And I don't know that after the L .A. is it's
a it's a leadership that cares more for the group
than it does for the individual. This is less
about me and it's about us. Awesome. Tom, what
would you say that if people were to actually
start looking at or start applying better leadership
roles and skills into their day -to -day life,
how do you see that helping us with the society
not declining now? Well, I think society is changing.
Whether it declines or not is kind of dependent
on, I think, the quality of leadership that people
bring to it. What leaders now, what they need
is an access to their own inner wisdom. I think
that an awful lot of... the business schools
and other schools are teaching people about how
to lead by looking outwards and seeing groups
of people and and how do we for instance uh inculcate
followership some people define leadership as
as a way of creating followership i don't really
agree with that i think that an awful lot of
people are looking for a leader I mean, there
was a statistic in the London Times the other
day where they said that 52 % of young people
in this country would rather have a dictator
than a normal prime minister. And that's sort
of a reflection of how confusing and anxiety
-creating the environment is and how unhappy
an awful lot of people are they just want someone
who's going to take away the problems come in
tell me what to do get rid of the problems and
then I can get on with my life but life's not
like that and and so what we really need to do
is is to resource individuals to be at least
to a good extent self -sufficient in the way
that they look at the world, in the way they
make decisions, in the way that they conduct
themselves with other people. You can't do it
alone. You've got to do it with others. That's
why the power of community is so, so very important.
But at the same time, it's not community where
you've got some... head honcho. It's a community
where people get together and they talk and they
communicate. I mean, boy, we've got social media
coming out of our ears and yet people don't talk
to each other anymore. It's a real irony. Yeah.
Wow. There's a lot you shared in that. Wow, something
blew my mind. One thing I did not expect that
a big percentage of people would want a dictatorship
in their own country. there's a lot I come from
India born and raised and I live in the United
States and coming to the United States and experiencing
the freedom that we have here and knowing the
history of what people went through to get the
freedom that they have and the rights that they
are so proud of and the sacrifice that were made
I can understand if someone is too weak to see
that giving away their their freedom for for
ease of life because it never comes in that you
throughout civilization throughout civilizations
anytime someone has given up their freedom only
with bloodshed has been recovered so I totally
agree with you on that aspect is that there is
we need to be treating we need to have a lot
more better leaders. We need to have better leaders
in the society that lead by example in ways.
I think it's reminding me of that very famous
social media quote like great men create good
men create good times. Good times create weak
men. Weak men create hard times and hard times
then create strong men. It's a circle and the
circle that keeps going. So, wow, thanks for
sharing that. What are your thoughts on what
I just shared with you? Well, for what it's worth,
speaking as an Englishman, although actually
I am three -quarters French, but speaking as
an Englishman, looking back at the way that particularly
England, let alone Britain, treated India, It's
the kind of thing that we don't really see in
the history books in this country. And yet, it
was abominable. The colonial mindset, which still
exists in many ways, it's old hat and it doesn't
belong in today but like so many of the things
that the legacies of history that we carry even
if we only carry them systemically we still carry
them and they need to be put to rest and the
only way to put them to rest is to really acknowledge
them uh and i think that there's an awful lot
of dynamics in today's societies where they say
oh look that's in the past forget it You can't
do that. I deal with organizations all the time
where they want to bring in a change, but they
don't want to acknowledge where the organization
has come from to get to where it is that needs
to change. They just say, right, here we are,
let's change. And it never works. you know systemically
you've got to look at the roots and where things
have come from and and actually look at the mindsets
of the people that created the environment that
has produced the situation that we're now in
so uh i we we have to acknowledge the the past
i think that's a that's a that's a that's a really
important aspect when i talked about the 50 52
i think that they're genuine Generation Z. So
it's not the whole population that's thinking
like that. It's the youth. And I mean, that's
kind of scary in a way. But these things are
so complex. You know, why do they think like
that? Well, because their boomer parents have
both been out at work earning money. And, you
know, these are the latchkey kids. they're now
saying i don't want that i i want something different
and so uh again we're getting these waves of
of change um so ah yeah there was something else
i was going to say um to what you said and i'm
afraid that this slipped my mind right now uh
yeah tom um thank you for sharing that there's
a lot more thoughts that i have you know it's
it's a call it a coincidence or not but yesterday
i was listening to a podcast from someone in
india it was actually talking about the history
of india and it's probably one of the first times
i've actually listened to a podcast that talks
about that and in that it was a staggering opening
eye opener for me that when the when the british
when the brits colonized india They did a lot
of damage to the memory of India where the history
was stored and the things that they were keeping
accounts of. So they burned a lot of that. And
when they colonized, they rewrote the history
in a way that to this day in the books in India,
they are taught the wrong history and they're
taught the wrong mental blocks in their own head.
