Join us for What Stayed, a live Season Two gathering.

March 31 · Virtual · Free · Limited spots · konu.org/events

There are many leadership assessments in the world. Most measure competencies — skills, behaviors, strengths, and gaps. The Leadership Circle begins from a different starting point. It integrates leadership theory, systems thinking, and adult development into a single model that connects behavior to the structure of mind beneath it.

In this episode, Michael Koehler and his colleague Judit Teichert sit down with Bill Adams and Bob Anderson — co-founders of The Leadership Circle, long-time pioneers in leadership development, and authors of Scaling Leadership and Mastering Leadership.

This conversation is less an explanation of a model and more a reflection on its evolution. Bill and Bob revisit the foundational distinction between reactive and creative leadership, share personal moments of reckoning with their own patterns, and explore what happens when even creative leadership begins to feel insufficient for the scale of today’s adaptive challenges.

If reactive leadership is driven by managed anxiety, and creative leadership introduces vision and choice, what comes next?

Bill and Bob suggest that the next stage may require something more relational than individual brilliance — a shift toward collective intelligence, deeper self-awareness, and leadership informed not by separateness, but by unity.

How strengths, when run reactively, become liabilities. Why development begins when we can see our patterns rather than be run by them. And why reactive leadership is less a comfort zone and more managed anxiety.

A powerful story of a CEO who unknowingly capped his organization’s growth — and what changed when he realized he was up against himself.

Adaptive challenges cannot be solved from within the very structure that created them.

Drawing on over a million survey comments, Bill and Bob describe the central shift in effective leadership: from leading through individual capability to developing people and building collective capacity.

Leadership scales when development becomes shared work.

Bob describes what he calls integral leadership — leadership grounded in the presumption, if not the direct realization, of the inherent unity of all things.

If our current paradigm is built on separateness, what might leadership look like if it were grounded in unity instead?

This episode does not offer easy answers. It invites deeper questions:

1. How do we lead in the unknown?
2. How do we slow down when urgency tempts us to push harder?
3. What if the future emerges not from force — but from listening?

“Strengths run reactively have liabilities.”

— Bob Anderson

“Reactive leadership isn’t a comfort zone. It’s managed anxiety.”

— Bob Anderson

“I am my own project for life. And it’s a big project.”

— Bill Adams

“If we want things to change, I have to do most of the changing.”

— Bill Adams

“Are we going to clean this up neatly? The deep recesses of racism that have been in our lineage for millennia? Patriarchy, violence, war, exploitation? We’re going to clean that up neatly? No. It’s going to be a mess.”

— Bob Anderson

“Integral...

Join us for What Stayed, a live Season Two gathering. March 31 · Virtual · Free · Limited spots · konu.org/events

Mindfulness has become respectable.

It improves focus. It reduces stress. It helps leaders perform under pressure.

But what if mindfulness isn't primarily about performance?

In this episode of On the Balcony, Michael Koehler sits down with Dr. Matthias Birk—organizational psychologist, executive coach, former Global Head of Coaching & Advisory at Goldman Sachs, Global Director of Partner Development at White & Case, Zen teacher, and founder of Self-Transcendent Leadership.

What unfolds is not a conversation about mindfulness as a productivity tool.

It's a conversation about perspective.

Matthias distinguishes between what he calls within-paradigm mindfulness—using meditation to cope more skillfully within the identity you already inhabit—and beyond-paradigm mindfulness, which loosens that identity altogether.

One reduces suffering within the game. The other questions the game itself.

At the heart of the episode is a passage from Rainer Maria Rilke:

For Matthias, meditation isn't an accessory to leadership. It's not like playing golf. It's about being fully alive in the here and now—and discovering what remains when achievement, anxiety, and identity begin to soften.

What You'll Explore in This Episode

Meditation before it was fashionable Matthias began practicing Zen as a teenager, long before mindfulness entered corporate vocabulary.

Within-paradigm vs. beyond-paradigm mindfulness Mindfulness can help you manage stress inside demanding roles. But it can also invite you to question who you are beyond those roles.

