In the final segment of the "Leading from the Heart" podcast (Episode 13), host Virginie Glaenzer invites each panelist to share their key takeaways. Virginie reflects on personal transformation as an early‑adopter journey and the need for leaders to embrace pain and the concept of "sacred" or chosen leadership, emphasizing humility for emerging founders. Runa expands the conversation to societal impact, urging a new multi‑generational narrative about how we live, love, and educate. Patrick highlights the danger of self‑labeling and stresses that true leadership emerges through adversity, encouraging leaders to choose themselves and inspire others. Lisa discusses the difference between formal hierarchy and real influence, citing decentralized, person‑centered care models like Buurtzorg as examples of emergent leadership. Mark shares a personal pandemic story that turned a painful loss of routine into a sacred moment of self‑reflection, reinforcing that learning comes more from failure than success. He calls for immediate, heart‑led action, noting that ripple effects begin with individual examples rather than waiting for top‑down change. The episode closes with a call to action for listeners to subscribe, comment on what leading from the heart means to them, and to become self‑authoring leaders.
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We're gonna have to end this conversation, and we're gonna end it the way it began. So we still have a little time to share, but first of all, I want to thank everyone for this insightful conversation. One of the premises of this podcast is that there's too much talking and not enough doing. So why don't we pass the mic and share what you've heard today that will inspire you to do something differently than the way you did it prior? Prior to this conversation, or anything that you felt was left unsaid, any last thoughts. And to give you a moment to collect your thoughts, I'm gonna share my own takeaway. I, first of all, found this conversation really exciting because I'm on my personal journey and I'm looking for ways to disrupt my own belief. When we discussed about the number of people who are in that personal journey transformation versus the rest of them, it reminds me of crossing the chasm from Moore, this understanding that there are different type of groups, and perhaps we might still be in the early age, not as early as 10 years ago, but we might still be in that phase where there are so-called early adopters of this personal transformation. And hopefully people like Jeff Bezos will feel some pain coming from peer pressure to change his own view, not from his choices, but because of peer pressure. The two things that I am taking away from this conversation, the first one is when Mark, you started sharing about your own experience in rejection. And then Lisa, you talked about growth pain. And I think as a leader, once you recognize and accept that there is going to be growth, there's going to be pain, it's a little bit liberating, actually. And as the opposite of you, Marc, if I go back to my last 10 years and look at the various moments that were painful, I wouldn't— I would want to go through them because of what they brought me. It was worth it. So that's number one, you know, reminding myself that with leadership comes some sort of pain, whether it's through rejection, not being afraid of standing strong on your values and not being liked by others. So that's one. And then this idea of the sacred leadership, whether it's connected to mindfulness or not, and this, this idea that leaders are chosen It definitely rings a bell on many levels. I love that idea. I want to dive into it. I feel that it brings a lot of humility as I'm starting my own company, being a co-founder in an organization, and it makes you want to do, you know, go beyond, not to get something for you, but almost being chosen as a leader has, you know, it has to come from other people. And it's, uh, it's not because you're starting something and that you put on your resume leader, CEO, etc., that you are a leader. You have to be chosen. I think it brings a depth and different understanding. So thank you so much for this, this learning. So Mark, you'll be the last one to end this conversation with your thoughts or understanding. So why don't we begin with Runa? Any last words or things that were unsaid or understanding?
Yes, I would want to come back to words that Lisa said and where she was reminding us that it's not about only about business and leadership, it's also about education. And all other systems. And what I would like to take away is invitation to me and to everyone else to create a new narrative around the future that we want to live in and we want to hand over to our children and to our grandchildren and to the next 7 generations. What is that narrative? Who is in that narrative? What is in that narrative? How are we living? How are we interacting? How are we loving each other? And I want to do even more of taking on being the messenger for that story. Like Lisa said, we need to— the more of us that bring that story out, that new narrative out, the more chance we have of reaching more people to create that tipping point. That's what I would maybe end this on.
Thank you very much. To reaching mass market, yes, and really transforming society as a whole. Patrick, what would be your own takeaways?
To all my fellow leadership and heart astronauts out there with our space commander Virginie here, I think the biggest takeaway for me would be to emphasize very keenly Runa's dynamic that through great trials and tribulation comes tremendous growth, tremendous growth, right? And in a unique way, we could probably take Lisa's very astute point that leaders are chosen, which is kind of something we've forgotten. You know, we really have forgotten that dynamic. I can put up as much marketing as I want and say I'm a leader and say I'm a CEO and say I'm XYZ and We're in a society of self-labeling, right, and not as much earning as it could be. So through tremendous adversity, which is what I think everyone's going through right now, we're going to be taking a step back, we're going to be developing ourselves, and we're going to see, hopefully, a lot of leaders choose themselves, and in so that will inspire other people to improve their leadership ability as well. So, you know, I loved everyone's points, but those two resonated with me really really strongly. And thanks again, Virginie, for including me.
