Every economic system is ultimately a human system. When it works, it serves us; when it fails, it de-serves us—consuming the very people and planet it was built to nurture. If leadership is the act of guiding people to a better future, then conscious leadership is the art of guiding them with full awareness of the invisible threads that connect markets, governments, communities, and the Earth itself.
Today those threads are fraying. The climate clock is ticking, inequality is widening, and many of our neighbours are quietly asking “Why are we doing any of this in the first place?”
A quick tour of the economic “operating systems”
| System | Core Logic | Blind Spot |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional (Agriculture & barter) | Produce only what the land allows; nothing is wasted. | Minimal surplus, vulnerable to shocks. |
| Command (Communism) | Central authority allocates resources for the supposed common good. | Innovation and agility suffocated. |
| Market (Capitalism) | Free enterprise chases efficiency and profit. | Rewards concentration of power and fuels inequality. |
| Mixed (Post-WWII West) | Regulated market with social safety nets. | Environmental limits bolted on as an after-thought. |
“The most sustainable purchase is left on the shelf.” —Joshua Fields Millburn
I grew up on a farm where that sentence wasn’t a slogan—it was common sense. Potato peels fed the pigs, pig manure fed the soil, and the soil fed us. Waste wasn’t a moral issue; it was an economic impossibility.
Yet as societies “advanced”, we chose linear convenience over circular wisdom. From the 1970s onward we tried to patch the leak with command-and-control environmental law. As I argued back in 2002 compliance checklists alone cannot keep pace with the scale of the crisis.(Oxford Journal of Environmental Law, “Life After End of Life: the Replacement of End of Life Product Legislation by an European Integrated Product Policy in the EC” ).
Enter Coronalism: blending the best of three worlds
Imagine shaking up a classic mixed economy with a third ingredient—the regenerative discipline of the Traditional economy. The recipe looks like this:
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Market agility sparks innovation.
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Democratic governance sets the guard-rails.
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Traditional stewardship ensures that every resource either serves a purpose or cycles back into the system.
Served chilled, this cocktail beats global warming.
Where is the manifesto? Who is the Marx or Smith of Coronalism? There is none. The authors are you, me, and millions of citizens who have begun to consume less, share more, and measure success in meaning rather than stuff. Consciousness is spreading bottom-up, not trickling down.
Conscious Leadership Tip #7
“Steward the System” – Lead as if everything is connected, because it is
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Zoom Out – See your organisation as a node in a living network of ecosystems, supply chains, and communities.
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Zoom In – Sweat the small stuff: the packaging choice, the server energy source, the travel policy. Tiny decisions compound.
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Close Loops – Design every output as the input for someone else—waste equals food.
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Model Sufficiency – Celebrate doing enough brilliantly, rather than chasing more mindlessly.
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Teach the Why – Embed systems thinking in on-boarding, strategy off-sites, and investor decks.
When leaders steward the system, organisations become teachers, markets become ecosystems, and economies become regenerative.
That is Conscious Leadership in action. Will you shake the cocktail or stick with yesterday’s brew?