The Polycrisis: A Call for Systemic, Purpose-Led Coaching and Leadership

Dec 01, 2025

An Empower World reflection inspired by a Podcast Conversation with Professor Peter Hawkins, Global Thought Leader, Author, Coach, Chairman of Renewal Associates.

Around the world, leaders are sharing something we hear over and over again: the world feels more complex than ever before. Even highly experienced leaders, practitioners and teams describe a sense of being stretched by environmental shifts, organisational pressures, community needs and the increasing fragility of global systems and the needs of humanity.

This is a reflection of the times we are living in. We are in what many now call a polycrisis: a constellation of interconnected challenges, including climate instability, social inequality, biodiversity loss, economic uncertainty, cultural fragmentation and mental distress - each influencing and potentially amplifying others.

Professor Peter Hawkins expresses this interconnected reality clearly: “The polycrisis is that all of those are interconnected." In other words, we cannot solve any of them without thinking about and working on all of the interconnected parts.

And this is what is happening inside all organisations and communities every day. No challenge stands alone. No leader operates in isolation. And no team can thrive without awareness of the systems they are woven into.

For Empower World, this is not a reason to despair. It is a reason to evolve: ourselves, collectively and systemically.

The Polycrisis Is a Mirror Asking Us to Expand Our Consciousness

Peter reminds us that today’s global challenges are not simply external events; they arise from how humanity has been operating.

He states: “All of those great challenges are symptoms that we have not evolved human consciousness at the rate we humans have changed the world.”

This insight resonates deeply within our work. Organisations often respond to complexity by asking individuals to “do more,” “go faster,” or “improve performance.” Yet the polycrisis asks something very different of us: it asks us to see, hear, think, feel differently and more relationally, leading with a systemic and wider lens.

We recognise that when leaders expand their awareness beyond the immediate problems and notice the patterns, relationships and values surrounding it, creative solutions emerge. People rediscover capacity and individuals and teams reconnect to their purpose allowing possibilities to open up.

We Are Never Coaching One Person Alone

One of Peter’s most powerful beliefs supports what Empower World has also long believed: coaching must evolve beyond individualistic thinking.

“You're never coaching an individual......Every system we're nested within is nested within us,” says Peter.

This becomes evident as soon as a leader walks through the door. Their team’s expectations walk in with them and their organisation’s culture sits beside them. Their personal history, community, ecology and unspoken pressures quietly shape the conversation.

This is why systemic awareness is at the heart of Empower World’s work. Coaching today requires a wider field of attention - a willingness to sense not only the person, but the entire ecosystem influencing them.

In our experience, the shift from individual focus to systemic focus often results in:

clearer decision-making
stronger relationships
healthier, more resilient teams
creative solutions that were previously invisible
leaders who feel supported rather than alone in complexity

These are not “soft” outcomes. They are essential capabilities for navigating the polycrisis.

From IQ and EQ to WeQ: The Intelligence the Future Requires

Traditional leadership development has focused on building intellectual and emotional intelligence. Both remain vital. Yet the world is asking for something more integrated and collaborative.

Peter asks an expansive question: “If coaching has, over the last 30 years, helped us move from IQ to EQ, how do we go beyond that to WeQ? Or collective, collaborative intelligence?”

WeQ is not a concept; it is a living practice. It shows up when teams co-create rather than compete, when leaders listen more widely than their own perspective, and when organisations design strategies that serve not only shareholders, but also importantly communities, customers and the natural world.

This broader consciousness becomes even more important when we consider Peter’s following invitation: “How do we go to participatory consciousness with the more-than-human world?”

Empower World has always held that leadership includes our relationship with nature, place and environment. The polycrisis makes this impossible to ignore these connections. Our observation has been that leaders who connect with the living world tend to lead with more wisdom, calm, courage, mindfulness, influence and compassion.

Purpose as the Anchor in Turbulent Times

In complexity, purpose becomes more than a concept-it becomes a compass.

When organisations reconnect to purpose - not as a slogan but as a real guiding force - behaviour shifts, energy returns, silos break down, conversations deepen and leaders begin to look outward at their immediate and longer term impact and influence, not just inward.

Purpose helps teams answer essential questions:

Why are we here?
Whom do we serve?
What difference do we want to make for the world of tomorrow?

These questions ignite meaning and direction, especially when old ways of working no longer serve the emerging future.

Beauty, Nature and the Heart of Leadership

One of the most unexpected yet important insights Peter brings is the role of beauty and nature in expanding human consciousness. He quotes Rumi: “In the beauty of God’s universe, why have you chosen to fall asleep in such a small, dark prison?”

Beauty - when we choose to notice and appreciate it - awakens us and nature can ground us. Both of these concepts can support leaders reconnect with what truly matters. Empower World observes this again and again when leaders step outside - even for a few minutes - their perspective softens, their breathing slows, and their creativity returns. Leadership is not only strategic: it is deeply emotional, embodied and relational.

A Question That Shapes the Future

“What is it that you uniquely do that the world of tomorrow most needs?” asks Peter.

This question cuts through noise, urgency and overwhelm. It asks each of us to listen inwardly and outwardly-to tune into the emerging future and our unique role within it.

In a time of polycrisis, perhaps this is the invitation to wake up, to connect more deeply, to lead with purpose, to widen our relational field, and to recognise that every action we take ripples into a much larger world.

This is the work we at Empower World believe the world is calling for. What is the world asking of you right now in support of conscious, empowering and sustainable change?

Be Empowered

www.empower-world.com

To listen to the Podcast Episode 242, "From Ego to Ecosystem: Peter Hawkins on Beauty, Coaching and the World of Tomorrow, with Jeanine Bailey and Podcast guest Peter Hawkins, click here.

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