Our world needs a new kind of leadership
Why the Arts and Global Leadership?
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Don't you agree, we are at a critical turning point in our world?
War, climate change, pandemics, polarisation - we are facing unprecedented challenges that can only be met through a deeper understanding of humanity and our individual and collective potential.
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So what can we do to face these challenges?
We need a whole new way of looking at the world and our role in it. We need a ‘higher order’ leadership that starts from within each one of us that ripples out to have an outsized impact in the world. Leadership of integrity, vision and purpose.
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So why the arts?
It may seem crazy but the arts are the most powerful tool we have to catalyse an inner transformation at the emotional, intellectual and spiritual level. They enable you to dig deeper into your individual and shared humanity, to co-create with others and build new narratives for our world.
Our Vision
The mission of the Centre is to empower the ‘higher order’ leadership skills of current and future leaders.
Our vision is to make The Centre a leading thinker, actor and doer in a more responsible approach to what leadership is, restoring our shared humanity, and inviting a deeper way of thinking about what the world needs for healing.
So how does it work?
We use participation in arts-based and creative approaches to training and development, elevating learning beyond traditional methods and fostering experiential engagement. This isn’t about being forced to memorise Shakespeare! Or embarrassing yourself in front of your colleagues. It’s about using your natural and intuitive creative side to imagine new possibilities for our world and developing the skills of courage, collaboration, creativity and compassion that leads to transformative change within you and your organisation.
Here are some key ways in which the arts influence leadership:
Creativity and Innovation
Emotional Intelligence
Communication and Storytelling
Empathy and understanding
Adaptability and resilience
Vision and purpose
Stress-relief and well-being
Team-building and collaboration
Long-term perspective
These are the 21st century skills that all employers are looking for in their people to not only survive but thrive in an age of AI.
We run programmes for corporate and government leaders, children and young people, artists and social visionaries, individuals and communities, to enable them to be morally courageous, accountable and transformative leaders.
We work all over the world - in Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East region, as well as online and at our retreat centre, Clos de Gaye, in south west France.
Our programmes inspire a sense of AWE and wonder, which encourages deep inner TRANSFORMATION, creating shifts that lead to meaningful IMPACT in the world.
Core concepts in our work
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We seek to work with individuals, governments and corporations who wish to be part of a new way of thinking about our world and our place in it. Those that are fed up with the status quo and are committed to a ‘higher order’ leadership that places people and planet at a premium.
‘Higher order’ leadership that acknowledges the role of a deeper, more transformative force at play in our thoughts and actions, something that starts from within and ripples out to have outsized effects on those around us and in the world at large.
A desire to work closely with senior leaders to bring about the ‘higher order’ leadership thinking that has the capacity to change the lives of millions of people around the world.
There is no doubt that today’s global leadership is at a crisis point. Leaders of principle are in short supply, politics has become reactionary and isolationist and there is a crying need for leadership that can unite multiple interests into a coherent vision for the reality of today’s world. The model of ‘servant leadership’ that believed in service to a higher cause than oneself, embraced by such visionaries as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Churchill, Mandela, seems extinct in today’s world. As recent events have seen, we need a new vision of leadership that can steer the course of our globalised world, whilst having the humility to recognise the challenges that ordinary people face in their day to day lives.
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We believe in the power of the arts to affect extraordinary personal transformation that has impact in the world.
The arts appeal to our humanity and invite us to explore the deepest questions that we need to ask ourselves about our world and why we are here. They tap into not only our intellectual and emotional sensibilities but, more profoundly, our spiritual identity and our true reasons for being. When unleashed, these capacities enable us to do more than we ever imagined, allowing us to make extraordinary contributions to the world.
Participation in the arts and creative learning opportunities are also one of the very best ways to develop the 21st century skills that are crucial in a world where technology will dominate more and more and where industrial learning methods and ‘teaching to the test’ are becoming obsolete. It is our creative edge that sets us apart from machines and inspires the leadership that we need to master looming crises coming to our world.
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In the French language, the word ‘globale’ refers not just to a way of thinking internationally or ‘of the world’, but, rather, with a sense or understanding of the totality of an experience or an idea. It is to take into account a more complete view of the subject matter in hand, to see the different elements from multiple perspectives and with a view to taking into account context and a sense of wholeness. We believe that leadership is at its best when it does all of this, acting from a sense of integrity with regards to our responsibilities as leaders and to those we lead, and our mark upon the world. To be a ‘globale’ leader is to be someone who not only understands the world and their place in it, but to act in such a way that they take into account the whole picture when making leadership decisions. That requires a deeper understanding of our roles and responsibilities and to understand our connection with others, our communities and our planet, and to make our decisions with a full – global – understanding of the influences and impacts of those decisions. It is to act with integrity, a sense of wholeness and a truly ‘global’ view.
