Coming to Our Senses | Speaking Truth to Power

© Martha Wooding-Young, The Resilient Executive, LLC 2024

Rachel Carson, Dian Fossey, and Jane Goodall are a few of my personal heroes. Their speciality was slowing down sufficiently to observe the natural world in all its complexity, and their passion was communicating the concerns raised by their observations. This week in Newagen, Maine, I discovered a Rachel Carson memorial at my hotel—a reminder of her profound legacy. This groundbreaking naturalist, a writer, scientist, and ecologist, spent much of her later years around this fractal coastline, exploring and writing. Half of her ashes were sprinkled on nearby Squirrel Island. Despite attempts by big agriculture and the chemical industry to dismiss her work as too emotional, even alarmist, her book #SilentSpring and later Congressional testimony led to the U.S. ban on DDT and reshaped US environmental policy. Carson's work reminds us that as humans, we are vulnerable to the same damage as the rest of the ecosystem. As a leader, what discomfort are you willing to tolerate to speak truth to power? Curious about how you might build the resilience to do so? Reach out.