ACTivity/ Boosting Intrinsic Motivation

Kathmandu, 15 October 2025 — How might your leadership transform when learning becomes a shared adventure?

Story

A small group of mid-level leaders joined a development program as a team, not as individuals. Their mission was to fix a broken process that everyone avoided. At first, they played it safe and stayed polite.

As weeks passed, real conversations began. They laughed, argued, and started to trust each other. The work became lighter, ideas came faster, and motivation grew from within.

By the end, they had not only solved the problem but discovered something bigger — that learning together had transformed them all. It was growth that felt real, energizing, and deeply human.

Challenge

Most leadership programs still focus on individuals. One person, one plan, one coach. It’s structured and measurable — but often lonely.

Real leadership takes shape in connection. When people face a challenge together, they access autonomy, mastery, and purpose — the core of intrinsic motivation. The shared struggle becomes the teacher.

This kind of growth can’t be replicated by workshops or webinars. It happens only when leaders lean into one another, trusting the process more than the plan.

Question

What if your next leadership challenge wasn’t something to handle alone, but a chance to grow together?

What if collaboration itself became the classroom — and the reward was energy, not exhaustion?

How might your leadership transform when learning becomes a shared adventure?

P.S. Collaborative leadership challenges are what we do in Grow3Leaders. You’re welcome to join at https://grow3leaders.mn.co

ACTivity/ What You Show

Ubud, 1 October 2025 — How do you show up in leadership development?

Story

Leadership development isn’t about grand gestures; it’s about the way you consistently show up. Every small action, every day you bring focus and energy, adds up. How you carry yourself in learning spaces reflects the depth of your commitment more than any outcome. Growth shows itself in your presence long before it shows in results.

Consistency builds credibility. When you show up reliably, others notice—and trust begins to form. Enthusiasm adds energy, lifting not only your own engagement but inspiring those around you. Collaboration transforms growth from a solo effort into a shared journey, deepening both understanding and connection.

Even subtle acts—sharing reflections, embracing feedback, or contributing thoughtfully—signal readiness and openness. These visible expressions of presence shape how your leadership is perceived, setting the tone for both your development and the learning culture around you.

Challenge

What will you do when a challenge shows up and the process gets difficult? Life’s pressures can shake your consistency. Setbacks can dampen your enthusiasm. Others’ disengagement can make collaboration feel heavy. These moments test the true strength of your commitment.

When all three—consistency, enthusiasm, and collaboration—are tested at once, the pressure exposes what truly drives your leadership. Do you retreat, go through the motions, or disengage? Or do you lean in, sustaining presence and energy even when it feels inconvenient?

Growth reveals itself in these challenging moments. How you navigate difficulty, remain engaged, and uphold your energy under pressure is a far truer measure of leadership than success in easy circumstances.

Question

How do you show up in leadership development? Even when it’s hard, and every element of leadership—your consistency, enthusiasm, and collaboration—is challenged: what defines you then?

We all experience those moments. What would it look like to fully lean into them, treating difficulty not as a barrier but as the arena where your leadership becomes visible and grows rapidly? Are you up for that challenge?

If yes, how might you cultivate ways of showing up that remain steady, positive, and engaged—even when the pressures are at their peak? That’s what we practice in the Grow3Leaders community. Join us at https://grow3leaders.mn.co if you’re curious and committed, ready to lean into growing your leadership with others.

LEADer/ Integrally Informed Consciousness

Manila, 24 September 2025 — How can we understand reality and find radical wholeness?

Story

For leaders, living from our true north matters. Values matter—alongside vision, purpose, and strengths. And there’s more.

For me, the highest value is the quality of our consciousness. I inquire into it in nearly every situation—whether coaching, working with leaders, or simply exercising, shopping, or traveling.

But how do we explore the quality of consciousness? What method or map can guide us? That’s where philosophy helps: it gives us a framework to understand reality, trust human potential, and keep growing with a love of learning.

Challenge

One of the philosophers I trust is Ken Wilber, creator of Integral Theory. In his 2003 Kosmic Consciousness interview with Tami Simon of Sounds True, he calls himself a storyteller. His story comes in the form of maps—comprehensive guides to reality and human potential, drawn from sciences and wisdom traditions alike.

From these interviews, I came to see Wilber as both brilliantly sharp and deeply kind, with a self-deprecating humor that doesn’t always come across in his books.

If you do like reading, I recommend his 2024 book Finding Radical Wholeness.

