This significantly adapted time inevitably raises questions of all leaders when we pause to breathe and consider beyond our emergency response. That we pause is important; offering a fertile void for organisational and community leaders to inhabit.

Established in 2019 to apply Deep Adaptation to organisational life and leadership, the Leading Through Storms programme was due to start in May 2020. Informed by a rich array of methodologies and approaches, including the notion that ‘this is an emergency; we must slow down’, which seems to have been borne out for us!

Like many other endeavours, we are reshaping our approach to meet the questions raised today, still with an eye to what will also best serve when the direct impact of Covid-19 has a looser grip, as we continue to attend to other challenges facing our societies.

We invite you to join our online community to actively explore together the leadership questions you are sitting with; to be part of a supportive group as you identify and take your best next steps, personally and organisationally. We will lean in to the 4Rs of the Deep Adaptation framework as a thread throughout.

Questions we will be exploring may start with:

• What is being called for right now, and what is our leadership part to play?
• What can we learn from the current disruption to business as usual to foster more creative adaptations to the climate, ecological and social crises?
• What are we learning about ourselves as leaders, as we notice our own responses to the uncertainty of this time?
• Given this uncertainty, how resourced are we to attend to time horizons beyond the immediate?
• What immediate opportunities are there in our organisations and communities to catalyse processes of Deep Adaptation to support our work and lives?
• What have we noticed about our organisation’s balance of attention on the psychological safety for our people, and the management of the ‘business’ issues?

Our wish is that the connections we make virtually over the coming months will lay the foundations for a strong community of practice that lasts much longer than this current crisis.

Our 90 minute online sessions - held every 3 weeks - are designed to create a 'pulse' of support for community and organisational leaders contemplating their work to enable Deep Adaptation. This round of sessions is free-of-charge, and you are welcome to join as many or as few as you wish.

Some participants may subsequently decide to join our 10 month programme, Leading Through Storms, and other paid-for offerings may be developed in response to participant needs and wishes. Joining this fledgling community brings no obligation to participate in anything other than the online sessions.

If you are keen to be involved but can't make the scheduled sessions, please email info@leadingthroughstorms.org and ask to be kept informed of future events.

Note – Professor Jem Bendell’s work on Deep Adaptation offers a framework for beginning to make sense of the unfolding tragedy of climate and ecological collapse. It provides an opportunity to reassess our work and life in the face of inevitable near-term social collapse, and to find our best creative responses, personally and collectively. The 4 Rs of Deep Adaptation (Resilience, Relinquishment, Restoration and Reconciliation) are central to our work in this community of practice.