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True leadership is learnt through practice, not through reading a book or sitting in a lecture. This understanding of how we develop as leaders is key to our experiential learning approach. Our founder’s background, as a grassroots social entrepreneur, leading on the edge in emerging markets who continues to lead projects globally, is key to our belief that leadership is a practice, not a theory.
A unique selling point of our work is the way in which we draw on theatre, artistic processes, and participatory and experiential learning techniques to provide participants the opportunity to practise their leadership development in a ‘rehearsal’ environment.
We often build our programmes around the creation of story and character that acts as a ‘proxy’ to explore complex and sensitive issues which, in turn, create valuable assets for you to use in your own product development, and marketing and communications, both internal and external.
We have developed unique learning and development techniques that develop self-confidence and self-esteem, leadership skills, communication competencies, and creative and innovative thinking to inspire ‘higher order’ leadership in high potential global leaders
Our unique approach provides an enormous added value that creates tangible outputs that go beyond just the development and capacity building of your team and position you as a company with an exceptionally creative and innovative edge
OUR VALUES
THE POWER OF SHARED SUCCESS
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Integrity and honesty are at the heart of what we do and believe. It’s not that we don’t think leaders can and do make mistakes, rather, it is the commitment to growth and self-development that is the hallmark of our greatest leaders, the willingness to do our best and bring out the best in others.
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Leadership is at once a privilege and a huge responsibility. A leader is no one without those that they lead and their sense of responsibility must go further than the enjoyment of the privileges that come with positions of power. We must forever remain accountable to those whom we lead and the wider communities within which we operate.
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Machines can do so much for us now, but the one thing that will always separate humans from machines is their capacity to ‘go deep’. The radical exploration of self and our innate spiritual identity is what draws out our uniqueness and our sense of profound contribution in the world.
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Leadership is primarily an act of service, a commitment to empowering ourselves and others in service to the greater good. It is about subjugating a sense of ego towards a higher cause that elevates all mankind and acknowledges that our successes are in concert with the contributions of others too.
The Centre is the vision of award-winning entrepreneurial leader, Caroline Watson, using her background in theatre and the arts to bring about transformative change in the leaders of today and tomorrow
Our Founder
Caroline Watson
Caroline Watson is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum with a background in transformative approaches to learning and development, offering bespoke leadership development, coaching and consulting, at a high level to government and business leaders in service to a greater mission. Caroline first came to global attention with the founding of Hua Dan, a China-based social enterprise that affected the lives of over 32,000 migrant women and children through participation in theatre as a tool to develop their soft skills and leadership capacity.
The most significant thing that marks Caroline out in the field of leadership development is her commitment to what she calls ‘higher order’ leadership. Her many years of empowering leaders across all areas and across the globe has taught her that profound change can only come about through encouraging individuals to ‘dig deep’ into the more spiritual dimensions of their leadership journey to bring about leadership that elevates both ourselves and others. She has observed that a willingness to radically explore that deeper side of themselves is what sets visionary leaders apart from the rest. Her inspirational and innovative techniques encourage and inspire that ‘higher order’ leadership to emerge and empower the visionary thinking – and doing - of our world’s current and future Leaders.
Caroline has delivered trainings, speeches and workshops on the stages at Davos, Harvard, Oxford and LSE, and consulted with clients such as L'Oréal, Orange, Société Générale, the Prime Minister's Office of the UAE, UNESCO, ILO, World Economic Forum, CEDEP, Citibank and Goldman Sachs. She has studied at Harvard, Oxford, Yale, INSEAD and Lancaster. Born in Hong Kong, Caroline speaks English, French, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese and has lived and worked across many countries in Asia, Europe, MENA and North America.
Caroline is a visionary thought-leader and keynote-speaker and is regularly asked to speak at high-profile conferences around the world. You can watch her TED talk here and read her blog on Substack. For more information about her speaking topics and to hire her for an event, click here.
“Caroline is a visionary and trailblazer in thinking about innovation around the arts and social change. I do not know anyone who has catalyzed such thought leadership around the topic. Caroline is a transformative and inspiring changemaker in every way, and her commitment to her work comes through in her speaking style. Audiences are captivated by her passion in her presentations and spoken words. Caroline will not only mobilize audiences but truly energize.”
Christina Bain, Babson College, USA
How it all began…..
The vision for the future….
Our Clients & Partners