Achievement and insecurity From McKinsey to Goldman Sachs to global leadership, Matthias reflects candidly on ambition and belonging—and how meditation shifted his relationship to that inner voice.

Self-transcendence Drawing on Abraham Maslow's later work, Matthias explores what it means to move beyond ego-centered striving toward expression, service, and alignment with something larger.

Leadership as expression What if leadership isn't about constructing a persona—but about listening deeply enough to express what's already there, this one only time?

Quotes from This Episode

"Meditation is not a hobby. It's not like playing golf. It's not something you do on the side. It is about being fully alive in the here and now." — Dr. Matthias Birk

"If you don't brush your teeth, they're going to rot. If you don't brush your mind, it's going to come up with not great stuff." — Dr. Matthias Birk

"The real benefit of mindfulness is that you can live a free life." — Dr. Matthias Birk

"One of the saddest things is to live a life and never hear your innermost sound." — Dr. Matthias Birk

Links & Resources

Self-Transcendent Leadership — Dr. Matthias Birk https://www.self-transcendent.com/

Publications & Articles by Dr. Matthias Birk https://www.matthiasbirk.com/publications

Selected...

Some challenges don't fail because we lack intelligence, expertise, or good intentions. They fail because the systems meant to hold them — the structures, relationships, and shared stories — aren't strong enough to carry the weight.

In this episode of On the Balcony, Michael Koehler sits down with Tim O'Brien to explore one of the most quietly powerful ideas in Adaptive Leadership: the holding environment.

At the center of the conversation is a real public case — Gina Raimondo's leadership of pension reform in Rhode Island — where the technical problem was solvable, but the adaptive challenge was immense. Retirements, livelihoods, and deeply held beliefs were at stake. Data alone couldn't move the system. Logic was not enough for people to absorb the loss.

What made progress possible was the deliberate construction of a holding environment — one capable of containing fear, grief, anger, and conflict long enough for new meaning to emerge.

Tim and Michael use this case to unpack what holding environments really are — not abstract "safe spaces," but designed conditions that help people stay in hard conversations without fleeing, fixing, or polarizing.

What a holding environment actually is. Holding environments are the structures, relationships, and shared stories that make it possible for people to engage adaptive challenges without becoming too overwhelmed. As Tim describes it, a holding environment is not about removing distress — it's about recognizing and legitimizing what people are already carrying.

The three components of a holding environment. The conversation explores structures and boundaries (time limits, spatial design, process clarity, and role boundaries all matter — from how long a meeting lasts, to who holds the microphone, to how a forum is framed); relationships both horizontal and vertical (holding environments depend on the quality of relationships among peers and the relationship between people and authority — trust, legitimacy, and containment travel through these relational channels); and story, meaning, and purpose (facts matter, but they must be held within a shared narrative — in Rhode Island, Raimondo's "Truth in Numbers" report didn't just inform, it created a common reality people could argue within, rather than argue about).

The Rhode Island pension reform case. The episode walks through how Raimondo resisted the pressure to act as a technical savior and instead orchestrated a process where loss could be named, anger expressed, and responsibility shared. Public forums, clear data, and repeated engagement weren't accidental — they were elements of a holding environment intentionally designed to stretch the system's capacity.

Why some systems collapse under pressure. Many organizations already have holding environments — but not ones strong enough for the challenges they're facing. When the heat exceeds the container, people disengage, scapegoat, or polarize. Exercising leadership often means strengthening the container rather than supplying answers.

Holding environments vs. psychological safety. The conversation distinguishes between team-level psychological safety and the broader, more demanding work of holding environments — especially in public or cross-boundary systems where authority is diffuse and stakes are high.

"A holding environment might be a place where one's inner world is recognized, legitimized, or validated." — Tim O'Brien

"She creates a space where cognitive and emotional turmoil could give way to meaning. People are upset, angry, full of rage — but something has to be done." — Tim O'Brien

"They're not forging lifelong relationships, but on this particular issue they're meeting the other people who are implicated —...