I think it's easy even now for people to self
-sabotage because of what they've been taught
for generations now. And it's on autopilot. It's
flowing through the system. It's flowing through
government. It's flowing through everything.
And I think that's kind of the leadership I think
you were talking about earlier, that we need
leaders who can see through that and give clarity
and need to know how you can discern from the
truth. and false claims. How you can stop from
self -sabotaging and actually not be a victim
of the situation anyhow. How you can take control
and not blame anyone else for the situation you're
in, but take away power from them and empower
yourself to do better, to be better, to make
the change that you want to see in the world.
So that was a very eye -opening. thing for me
that i thought i just wanted to share that with
you sure yeah i mean if you're if your listeners
are are um are interested there's a there's a
british podcast which is um done by uh um a a
a british indian um journalist uh and a a british
author who lives in india it's called empire
And there are, I don't know, I mean, there's
hundreds of them now, the podcast. But it starts
with an examination of the East India Company,
which was an organization that went in and frankly
raped and pillaged through India. And the motivation
for that was money. and it's one of the the troubles
the difficulties that we are in in today that
so much damage is being done by people who have
one orientation which is to make money and it's
really interesting i've done quite a lot of work
around ai the introduction of ai one of the things
i often say about this is that ai is an amazing
tool It's going to bring all sorts of amazing
positive changes. But at the same time, companies
are fighting over how to use the AI in order
to make more money. And they're spending fortunes
on it. But very few companies are actually looking
at what are the implications of the way that
we introduce AI to our people. to the human beings
you know we've got um british telecom in this
country which is a you know it's a fairly large
company where they were talking about laying
off um i think it's 20 000 people in the next
two years because of ai so what are these guys
going to do what jobs are they going to get so
once again ai actually if we if we don't apply
it sensibly and with a systemic viewpoint, we
will just make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
And as I said a little earlier, I don't know
whether that was caught on the recording, that
where you have in this sort of quote unquote
civilization, this disparity, this spread, this
difference between the rich and the poor, eventually
society breaks down. And one of the things that
really struck me in the States was when I lived
there, there's a lot of people who just say,
why should I help this person? They're not working
hard enough or they've had bad luck. That's tough
on them. I pay my taxes. and i don't want to
pay anymore and it's that sort of sense of uh
that sense of individualism as opposed to a community
you know in the old days when when a a family
had a child the child was brought up by the community
not just by those parents and and the the children
that way had a sense of a balance in them and
a sense of belonging, which today we've largely
destroyed by the way that we've created society.
And nothing stands still. As I said, we're on
this roller coaster. But I think that the effects
of these kind of things will come home to roost.
And so going back to the sort of the concept
of leadership, what we need are leaders who can
see the overall picture, see the impact of what's
going on, and can say, actually, no, we're not
going to do this, we're going to do that. And
the implications are, we'll make a little bit
less money, but actually, we'll have a group
of people who have a level of contentment in
the group and within themselves that things will
go better. Yeah, you know, I mean, I've been
to India a number of times. And one of the things
that really strikes me about that every time
I go is you see people who have nothing. And
they're really happy. And then you come into
the West and you see people who have got everything.
And they're miserable. There's something wrong
here. We are prioritizing the wrong things. And
so we need leaders who can see that. have this
broader sense of the impact of the decisions
that they're making. Thank you for being here
today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to
Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing
your reactions as these episodes continue to
move forward. This is going to get more and more
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And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a vision pro yourself.