“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” Margaret Wheatley
We talk a lot about how fast the world is changing.
AI.
Automation.
Acceleration.
What we talk about less is what happens on the inside when everything speeds up on the outside.
Many people aren’t struggling because they lack skills or opportunities.
They’re struggling because something quieter has gone missing.
A sense of meaning.
A felt sense of purpose.
Not purpose as a goal or a mission statement.
Purpose as an inner orientation.
A knowing of why you’re here, and how you belong.
From this vantage point, a question feels worth pausing with:
What if purpose was never missing, only obscured by constant noise and pressure?
From that angle, the challenge of leadership in an AI-driven world looks different.
Less about having better answers.
More about creating the conditions where clarity and wisdom can surface again.
I’ve written a short reflection exploring this, through the lens of meaning, leadership, and what keeps our progress human.
If you’re curious, you can read it here.
A Vantage Point for Leaders and the Human Systems They Influence
This is a reflection, not a prescription.
An invitation to slow down, even briefly, and sense something that often gets lost in the momentum of progress. Not to fix or optimise anything, but to notice where meaning actually comes from and why it matters now.
Especially in a world that keeps speeding up.
Pause for a moment and consider this: what we hold – people, purpose, potential – is not truly ours to own. It passes through us like sunlight through leaves, shifting, changing, and transforming as it moves.
When Everything Accelerates, What Quietly Slips Away?
We are living through an extraordinary shift.
AI is transforming how we work, decide, and create. Tasks are automated. Systems are optimised. Speed and scale have become the default.
On the surface, this looks like progress.
And yet, underneath it, another pattern is becoming harder to ignore.
Many people are not struggling because they lack capability or opportunity. They are struggling because something quieter has faded. A felt sense of meaning. A sense of purpose that orients their work, relationships, and decisions.
When meaning weakens, people don’t just disengage. They feel disconnected. Anxiety rises. Helplessness creeps in. Differences harden into divisions.
Zoom out further, and the same pattern shows up at scale.
Cultural fragmentation, social disharmony, and geopolitical tension are often framed as economic or ideological problems. But they also reflect something more human. A widespread loss of inner grounding.
When individuals lose their sense of meaning, systems reflect it.
Leaders feel this acutely, even when it’s hard to name.
The Vantage Point We Rarely Pause At
In an AI-driven world, the real question isn’t whether we can move faster or automate more. It’s whether we remain oriented while we do. Meaning doesn’t come from keeping up with complexity. It comes from the inner place we are relating to it from.
When that orientation is lost, leaders don’t just lose clarity for themselves. That loss quietly ripples through conversations, decisions, cultures, and communities.
And when it is present, coherence tends to follow.
Purpose Was Never Missing
Much of the current conversation assumes purpose needs to be created.
Defined clearly enough. Communicated consistently enough. Engineered into roles, strategies, and systems.
But from a different vantage point, something else becomes visible.
Purpose is not missing. It is innate.
Every person has access to a sense of meaning that does not need to be installed or manufactured. It arises from the inside out. It is part of our human design, even when it feels obscured.
What tends to hide it is not a lack of effort, but the constant noise of thinking, pressure, and urgency.
Beneath all of that sits a deeper intelligence. A quieter wisdom that guides creativity, clarity, and compassion when we allow space for it.
This is not abstract. It is lived. And it is available to everyone.
Leadership From the Inside-Out
This understanding changes how leadership looks.
Not leadership as control or performance, but leadership as orientation. The quality of mind from which decisions, conversations, and cultures emerge.
When leadership is disconnected from meaning, it becomes mechanical. Reactive. Brittle under pressure.
When leadership reconnects with its inside-out nature, something else becomes possible.
Clarity without force. Direction without rigidity. Creativity that emerges naturally rather than being squeezed out.
This is where collective intelligence lives. Where teams can think together. Where communities collaborate without needing to win. Where difference becomes workable instead of divisive.
Healthy minds create healthy people.
Healthy people create healthy communities.
And healthy communities don’t arise from clever systems alone. They emerge from coherence.
Slowing Down Changes the View
Nothing here asks us to reject technology or progress.
It does, however, invite a different relationship with speed.
When thinking slows, even slightly, many people rediscover something they hadn’t realised was still there. A sense of steadiness. A natural creativity. A quieter confidence.
From this place, purpose feels less like something to chase and more like something to recognise.
AI can help us do more.
Meaning helps us know what is worth doing.
And that distinction may be one of the most important leadership capacities in the years ahead.
A Gentle Invitation
This reflection reflects the lens I work from in VANTAGE POINT and in my work with leaders navigating complexity and change.
If this way of seeing resonates, you may find it useful to explore what an inside-out orientation brings to your own leadership and the systems you influence. Not as a method to apply, but as a grounding that brings greater clarity, humanity, and coherence.
I’m always open to that conversation.
A Quiet Question to Sit With
If meaning was never missing, only obscured…
what might become visible if we slowed down long enough to notice where it has been coming from all along?
With gratitude,
Mike
P.S. If this reflection resonated, you might notice this week where your leadership feels steadier without effort. Those moments often point to the place meaning is already coming from. 🍃🌿
“Mike Schwarzer’s book, ‘VANTAGE POINT: cutting through the bullsh*t of a complex world,’ serves as both the torch and compass that illuminate the way and guide us as we step into uncharted territory, embark on new explorations, and pioneer innovative paths. ”Gabriella Sprott, Director & Co-Founder @ Yardner, Australia
VANTAGE POINT’s essence lies in preparing leaders for the unfolding challenges and future developments, not just in the realm of AI, but also in all the contributing factors that shape our complex world. It’s about elevating human consciousness, transcending the limitations of our ego-minds, and giving us hope to make our world a better place.
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About Mike Schwarzer Mike is a Transformation Facilitator and Learning Leader who is passionate about helping leaders and organisations to solve the problems that they have not been able to solve elsewhere. He works with the underlying mental, behavioural and deeper innate dynamics that drive people’s and organisations’ thinking and actions. He creates and holds the space where they learn how to tap into their inner and outer capabilities in transformational ways and lift their perceptual abilities to see their world, its problems and emerging solutions with fresh eyes. At the organisational level, Mike’s approach challenges the status quo and hierarchical thinking. He takes you into the world of living ‘open & adaptive’ systems and their self-organising nature. From there you will be able to create a workplace culture that naturally draws from the collective wisdom of all its people and that is highly adaptable to the changing winds of a complex world. For more information about Mike visit www.mikeschwarzer.com.