#123 - Leadership in Complexity: Purpose, Failure & Conflict with Jennifer Garvey Berger

Renowned author and complexity thinker Jennifer Garvey Berger, co-founder of Cultivating Leadership, joins us in this episode to explore how organisations can evolve by unlocking the mental traps that limit adaptive capacity.She helps us reframe leadership as a practice that fosters engagement and thriving amid uncertainty, and guides us through why individual development is essential to creating truly functional and effective collectives.She highlights gaps in organisations that often overlook the importance of actively attending to a team’s health, which harms the relationships and connections that hold systems together.She shares a future-focused insight, stating that “organisations are not merely serving markets, but constantly co-creating them,” redefining the deep implications for how organisations define their purpose, value, and long-term responsibility.This episode offers a powerful and timely reflection that embraces a more ecological and co-creative approach to organizing. Tune in.

Jennifer, widely known for her books “Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps” and “Changing on the Job”, has guided organisations worldwide in revisiting their mindtraps and reshaping traditional leadership.In this episode, she continues to challenge conventional views of customer-centricity and urges organisations to recognise their role in shaping society and ecosystems, advocating for a purpose that is deeply embedded rather than merely performative.On a timely note, she reflects on generational shifts in how people relate to work and meaning, alongside the rise of values-led business models that call for designing with longer horizons in mind.She helps us stay present, emphasising it as essential for preparing for the future, and guides us in visualising and designing what it means to be a complexity-informed leader.

Key Highlights
👉 Value in complex systems is co-created and fluid - organisations must shift from simply "serving customer needs" to becoming conscious shapers of society.
👉 Younger generations are increasingly unwilling to invest their life force into organisations that prioritise profit over planetary purpose and human well-being.
👉 Leadership requires working with, not eliminating, conflict.
👉 Escaping cognitive mindtraps (like certainty, control, or simple stories) is essential for leaders navigating complexity and change.
👉 In complexity, defining and enacting value is a collective, recursive process - it’s shaped by individuals, teams, and ecosystems in continuous dialogue.
👉 Purpose in complexity-friendly organisations must be lived and systemic, not just performative; it's about genuine social contracts and ecosystem stewardship.
👉 True systemic change begins with slowing down, listening differently, and allowing space for emergence.

Topics /chapters
(00:00) Leadership in Complexity: Purpose, Failure & Conflict - intro
(01:55) Introducing Jennifer Garvey Berger
(03:45) The Polarities in Leadership
(06:48) A new mindset at the Leadership Level
(08:54) Personal Pattern and Complex Ecosystems
(13:03) Operationalising individual and collective patterns
(16:49) The boundaries of leadership in an organization
(19:05) The “How” and the “What” to Addressing Complexity
(25:21) Organizational Readiness for Handling Complexity
(28:08) Are Purpose-Driven Markets the Future?
(42:37) Breadcrumbs and Suggestions

Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website: https://www.boundaryless.io/podcast/garvey-jennifer

Episode recorded on Jun 03, 2025

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