COURAGE: The Leadership Edge for 2025
The wind rushes past me as I cycle through Spain’s vast wetlands, a wild and serene landscape. I can feel the yin and yang energy, the interplay of stillness and movement, reflection and action.
In this solitude, I pause — not just to catch my breath and to ask more profound questions:
🔹 What does it mean to cultivate true reciprocity?
🔹 How do we navigate the waves of change, grief, and transformation with resilience?
As a Movember Ambassador and mental health advocate, I’ve experienced firsthand how grief shapes us. It sharpens our awareness, forcing us to confront life’s impermanence. The instinct to withdraw is strong, and real healing begins when we acknowledge and move through our emotions. Tibetan wisdom reminds us that the lotus unfolds through the mud.
In the same way, growth and resilience emerge when we engage with our struggles rather than resist them.
A precious friend from The Listening Call Platform, a psychoanalyst, recently reminded me of this truth. As life takes, it also gives — the birth of my nephew a poignant contrast to loss.
Life heals.
This cycle teaches us a fundamental leadership lesson: embracing emotions, moving through discomfort, and channelling energy constructively is where transformation begins. This is why I design nature-based leadership retreats — because deep personal and organizational growth happens when we step out of the noise and into spaces of renewal and I can use my superpowers to work on a collective level.
It’s OK not to be OK. Resilience, in these moments, becomes a transformative force.
Leadership Beyond Strategy: The Embodiment of Resilience
As I take in the breathtaking Cordillera Cantábrica, I reflect on the landscapes I’ve traversed — both physically and in life. With nearly 50 years of experience working alongside leaders from over 100 cultures,
I’ve learned that leadership is not just about strategy.
As the Founder & Managing Director of the School of KI/気 (Inner Energy Leadership School), my work is rooted in transforming individuals, organisations, and humankind. I guide CEOs and executives to embody leadership, build resilience, and show up with courage again and again,
no matter how uncertain the road ahead.
The world is shifting. Disruptions are constant. The leaders who will thrive are not merely reacting to change and shaping the future with self-compassion, integrity, and bold innovation.
This is the leadership I cultivate with my clients:
✔ Resilient leadership in uncertainty
✔ Vision-driven decision-making
✔ Embodied leadership practices for sustained impact
The Future Belongs to Those Who Dare
Colonel Ellison Onizuka, a pioneering astronaut, once said:
“Your vision is not limited by what your eyes can see, and by what your mind can imagine.”
He lived by these words until his final moment aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. His legacy reminds us that courage isn’t just about bold actions. It’s about aligning our values with our choices, about daring to create the world we envision.
So, as we step into spring, I leave you with this:
🔹 Will you lead with courage?
🔹 Will you embrace curiosity, admiration, and action?
🔹 Will you embody resilience, rather than merely react to change?
The future belongs to those who do and before those who dare to embrace fully their being.
If you’re navigating uncertainty and seeking a leadership approach that fosters resilience, innovation, and purpose, let’s connect. Reach out today.
Sending love and kindness, A.
AWARD WINNING! Women in Sports, WYDE 2022, TOP 15 coaches in Brussels, Influence Digest Media 2023 & Impact leader bridging Brussels, Women100 If you work with me, foresee you are experiencing disruption, strengthen your purpose, embrace adventure, be centered and ride the waves of the future. Follow the flow, follow Tombo! www.tombotribe.com
