5 signs your leadership might need regeneration
In many organizations, leaders are doing what they were taught to do. They set targets. Track performance. Cascade priorities. Run meetings. Hold people accountable. Launch engagement programs. Communicate change. Repeat.
Yet sometimes, something still feels incomplete.
A business process outsourcing team may hit its service levels, but absenteeism is rising. A branch might meet its monthly target, but only through heroic overtime. A manufacturing group improves output, but supervisors are constantly firefighting morale issues. An HR team launches engagement programs, but people quietly return to old behaviors after the event.
The organization might be performing, but not necessarily becoming healthier.
We asked Jun Roy, Inquirer Academy’s subject matter expert on leadership and sustainability, about his thoughts on when leadership needs regeneration.
First, what is regeneration? “Regenerative leadership is not simply environmental leadership. It is the practice of creating conditions that renew energy, deepen trust, build capability, protect well-being and strengthen the wider system while delivering results,” says Roy.
He adds: “For many years, leadership was built around one question: How do we get more performance from people? Sustainability added another question: How do we reduce harm? Regenerative leadership asks a deeper question: What conditions allow people, teams, organizations, communities and ecosystems to thrive together?”
Here are five signs your leadership may need regeneration:
1. Your people are engaged, but not thriving
Engagement is important, but it is not enough.
An employee may be present, productive and cooperative, yet still be depleted. They may join activities, answer surveys and support company goals, but lack energy, meaning, voice or space to grow.
Thriving goes deeper than engagement. It includes well-being, purpose, learning, belonging and the ability to contribute without being consumed by work.
What I ask leaders is this: Are your people merely staying connected to the organization or are they becoming more capable, healthy and alive because of how work is led?
Engagement measures connection. Thriving reveals the condition.
2. Your team is performing, but not thriving as a team
Some teams deliver, but only because a few people carry the weight.
The scorecard looks good, but collaboration is strained. Meetings are full, but conversations are guarded. Deadlines are met, but trust is thin. People function as a group, but not as a living team.
The team thriving is not just about hitting targets. It is about shared clarity, mutual support, psychological safety, healthy rhythms and the ability to learn together.
In Philippine workplaces, where relationships strongly influence work, team performance without team trust is fragile.
The leadership question is: Is your team only producing outputs or is it also growing in trust, capability and collective energy?
A team can perform under pressure. A thriving team can sustain performance with purpose.
3. Well-being is treated as a program, not a leadership condition
Many organizations now talk about well-being. They organize wellness talks, mental health webinars, sports activities or employee assistance programs. These are useful, but they are not enough if the daily experience of work remains unhealthy.
Well-being is shaped by workload, leadership behavior, role clarity, fairness, meeting culture, recovery time and psychological safety.
A regenerative leader does not treat well-being as an HR add-on. It becomes part of how work is designed, how decisions are made and how performance is sustained.
What I often see is that organizations promote resilience while keeping the same conditions that make people exhausted.
Well-being is not separate from performance. It is one of the conditions that make performance sustainable.
4. You keep fixing symptoms, but the system keeps reproducing them
Low morale leads to an engagement activity. Silos lead to a team-building session. Resistance to change leads to more communication.
These may help, but only if leaders understand the deeper system creating the issue.
Regenerative leadership uses a living systems lens. It looks at relationships, incentives, processes, energy flows, power, trust and unintended consequences.
But it goes beyond analysis. It asks leaders to take responsibility for the conditions they create.
The leadership question is: are you solving the visible issue or are you changing the conditions that keep producing it?
Regenerative leaders do not only fix problems. They cultivate healthier systems.
5. Your impact stops at the organization
Leadership does not end at the office door.
The way leaders make decisions affects employees and families, suppliers and customers, communities and the environment. A company that grows while exhausting people, weakening communities or damaging ecosystems is not truly successful from a regenerative point of view.
This is why leadership must expand its circle of concern. The question is not only, “Did we hit the target?” It is also, “What did our way of achieving the target make possible—or make worse?”
Regenerative leadership invites leaders to see people, organizations, communities and ecosystems as interconnected. INQ
Roy will facilitate a workshop titled Regenerative Leadership: Lead to succeed with creating meaningful and lasting impact on July 28 in Makati City, organized by Inquirer Academy.
Participants will explore how to lead in ways that strengthen people, teams, organizations, communities and ecosystems through the use of various tools. This is for leaders who believe results and well-being should grow.
This workshop can also be customized to meet the specific needs of your organization.
For more information, write to ask@ inquireracademy.com, or send an SMS to 0919-3428667 and 0998-9641731.
For your other learning needs, Inquirer Academy can assist you in designing and facilitating a training program for your organization.
