by Kathleen Allen
- 7 August 2025
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Many of us were taught that business success comes from hoarding the most and best “things,” from the latest tools and technologies, to the strongest infrastructure and processes. The idea is that if we have better “things” we’ll be more efficient, grow faster, and consistently beat the competition. We’re told to get the newest software, hit our KPIs, streamline the process. Outperform, outpace, outproduce—that’s the mantra we repeat to ourselves. Just writing them here makes me tired!
Nature teaches us a better way, a much stronger starting point. In Nature, it’s not the strongest or the most “efficient” ecosystems and species that survive. It’s ones that are the most connected. When drought comes, it’s not one tree that sustains the forest. It’s the underground network of mycelium, transferring water and nutrients from those who have enough to those who don’t. Interdependent networks like these help ecosystems continuously adapt and thrive long-term, even in the face of the worst disruptions.
I’ve watched many leaders pour energy into things, believing the accumulation of the “best and most” will build enduring success. But things are just supports. They don’t drive transformation, relationships do. Think about the best team you’ve ever worked on. You probably didn’t always agree, but you didn’t need to because you trusted one another. There was mutual respect, so you listened to each other and you adapted together. And because you felt safe, you could innovate based on even wildly diverse perspectives. What I’m describing are all characteristics of healthy ecosystems and healthy organizations.
Connection is the True Infrastructure
In our BANI world (short for brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible) connection is what holds us steady. And it’s not just connections between individuals. Strong relationships must exist between leaders, across departments, within communities, and between humans and Nature. In a prairie or coral reef, relationships determine how energy flows, how nutrients are shared, and how the whole system weathers disruption. In human systems, it’s exactly the same and we need to start leading from that understanding.
Resilient organizations build in space for trust, rest, and renewal. They allow for diversity, redundancy, and experimentation. They don’t just survive change, they emerge stronger because of it. They thrive not because they are “pushing harder” but because they model Nature’s systems.
Relationships, not things, should be a core measure of organizational health.
Lean and mean” organizations often appear efficient, but they’re brittle. Teams are shrunk to the bare minimum and everyone is tired. In human systems, we trim too much and often without a clear understanding of the patterns that are naturally evolving within the organization. This undermines resilience, leading to increasingly fragile systems. We add more things in the hope we’ll become more efficient, and ignore (or destroy) the connections that truly keep us going.
In Nature, the healthiest ecosystems maintain buffers, support diverse species, and overlap functions so they can flex and adjust when disruption hits. These resilient systems aren’t the fastest, they’re the most adaptable. They maintain excess capacity not to look good on a spreadsheet, but to make survival possible. They foster belonging and support. Just like underground roots nourish the forest, these unseen relationships nourish our organizations, enabling creativity, problem-solving, and perseverance in the face of change.
Cultivating Deeper Relationships
The challenges facing leaders today are no longer just technical, they are relational. We can’t spreadsheet our way out of burnout, and we can’t measure our way into innovation. What we can do is cultivate the conditions for people to connect deeply, across differences, across disciplines, and with shared purpose. Nature reminds us that thriving comes not from control, but from the capacity to adapt.
As we know intuitively from our own experiences on great teams, this sustainable performance is built through trust, empathy, and shared power. In regenerative systems, leadership isn’t about commanding outcomes. It’s about creating the right “soil” where healthy relationships grow. Organizations thrive when they are grounded in psychological safety. When people feel safe to speak up, offer ideas, and collaborate, innovation follows naturally. It’s relationships, not tools, titles, or strategies, that enable real, lasting transformation.
On that note, I invite you to pause and reflect on questions:
- Are you rewarding speed instead of sustainability?
- Are your systems designed to adapt or perform to the breaking point?
- Where do important relationships need tending?
This blog was originally printed Dr. Allen’s newsletter, Nature-Based Leadership and was reprinted with her permission. Dr. Allen is a longtime ILA member.
Based in the U.S., Dr. Kathy Allen is a coach, thought leader and trusted advisor to leadership teams around the world. Her groundbreaking book, Leading from the Roots, drew key design principles and dynamics from living systems and applied them to leadership and decision-making in organizations, acknowledging the unique and interdependent nature of each group, enterprise and the larger system in which they operate. Kathy’s work provides a framework that challenges traditional views and creates a new paradigm for mission-driven, purpose-filled leadership anchored firmly in the design of Nature.