Question

A key Integral principle is: Everyone is right. That simple truth helps us weave perspectives together, break through silos, and lead across boundaries. In this way, practicing Integral Theory helps to foster collaboration in our workplaces and beyond.

When I first encountered Wilber’s work, it felt like coming home. I hope you may feel that too. We draw on this body of work in our leadership coaching. You can find the interview on Audible and the book on Kindle—I often listen while exercising.

So my leadership question for you this week is: How will you understand reality and find radical wholeness?

INsight/ Rediscovering Basic Trust

Amsterdam, 27 August 2025 — How can leaders find confidence when fear and overwhelm seem everywhere?

Story

Many people today struggle with anxiety, overload, and a sense that the ground under them is shifting. Leaders are not immune to this. In fact, because so much depends on their decisions, leaders often feel they must project certainty even when they don’t feel it inside.

In Facets of Unity, A.H. Almaas offers a helpful concept called Basic Trust—a quiet inner belief and confidence that things are workable. It’s not naïve optimism, but a settled inner assurance that reduces overreacting to fear, stress, or overwhelm. Leaders with this kind of trust are less rattled by uncertainty, more open to possibilities, and more effective in guiding others through change.

Each of us has Basic Trust in life from when we were a baby. However, life experiences and conditioning usually cloud and obscure it as we grow up. That’s why leaders will work on rediscovering Basic Trust through self-cultivation and leadership development to regain our wholeness of Being.

Challenge

Both fear and overwhelm can obscure Basic Trust. Fear narrows attention—leaders may overcontrol, lose sight of the bigger picture, and unintentionally erode trust with their teams.

Overwhelm scatters attention—leaders feel flooded with too much to handle and risk withdrawing or becoming paralyzed. Without realizing it, they amplify the very insecurity they’re trying to contain.

The good news is that Basic Trust can be rediscovered and cultivated: for example, by remembering times you and your team have faced challenges successfully, by focusing on what’s within your influence rather than obsessing over what’s not, and by choosing calm presence over anxious reactivity.

Question

As a leader, how do you remind yourself—and show your team—that even in times of fear and overwhelm, things are fundamentally workable? What practice helps you return to that quiet confidence that builds both effectiveness and trust?

Here are three small practices you can take up this week to grow your Basic Trust. First, ground yourself in past evidence: recall three times you and your team handled uncertainty successfully. Two, shift the frame of uncertainty: when unsure, ask: “What possibility might this open up?” Three, practice calm presence: in your next meeting, slow down your pace and notice how it steadies the group.

Rediscovering Basic Trust is part of deeper transformation in our executive coaching and our group coaching in the Grow3Leaders community of practice. You are welcome to join us and reach out to get your questions answered.

INsight/ Magic of Repetition

Prague, 20 August 2025 — What becomes possible when leaders treat repetition not as monotony, but as discovery?

Story

It happened last week. When I visited Karel Martens’ Unbound exhibition, I was struck by how he works with repetition. Martens repeats the same gestures—shapes, colors, impressions—yet each time, something subtly new appears. He says: “It might sound repetitive, but it somehow never repeats.” What looks like sameness opens into difference.

This principle is not limited to art. It speaks to how growth happens in any domain: not in the dramatic, one-time breakthrough, but in the quiet act of returning again and again to the same practice. Repetition, far from being mechanical, becomes the path of discovery.

As I reflected on Martens’ words, I realized this applies powerfully to leadership development. Just as in art (and sports), repetition in leadership is not about copying yesterday. It’s about showing up again today, practicing the same behaviors, and meeting the moment freshly.

Challenge

Leadership behaviors often seem ordinary: listening attentively, giving feedback, asking questions, aligning around purpose, and showing care. Yet the challenge is to repeat them daily, sometimes several times a day, without sliding into autopilot.

At first, repetition can feel awkward, even tedious. But when leaders keep practicing, the consistency builds trust, and subtle variations reveal new nuance. Every team member, every conversation, every decision is never exactly the same. The “same gesture” of a leadership behavior is always slightly different.

The challenge, then, is to embrace repetition of effective leadership behaviors as a creative practice. To resist the idea that it is monotonous, and instead recognize it as the ground where transformation takes root.

Question

So how can leaders learn from Martens and see repetition not as dull routine, but as the space where something new is always emerging? The photo of the rowers reminds us how essential the repetition of movements is to advancing and getting results. The same holds for the practice of leadership.

What becomes possible when leadership behaviors are practiced daily with the same gestures, yet each time alive to the unique moment?

My question to you this week is: What becomes possible when leaders treat repetition not as monotony, but as discovery?