What Does It Mean To Lead?
Real Leaders magazine debuted globally last month, posing this question to leaders in global sustainability initiatives. Here's some lessons we learned from the panel.
Looking to Our Real Leaders
“We cannot wait for politicians to solve the world’s problems,” Mark Van Ness stated to a crowd assembled in the Barnes & Noble in Tribeca back in September. An impact investor and advocate for gender-balanced leadership, Van Ness had recently reached a major milestone in publication: the global newsstand kickoff for Real Leaders, the world's first sustainable business and leadership magazine.
Individual action and responsibility was the theme of the night. Van Ness stood on a stage, flanked by visionaries from diverse fields committed to various global sustainability initiatives. Discussion centered around bringing change into the every day, and how leadership is found in those who authentically bring about responsible social change in their lives.
He continued: “It is the leaders in our everyday lives, especially business leaders, who we must look to for change. These are the people who are stepping up everywhere to fill the leadership void.”
The stage was filled with titans of industry who stand at the forefront of global sustainability in their respective fields. Exchanging quips about their work and expounding upon each of their industry's unique hopes for the future, the panel sought to generate a new discussion on today's toughest challenges, including gender parity in the workforce and the growing climate crisis.
Among the invited guests was eco-fashion entrepreneur and guru, Marci Zaroff, who spoke of her work to mitigate the negative environmental impacts of conventional apparel. Zaroff executive produced the documentary THREAD and the short film series Driving Fashion Forward with Amber Valletta—a documentary centered on exposing the human and environmental impacts of the fashion industry.
Another panelist, Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute and Senior Advisor to the Nobel Peace Laureate Summit, discussed the importance of individual action: mobilizing individual responsibility towards a sustainable future in a way that is authentic to their own lives.
On an individual level, no tool is more accessible or far-reaching than social media, and with over 100 million views on his viral wisdom videos and 500,000 followers across platforms, Jay Shetty spoke about harnessing this technologies to create broad-reaching impacts.
Jess Jacobs, an actor and producer who co-founded her company Invisible Pictures with award-winning producer, Audrey Rosenberg, talked about the broader impact of her work promoting gender parity in media. As Jacobs sees it, "When women are given equal opportunity as men, we are all better equipped to tackle our most trenchant social, environmental and economic problems."
Other distinguished luminaries of the panel included Benita Fitzgerald Mosley, Olympic gold medalist and CEO of Laureus USA, and Maya Brahmam, the Senior Communications Officer of The World Bank.
Panelists on Van Ness' group spoke to one very clear truism: that being a "real leader" isn’t about being elected or born into leadership; it’s about rising to the challenge of whatever it is you care about. Real leaders are now those people who seek out and find the challenges in their communities, families, homes, industries, and social groups, and make an effort to change them. Bit by bit and group by group, real leaders are the people who look to the future by moving forward with authenticity.
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