I appreciate it. My pleasure. Society of self-labeling— how profound and true and harsh it is for all of us who've been playing that game. Thank you, Patrick. Lisa, why don't you share your last thoughts or understanding?
Yeah, it's— I'm so spoiled for choice because there's been so many rich sharings in this conversation. But I think building on what you shared there, Patrick, about leaders being chosen, I saw once this image of the difference between an org chart with the sort of hierarchical boxes, and then they actually mapped influence in the organization, like who did people go to when they wanted help or when they wanted to get something done, and it was a totally different person at the heart of that compared to who was at the top of the org chart. So I think it's really interesting, this idea of creating systems where leaders can emerge and be chosen, and where we can nourish other leaders. I think that's the ultimate task of leadership, is to help develop more leaders. And yeah, I'm sort of walking away, I think, with this troubled feeling about the Jeff Bezos and the Elon Musks of the world, and I really hope that Geoff is inspired by some of the great examples in health and social care at the moment, like Buurtzorg in the Netherlands, where they're reinventing what it looks like, because they have to, because this sector is crumbling in these old systems, it's not working. And there's a few great examples of organisations totally decentralising their systems and being so much more human, both in terms of employees, but in terms of patients and people they care for, person-centered care. So I really hope that he takes inspiration from that and that Colin kind of helps us there. And so I'd love to be optimistic. And yeah, thank you so much for inviting me into this conversation.
And being optimistic is, you know, that's one thing that we actually have that might be a difference. Thank you so much. Mark?
Virginie, I want to start by saying thank you for organizing this and bringing us all together. You did a really wonderful job. You did a lot of work behind the scenes. And I just want to make sure everybody knows that you are the thought leader that put all this together. So thank you very much.
You're too kind. Thank you.
I mean, and I think just final thoughts on this is that we talk about pain. We talk about the painful growth that one has to go through. I mean, we learn from our successes, but truthfully, I think we learn from our failures. We learn from our setbacks more, right? Because they motivate us more. We don't like that pain. So we want to make sure we don't do that again. And so we learn lessons.. And so in a very different way, this notion of how do you get people to open their hearts and become more, you know, balanced, that's all we're looking for. It's just balanced. And I think this pandemic is, is really giving, not just giving people the time, but this is a painful experience. You know, I, my gym was closed and I'm that guy who's there at 5:30 in the morning. Right. So they closed the gym and I think, okay, what am I going to do? So I start walking on the beach. Well, guess what? They closed the beach. Well, I'm there at 5 o'clock. It's dark. Nobody can see me. So I went down and I started walking and it was like this sacred time for myself. And then all of a sudden, one day I got there and there were like policemen, Border Patrol cars on the boardwalk. And I'm like, oh man, like you're taking my joy away. And, you know, we can't go see our families and we can't go to restaurants and we can't see our colleagues. This is pain. This is grief. All those negative emotions that people are going through is forcing people to think about, man, when this is over, what am I hoping for? What do I want? And I'm just hoping that we don't have your training program, Lisa, that I'm handing off to you. If we don't have that formally, that this is nevertheless— this experience is going to give people that opportunity to be there. And then the final thing I would say is that after this woman told me that this was a mistake and you should never say lead from the heart, that this moment in time gives me the real recognition that I'm not alone, that we're all like-minded and hearted here, that this evolution is way underway. You can understand why I would think otherwise. But to know that there's so much discussion about this is really encouraging because that's what it's gonna take. It's gonna ripple. And the final thing I would say is just that don't wait to be led this way. If you're waiting for your organization to shift, it may never shift. The way to do it is to lead your people in the way that you know is best and the way that you would want to be managed. And your example alone is what's going to change within your organization. Just like you were talking about, Lisa, about who are the influencers. Once you build a reputation of being that caring and supportive manager, people are going to want to come to work for you. They're going to want to be part of your team. And so even if the guy at the top or the person at the top isn't on board or senior management thinks thinks this is crazy. You can create the ripple in your own organization simply by leading from the heart and your own instincts, and your people will thank you for doing it.
That's, that's beautiful, beautifully said, Marc. And I think what really your message is that it's on our shoulders now as leaders to, or not to, even if you're not, not leaders, to step up and become our own self-authoring leaders. So thank you so much. I'd like to end by asking viewers and listeners to this video to subscribe if they'd like to our podcast on YouTube and other channels that they're listening on, and tell us what does that mean for you to lead from your heart. You can leave your answers in the comment section. And again, thank you so much everyone for taking the time.
