On livelihood, place and trust beyond the reflex of more
A reflection on leadership that does not steer for more, but for rooted enough. From a systemic and psychodynamic perspective, it reveals how place, recognition and inner trust form the basis for choices that work for people and the whole.
Growth or enough?
“More” sounds like progress, but is often an attempt to fill a void. In times of livelihood insecurity, calls for growth seem obvious, even necessary. Yet another voice is seeping through the public debate. A voice calling for enough. Not as a limit to ambition, but as a ground for confidence. What if the real deficit is not in resources, but in the lack of an inner sense of enough?
Existence security
The core of existence security lies not in more or less, but in a perceived place in the whole. In systemic work, we see how insecurity flares up when people feel unseen, unheard or displaced. Not infrequently, as leaders, we respond to this with control: by formalising processes, controlling risks or managing expectations. Fear of lack - in appreciation, recognition, love - drives many more of our decisions than we realise. But existence cannot be secured through spreadsheets. It is rooted in a deeper layer - where people feel recognised in and for who they are, not for what they deliver.
Living off enough
Last week, in met a team manager in a home care organisation. Her team was giving everything for their clients, but was becoming increasingly exhausted themselves. “We give everything,” she said, “but it never seems enough.” When I asked what she needed to feel she was doing enough, silence fell. Soon the tears came. How long had it been since she had been seen as human? In that silence, something broke open. The question shifted from ‘how do we arrange more?’ to ‘what is really needed? And what of that is mine?’ Only then could something change. Not in policy, but in the bed in which the work was done.
It touched me because I recognise it. I too tend to seek my raison d'être in what I contribute, achieve or mean. But the experience of being enough rarely comes from achievement. Rather, it comes from moments of connection, of really landing in my place. Leadership begins there, in that existential permission I have to give myself again and again.
Guts
In a world that often cries out for more, perhaps these times call for a different movement. Not less ambition, but being more rooted. Not doing less, but being present differently.
What is enough for you? And perhaps more difficult: do you dare to admit it?