This document provides an overview of regenerative leadership as a theory for transforming organizations towards sustainability. It discusses frameworks for sustainability and outlines the need for research on leadership across business, education, and community domains. The methodology section indicates that grounded theory will be used to analyze interviews with 24 leaders in these three areas. Key findings will explore the similarities and differences in their developmental experiences and change strategies.

1. R e g e n e r a t i v e L e a d e r s h i p:
A Theory for Transforming People and Organizations for
Sustainability in Business, Education, and Community
John Hardman
February 2009
This is the greatest moral and social challenge humankind has ever faced
Tony Cortese, 2009

2. FRAMEWORK OF SUSTAINABILITY
Natural
Environment
Bearable Viable
Sustainable
Social Economic
Equitable
Environment Environment
Education
Brundtland Commission Report 1987
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs
of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needsquot;
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3. Framework 2 – (Senge et al 2008)
Environment
Society
Economy
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4. • Comparative research into sustainability leadership across domains is limited, and
focuses primarily on specific issues of sustainable development as opposed to
leadership and organizational change. One study focused on business leadership.
• Sustainability efforts, and by extension research, tend to focus on isolated issues
(e.g. environmental degradation, poverty, curriculum reform).
• None of the research reviewed has compared or contrasted the developmental
experiences of leaders engaged in sustainability efforts in business, education, and
community.
• To establish COMMONALITIES AND/OR DIFFERENCES between the
developmental experiences of leaders who have successfully embedded
sustainable development for sustainability in business, education, and community,
AND between the change strategies they utilize to move their organizations to
greater degrees of sustainability.
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5. Research Questions
1. What are the similarities and differences between the
developmental experiences of sustainability leaders across the
domains of business, education, and community?
2. What are the similarities and differences between the change
strategies they utilize to move their organizations towards
greater degrees of sustainability?
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6. Conceptual Framework: The Sustainability Journey
CONTEXTS
Development Individual Local/Organizational Global
LEVEL 3
Natural
Environment
Bearable Viable
Sustainable
Social Economic
Environment Equitable Environment
MINDSET/BEHAVIOURS
LEVEL 2
INDIVIDUAL
LEVEL 1
Weak Moderate Strong
COLLECTIVE MINDSET/BEHAVIORS
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7. Organizing Framework
1 ID INDIVIDUAL 2 IB
Personal mindset, Personal behaviors,
purpose, and competencies, and
worldview skills
What I understand, think, What do I do, and how well
EXTERIOR
believe and feel. do I do it?
INTERIOR
What WE understand, What do WE do, and how
think, believe and feel well do we do it?
together.
Collective mindset, Collective behaviors,
culture, purpose and systems, competencies,
worldview and skills
3 CD 4 CB
COLLECTIVE
Adapted from the Integral Vision of Ken Wilber
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8. Methodology
GROUNDED THEORY (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) Data Collection
Sampling Plan • Structured interviews
• Purposeful sampling (Merriam, 1997) • Organizational documentation
• Snowball sampling for additional subjects
(Miles & Huberman, 1994) Analysis and Discussion of Findings
• 24 participants (8 from each domain) • Excel coding process
• 3 years leading successful sustainability efforts • Cross analysis
• Theory development
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9. Michael Singer Michael Singer Studio
Martin Melaver CEO, Melaver, Inc., Real Estate
Business Joe Laur Greenopolis, Waste Management/Co-founder, Sustainability Consortium of the Society for
Organizational Learning (SOL)
Gregor Barnum Director of Corporate Consciousness, 7th Generation
Darcy Winslow Senior Advisor, NIKE Foundation
Roger Vardan General Motors/Founder of Strata-Gems
Seetha C.Kammula Shell/Founder of Simply Sustain LLC
Wally Sanger President, Royal Concrete Concepts
Eve Williams Building Projects Manager, City of Tallahassee
Cecilia Campoverde Founder, The Guatemalan Project
Jim Murley Secretary of Community Affairs, Florida, Executive Director, Center for Urban and
Community
SAMPLE
Environmental Solutions (CUES) at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), Chair of the Florida Energy
and Climate Change Commission
Rebecca Bardach United Nations High Commission for Refugees and the Center for International Migration and
Integration of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
Debbie Koristz Assistant Director of Israel & Overseas Projects, Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County
Steve Seibert Executive Director, Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida
Nathan Burrell Founder, The Honey Project, President of the Minority E-Commerce Association, Inc. (MECA
John Elkington Founder, Volans Ventures, Visiting Professor, Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility,
School of Management, Cranfield University, UK
MaryBeth Burton Assoc. Director, Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions (FAU)
Leonard Berry Director, Florida Center of Environmental Studies
Daniel Meeroff Prof. of Environmental Sciences/Dept. of Civil Engineering (FAU)
Education
Jaap Vos Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Urban & Regional Planning, Florida Atlantic
University
Judy Walton President, Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE)
Jean MacGregor Director, Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, Evergreen
State University
Anthony Cortese President, Second Nature
Mitchell Thomashow President, Unity College, Maine 9

