Leadership and climate change: what a room full of anger taught us

The anger in the room

On Monday the 12th of October, more than 30 leaders from national businesses, charities, regional organisations and local enterprises came to the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution to watch The People's Emergency Briefing. Juliet and I hosted the evening. The film makes the evidence on the climate and nature emergency accessible to everyone, and afterwards we sat together and talked about what it meant for us.

What has stayed with me most is the anger.

It wasn't anger at anyone in the room. It was anger that some people were holding. A couple of leaders said they felt frustrated with themselves for not knowing more, and then, more strongly, frustrated that government and the media hadn't made the scale of this clear. One person was really angry. Their point was a practical one: in an unregulated industry, the companies that do the right thing, which usually costs more, are likely to go under when others don't. They wanted government to regulate their industry more, so doing the right thing stops being a competitive risk.

It's a very real tension, and I suspect plenty of CEOs reading this will recognise it. If competitors can 'survive' albeit it perhaps short term, then does 'the right thing' feel like a luxury? Does it encourage organisations to make hay while the sun shines?

From anger to "what does this mean for me as a leader?"

The anger was well heard. Other leaders were grateful someone had said it out loud, and you could feel people relax a little, as if naming it had made them feel understood and seen. Nobody rushed to smooth it over, and that mattered.

Because it was heard, the conversation could move. People started asking different questions: what does this mean for me as a leader, and what does it mean for my organisation? Some talked about lobbying and the role of regulation. Others shared what's already happening locally, from community growing and water harvesting to culture change inside their own organisations. Another attendee business owner reflected on the influence leaders have within their own walls, and how more purposeful, rewarding work might strengthen the health, relationships and resilience of the communities around a business, not just the business itself.

Tom Holliss, Chief People Officer at Zappi, summed up the mood afterwards: "This kind of event is so important in building awareness and a shared purpose to go out and DO SOMETHING!!" which really spoke to the value of receiving information together, in community.

What I noticed was a room full of people from very different organisations realising that many of the challenges they face can't be solved by any one organisation acting alone.

Climate change is the context leaders are already working in

That question, what does this mean for me as a leader, isn't only showing up at climate events. We hear it in our work with organisations all the time, even when climate and nature aren't the reason someone has called us.

Right now it's loudest around AI. There's a sense of "I need to get on the AI bus or be left behind," sitting alongside real concern about what that means personally and for the future of work. We hear it in conversations about generational change, as people notice the shift and the differences between generations at work. We hear it in how neurodivergence is playing into organisations, and in the cultural questions that are unique to each place we work.

What these have in common is that they're complex. None of them has a tidy answer, and none of them can be planned for and controlled. Leadership and climate change belong in the same conversation because the climate and nature emergency is one of the biggest sources of that complexity, and it's the backdrop to everything else leaders are now dealing with.

And as I write this I worry I am teach Granny to suck eggs because of course its the same conversation, it can't not be. Its all inter-connected.

We can't talk about the future of work for the next generations without talking about AI, we can't meaningfully talk about AI without talking about the environmental and societal impacts of it, and we can't talk about the environment or society without talking about climate change - and we can't talk about climate change without talking about the next generations. And the web of connections continues.

What climate leadership development looks like in practice

Now more than ever leaders need to hold more and more complexity. They need to think from multiple perspectives and hold multiple truths at the same time. That's always been part of leadership, but it's dialled up to the extreme now, because of the pace the world is moving at and the complexity we're all living with. So leaders have to lean into their curiosity and learn as they go much more than tradition tells us, and much more than people have been able to get away with in the past.

The way we support that is by having leaders and teams work on the complex subjects already in front of them. That might be the climate and nature emergency, AI, intergenerational challenges, diversity and inclusion, a culture question specific to their organisation, or the performance of the organisation itself. Working on them differently, with a clear understanding of how that work develops people - it is the development. And to quote Myron Rogers "Real change happens in real work"

We're not helicoptering people out of their organisations, uploading a load of theory into their brains and then asking them to go and make it useful. We work with them on real things they need to deal with anyway, in new ways that build the practices they need as leaders. That makes the impact more immediate, it lasts longer because people genuinely shift, and it's more manageable on time, because nobody is being taken away from the work that matters.

It's the same thing we saw in the room in Bath. Creating space for people to confront difficult realities, share their questions and discover what they can do together feels more important than ever.

Let's talk

If you're a CEO or People Director wondering how your leaders can respond to the wider complexity your organisation is facing, we'd love to have an exploratory conversation. There's no agenda beyond finding out what's going on for you and whether we can help. Get in touch.

Author, Sammy Burt is co-founder of Satori Organisational Development, a Bath-based consultancy she runs with Juliet Daye, working with organisations on leadership, culture, strategy and navigating complexity. Connect with Sammy on LinkedIn.