GlobalLeadership.TV

GlobalLeadership.TV is an on-line, free access video programming site that features in-depth dialogues with innovation leaders from around the world, as well as the inner work practices that have helped them and their organizations to be successful in creating positive change in their organizations and societies.

Marina and Walter 3

GAF chair Walter Link in dialogue with Marina Silva, the Brazilian presidential candidate from 2010 & 2014 who garnered 20 million votes for her sustainability-focused campaign.

 

Global Leadership TV presents ‘The Heart of Innovation,’ an interview series hosted by Walter Link in dialog with outstanding thought and action leaders from around the world who embody a new paradigm of leadership. Watch the trailer now to see excerpts from the series:

These highly respected leaders in politics, business and activism, the arts and sports, science and education are what Walter calls inspired pragmatists. Their inspiration springs from the depth of our shared humanity and is so pragmatic that they became very successful in the world. They model a new paradigm of individual and co-creative leadership moving us towards a ‘better’ world – one that is more humane and sustainable, innovative and effective in satisfying our material and immaterial needs and in manifesting our individual and collective potential.

Watch Walter Link explain the core strategy behind this TV series and our other activities:

Some of our episodes include:

  • Isabel Allende: The Heart of Creativity – Behind her many books is the story of her daughter’s death and her spiritual journey, which are key to reinventing her creative process and grounding her activism.
  • A.T. Ariyaratne: the Heart of Societal Transformation: Meet Sri Lanka’s Gandhi who founded Sarvodaya, the country’s largest civil society movement that works with 15,000 villages to empower people at all levels of life.
  • Leontino Balbo: The Heart of Saving the Earth – Meet this business leader whose extraordinary connection to nature and his depth leads to reinventing large scale agriculture with the potential to resolve both hunger and sustainability.
  • Fabio Barbosa: The Heart of Sustainable Business – Meet the CEO of Abril and several important banks who demonstrated that personal development is the key to both innovation towards corporate success and sustainability.
  • Marise Barroso: The Power of Real Relationship  – Learn how this outstanding female CEO integrates male and female leadership qualities to foster humanity and productivity in Brazil’s heavy industry, demonstrating that women as well as men can do it all.
  • Peter Blom: The Heart of Sustainable Banking – Meet the CEO of Triodos, Europe’s leading sustainability bank and co-founder of the Global Alliance on Banking with Values who demonstrates that a different type of banking is possible.
  • Marshall Ganz: The Power of Storytelling – Meet the Harvard professor who helped Obama become president by training thousands of volunteers in storytelling.
  • Joseph Jaworski: The Heart of Synchronicity – Discover how Shell former head of scenario planning is helping leaders to discover the source of creativity and innovation.
  • John and Nancy Kotter: The Heart of Change – Learn why Harvard professor and best-selling author of 20 leadership books advises that feelings are as important as thinking to bring about change
  • Guilherme Leal: Co-Creating Sustainable Economies – Meet the co-founder of Natura, one of Brazil’s biggest companies and its leading sustainability brand, a pioneer of corporate responsibility and the vice-presidential candidate of Brazil’s Green Party.
  • Edgar Mitchell: An Astronaut’s Epiphany on Sustainability & Consciousness – On his return, this Apollo 14 astronaut had an epiphany about the unity and fragility of our planet and ever since worked towards the integration of science and consciousness in support of individual and collective development around the world.
  • Helio Mattar: The Heart of Conscious Consumption  – Meet Brazil’s former General Electric turn-around CEO who left business to create one of the world’s most important non-profit-organizations.
  • John & Doris Naisbitt: The Heart of Megatrends & China’s Innovation – Discover the human story behind China’s rapid rise and the key to being successful there as well as the uncanny capacity of the Naisbitts to predict the world’s megatrends.
  • Peter Senge: The Heart of Transformation – Meet M.I.T. professor and one of the world’s most respected leadership experts whose personal path includes daily Buddhist meditation. Quoting China’s Confucius, he summarizes: ‘To become a leader, you first have to become a human being’.
  • Marina Silva: 20 Million Votes for a Sustainable Brazil – Growing up illiterate amidst the forest and indigenous wisdom, she earned a PhD, became a union leader, senator, minister and the world’s most successful green party candidate, winning 20% of the Brazilian presidential vote. Now she founded a new party: Sustainability Network.

What is at the Heart of their Leadership?

As diverse as these leaders are, they share the experience that working on their inner and relational development is key to both their personal fulfillment and their extraordinary impact in the world. These interviews are the first time that they speak in such depth about what is really is going on inside of them. No other leadership series is so explicit on this topic that personal and interpersonal development is central to developing innovative organizations and sustainable societies.

What makes these leaders so relevant is that they are not only idealists who have beautiful visions about how the world should be. They and their organizations are also examples of how we and our societies can develop in very concrete ways that express what deep inside us we know to be our potential. As such they challenge our disappointments and our cynicism and make hope real. At the same time they aren’t saints so far removed from our lives that what they do seems unachievable. In fact they, like ourselves, face ongoing challenges in their development and lives which makes them even more real and inspiring. They don’t proclaim one specific path that all of us have to follow. Rather by having found their particular path, they inspire us to find ours. That’s why being with them leaves us not only inspired about them but empowered to do what is ours to do.

These leaders and their organizations demonstrate that it is possible to overcome the old paradigm paradoxes by integrating for example, corporate success and economic development with social and environmental sustainability. They recognize the richness of our diversity and manage to harmonize it within the integrative container of our shared humanity. They succeed in the old paradigms and build bridges to new ones. What makes it possible for them to do this? To explore this question the series invites the viewer to go beyond the obvious into the discovery of what makes these leaders so innovative and successful in demonstrating that a different world is possible – especially if we, too, follow their inspiration to discover ourselves and co-create with each other.

What these leaders share in common is the understanding that lasting change requires fundamental innovation – not only on the outside, in technology, by others but also within ourselves and between each other. They model that organizational and societal transformation requires personal and relational development. They realize that what gets in the way of solving problems and manifesting visions are mostly our individual or interpersonal limitations that can be resolved if we have the insight and commitment to do so. They understand that this inner and interpersonal transformation is not only our private affair but the basis of our professional excellence, our service to each other and the world. And they understand that our maturation is not an accident but can be supported by using developmental approaches and practices that systematically enhance individual and collective transformation.

Unique Interview Style

Another shared characteristic of these leaders is that they are ongoing learners, open to discover the world and themselves and willing to make whatever changes are required to innovate inside and outside. Therefore they are eager to explore what works and what we can learn from each other. While a traditional interview would already be interesting, we found that it is even richer for both the audience and the leaders to enter into this interactive inquiry format that invites fresh discoveries and the sharing of what often remains unsaid. The challenge that this series embraces is thus to model a co-creative field of shared exploration that opens new opportunities for reflection and expression of who these leaders really are, what they really think, feel and do.

Our dialog partners have stated that this format is allowing them to do exactly that. Isabel Allende therefore called The Heart of Global Leadership series ‘the next generation of the Power of Myth,’ America’s ground breaking interview series of dialogs between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers. Brazil’s presidential candidate Marina Silva said that this ‘soul’ dialog was in a totally different category from the countless interviews she has given. Leontino Balbo commented: “I got surprised on how much I was open in terms of my deepest beliefs”. And Marise Barroso commented after seeing the interview: ‘This is exactly who I am’.

Also other dialog partners were surprised that they shared things they had not yet realized or expressed. And spouses observed that they had never seen their partner so humorous and open in front of a camera. This level of openness and connection is supported by Walter’s interview approach that builds on his coaching approach with which he supports such leaders around the world.