10. DATA ANALYSIS
CONTEXT
Sample Interview Questions DOMAINS AQAL Forces
Drivers/Motivating factors/Facilitators
Challenges/Obstacles/Impeders
ENGAGEMENT
LEADERSHIP
Regeneration
3 Turning Points
2 Leadership
5 Strategies
1 Definition
Change
Nationality
4 Mindset
6 Agenda
Domain
Gender
Subject
7 Other
1 2 3 4
Quote
Initial
Race
Keywords/ Phrases
ID IB CD CB
168 237 366 332 1099 401 249 2814 517 414 585 922 685 1598 152 56 13 140 117
I have a problem with the word. I think it’s working today because the
1 B MS W M US 1 word brands a practice, brands a theory. 1 1
It implies that we are sustaining something that we've already put into
operation and I think we've got to actually transform the idea of
sustainability, move beyond what we’ve put into operation, not try to
maintain or sustain what we have for our children and grandchildren
any more than sustaining a bad relationship. Do you want to sustain
1 B MS W M US 1 that? 1 1
1 B MS W M US 1 I much prefer the concept of regeneration. 1 1 1
A regenerative practice is one that looks at how any action that we
1 B MS W M US 1 take in a built or social environment, results in change. 1 1 1 1 1
We can also take actions that catalyze and evolve towards healthier
1 B MS W M US 1 situations, better situations. 1 1 1
We, of course, can also take actions that evolve towards negative or
1 B MS W M US 1 degenerative situations. 1 1 10

11. FINDINGS: Quantitative
50% 47%
45% Distribution of responses across domains 2814 lines of text
40% 35% 34%
35%
30%
25%
20% 16% 15%
14% 13% 13% 14%
15% 10% 12% 11%
8% 9% 10%
7% 8% 6% 6%
10% 5% 6%
5%
0%
6 Agenda
6 Agenda
6 Agenda
3 Turning Point
3 Turning Point
3 Turning Point
5 Strategies
5 Strategies
5 Strategies
1 Definition
1 Definition
1 Definition
7 Other
7 Other
7 Other
4 Mindset
4 Mindset
4 Mindset
2 Leadership
2 Leadership
2 Leadership
Business Community Education
Distribution of responses across the organizing framework - Inter-rater reliability 97.4%
45%1 ID INDIVIDUAL 2 IB 41%
37%
40% 36%
Personal Personal
35% mindset, behaviors,
30% purpose, and 26%
competencies, 25%
INTERIOR
25% worldview
21% and skills 21%
EXTERIOR
21% 20% 21%
20% 17%
14%
15%
Collective Collective
10% mindset, behaviors,
5% culture, systems,
purpose and competencies,
0%
worldview and skills
ID IB CD CB ID IB CD CB ID IB CD CB
3 CD COLLECTIVE 4 CB
Business Community Education
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12. FINDINGS: Qualitative CONTEXTS
INTEGRATED WORLDVIEW Individual Local/Organizational Global
LEVEL 3 •Awakening •Non-charismatic transforming Backcasting
ENGAGED •Heightened sense of purpose leadership (higher purpose is the Triple loop learning
•Vision beyond sustainability driver) Transconceptual dynamics
World-centric (All of Us)
•Systems thinking, everything is •Multi-stakeholder engagement Third order change
Post-conventional moral
interconnected – Global ethics •Literally everyone is critical to Circular organization
development
•Intra & intergenerational (future) the decision making process Triple top line: “How can we
(Kohlberg)
INDIVIDUAL MINDSET /BEHAVIORS
•Urgency •“Leadership from within” “Check grow prosperity, celebrate our
•Fearlessness – courage your ego and logo at the door” community, and enhance the
•“Inner work” •“Bring everybody involved to the health of all species?”
•“… more important than me” table before you begin”
•“… butterfly mindset” •“Florida 2060”
•“I get in people’s faces, but in a
nice way”
LEVEL 2 •Compliance in isolation •Weighting between compliance Global efforts that show
COMPLIANT/COMMITTED •Ethno-centric ethics and commitment in some areas commitment to
Ethno-centric (Us) •Local perspective (e.g. economics, and/or local/organizational agenda
Conventional •Mid -term vision education, environment and Integration stronger than
(Kohlberg) social justice) compliance and fragmentation
LEVEL 1 •Self-serving ethics •Partial compliance with Forced compliance with
RESISTANT/SKEPTICAL •Short-term vision fragmented external policy and integrated external policy and
Self-centered (Me) •Distrustful of evidence regulation regulation
Pre-conventional •“Fear and greed” •Single bottom line “Sticks and carrots”
(Kohlberg) •“Silo effect”
FRAGMENTED WORLDVIEW Level 1 (Weak Sustainability) Level 2 (Moderate Sustainability) Level 3 (Strong Sustainability)
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COLLECTIVE MINDSET/BEHAVIORS

13. REGENERATIVE LEADERSHIP
EXTERIOR / OBJECTIVE WORLD
Personal behaviors, Collective behaviors,
competencies, and skills systems, competencies,
and skills
•Non-charismatic, purpose- •Backcasting
driven leadership •Third-order change
•Iterative observation •Collective strategy to
•Deep listening prototype and mainstream
•Multi-stakeholder best solutions for ideal
COLLECTIVE
COLLECTIVE
COLLECTIVE
COLLECTIVE
engagement futures (triple-top line)
INDIVIDUAL
2 4
Field of Engagement & Emerging Consciousness
Personal mindset, 1 3 Collective mindset,
purpose, and worldview culture, purpose and
worldview
•Awakening to a heightened •Fostering collective
sense of purpose purpose through
•Creative intelligence generative conversation
•Systems thinking •Transconceptual
•Global ethics dynamics
•Emerging futures •Triple-loop learning
Circular
organization INTERIOR / SUBJECTIVE WORLD
© 2009 John Hardman – All rights reserved

14. • To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work
alongside you to make your farms flourish and let
clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and
feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours
that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer
afford indifference to suffering outside our borders;
nor can we consume the world's resources without
regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we
must change with it.
Barack Obama, Inaugural Address, January 20, 2009
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