Steward Eldership: Practices To Become A More Conscious Leader
Hands up who still believes that leadership is about knowing more, doing more, and commanding more.
Pause for a moment. Can you feel the disconnection?
Pause a little longer. Can you sense the truth: the way we lead is no longer serving us.
For over 100 years our libraries and bookstores have been filled with thousands of leadership books, and yet our approach to leadership has not evolved greatly.
What’s needed now is not louder leadership, but deeper leadership.
Not control, but connection.
Not power over, but power with.
This is where Steward Eldership comes in.
Beyond Power: The Return to Presence
Steward Eldership is not a role, and it’s not about hierarchy. It is a conscious, embodied way of leading that is grounded in timeless human wisdom. It draws from Indigenous, land-based, and original peoples' teachings — not as romanticised ideas from the past, but as technologies for thriving in the present.
One such foundational teaching that has deeply shaped my work is the concept of “Good Living.” Found in cultures across the globe, from the Quechua idea of sumak kawsay to Aboriginal Australian ways of being, this principle centres on harmony:
Harmony with Self
Harmony with Others
Harmony with Mother Earth
These three principles — when honoured — naturally give rise to regenerative cultures. Cultures that aren’t built on extraction, burnout, or ego, but on reciprocity, wellbeing, and deep intelligence.
Leadership is More Than Language
Most modern leaders are trained to lead with words — vision statements, policies, strategic communication. But real leadership doesn’t just happen in our heads. It happens in our nervous systems. Our senses. Our silence. It’s what we transmit, not just what we say.
Steward Elders know this. They lead not just with knowledge, but with knowing — the kind that comes from listening with your whole body, from tracking subtle energies in a room, from understanding timing and rhythm, not just metrics and KPIs.
This is leadership as life force stewardship.
Try This: Full-Spectrum Sensing for Leaders
Here’s a practice to begin embodying this awareness:
Begin Any Meeting With 2 Minutes of Stillness.
No introductions. No pleasantries. Just presence. Invite everyone to breathe and become aware of themselves, the space, and the land they’re on.Tune Into the Field.
Before speaking, ask yourself: What am I sensing in the room? What’s not being said? Where is the energy open or stuck? Let this awareness guide your participation.Speak From the Senses.
Let your first words arise from perception, not pressure. This simple shift changes the entire quality of connection and decision-making.
A Conscious Culture Is Rooted in Harmony
When organisations embrace Steward Eldership, they move toward becoming conscious cultures. Cultures where:
Self-awareness is seen as a leadership skill.
Emotional regulation is part of decision-making.
Silence is valued as much as speaking.
Nature is not an escape — it’s a teacher.
Work becomes a way to be in right relationship with the world.
This is not about going backward. It’s about remembering forward — reactivating the technologies of harmony and awareness that already live in our human blueprint.
And when we lead from this place — from groundedness, from reverence, from relational power — we become the kind of leaders this world is quietly begging for.
Not just change-makers.
But pattern-breakers.
Not just strategists.
But stewards of life itself.
This Is Why I Work With Leaders
This is why I work with leaders. Because we don’t need everyone to remember. We only need enough. Enough people in positions of influence — executives, entrepreneurs, educators, facilitators — who are willing to embody this way of leading.
When leaders awaken to this level of perception and presence, their ripple effect is exponential. They shift boardrooms. Teams. Systems. Futures.
How will you apply this consciousness technology in your world today?