OUTsight/ Worldviews are Powerful

Brisbane, 27 February 2025 — Everyone is right, seen from their respective worldviews: how do leaders deal with this conundrum?

Story

It happened this month. The world order seemed to change suddenly and dramatically, powered by a different worldview of the new US administration. Around the world, political leaders were left scrambling for a response to this sudden change.

Worldviews are important for political leaders and every leader who wants to drive positive change in their business, organization, project, team, or community. A clash of worldviews can make it difficult to negotiate agreements. And, most worldviews do clash.

We see different worldviews playing out every day around us. That is, if we have developed our abilities to spot them. Each worldview comes with healthy and unhealthy expressions. We can learn to discern those, too. 

Challenge

Researchers studying human development have found that progress from narrow to wider worldviews, often referred to as modern, post-modern, and integral, happens in stages. Such progress is, however, not guaranteed: growth can be arrested at any stage.

For us as leaders to understand the power of worldviews, we need to develop self-awareness of our worldviews first. Next comes the challenge to discover the worldviews of our colleagues, clients, and partners. That helps us to start working on communication styles tailored to a range of different worldviews.

Each worldview comes with a language. Effective leaders can spot worldviews in their daily conversations, including their own. Their ability to influence others for positive change requires that they learn to speak the language of their audiences and connect in their worldview rather than their own.

Question

What kind of leader are you becoming because of your worldview? That is my question for you this week. 

How can you quickly find out what worldview drives you and your teammates, bosses, clients, and partners? To help you make a start at decoding this, we have created the WORLDviews Challenge in our Grow3Leaders community of practice.

Once you have learned to decode the seven different worldviews shown in the image, you can learn how to frequently ‘change language’ in your communications to suit your audience and situation. Discovering how to use the power of different worldviews is often a life-changing experience for the leaders we coach, and we wish the same for you. 

P.S. To learn more about the power of worldviews, enroll in our one-to-one Leader in Transition coaching program for executives, or take the WORLDviews Challenge in our Grow3Leaders community of practice.