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It can be tough out there for leaders. Its challenging to drive results, ensure youre supporting employees well-being, and maintain your own motivation as well. So how can you be a good leader, and what are the strategies that really work? A helpful concept is spacious leadershipa management approach in which you create space for others to participate, make choices, and be their best. With spacious leadership, you also ensure space for yourself to enhance your own effectiveness and satisfaction on the job. THE NEED FOR IMPROVED LEADERSHIP In spite of leaders who work hard to do their best, a new survey by consulting firm DDI finds that only about 40% of workers believe that leaders are high quality. In comparison, leaders tend to rate themselves better than others rate them. Theres a perception gapalong with an opportunity for leaders to get better. Theres also evidence that leaders are feeling the pressure. In fact, 71% of leaders say their stress levels have increased, 54% report they are worried about burnout, and 40% have given thought to leaving a leadership role because they struggle with their own well-being, according to the DDI data. A spacious leadership approach addresses how leaders support others, and also how they manage their own workplace experience. CREATE SPACE FOR INVOLVEMENT One of the first ways to demonstrate spacious leadership is to invite people to participate, get involved, and have a voice. At the root of this kind of leadership is humility. It doesnt mean giving up your voice. Spacious leaders have a strong point of view, and theyre secure with their own expertise, but they dont assume they have all the answers or the best answers. Comfort with admitting mistakes is also related to spacious leadership. Leaders dont have to know it alland people appreciate it when their managers ask for ideas and value input in finding solutions. Spacious leaders empower people to be part of the process by communicating effectively. When leaders offer clear direction, goals, or challenges, people are able to be proactive and suggest ways to get things done. And when people have the opportunity to get involved, they are also more likely to feel a sense of ownership and dedication to their work. Demonstrate spacious leadership by inviting people in and sharing context so they can be effective participants in the process. CREATE SPACE FOR LEARNING AND GROWTH People of all generations crave development. In spacious leadership, you create space for people to expand their skills and competencies. Investing in employees growth sends a message that you value them and their contributions. You can support people by creating succession plans or recommending formal learning sessions, offering regular coaching and feedback, or introducing them to mentors outside your department. The outcomes of these approaches are striking. According to the DDI study, when leaders provided coaching and feedback to employees, those employees were nine times more likely to trust their leader. And when leaders actively supported development, employees were 11 times more likely to trust their leader. Demonstrate spacious leadership by coaching and developing people. CREATE SPACE FOR PERFORMANCE We all have an instinct to matter, and people will be happier and provide more discretionary effort when they are supported in performing at their best. When youre creating space for performance, youre giving people plenty of choice, control, and autonomy. Control and decision-making have been proven to matter for health and longevity. According to two Indiana University studies (one conducted in 2016 and the other in 2020), people who experienced high job stress and had limited control over their work process were less healthy and had higher mortality rates. On the other hand, when they were in high-stress jobs but had greater choice and more decision-making power, they were healthier and lived longer. People also perform best when they have enough time to get things done. Sometimes things are hectic, urgent, or last minute, but spacious leaders do their best to give people adequate time to deliver results. This allows people the space to reflect, plan, and invest in the quality of their outcomes. Demonstrate spacious leadership by giving people the necessary support to perform their best. CREATE SPACE FOR WELL-BEING Another way to create space for people is by attending to their well-being. Give people the opportunity to set and maintain appropriate boundaries in their work and life. In addition, tune into how people are doing and ask questions. You dont need to be a professional social worker, but when you can demonstrate empathy and point people to resources, it sends a strong message about how much you care. Create space for them to share, and then listen and offer support. Paying attention to well-being is good for peopleand it pays off for organizations. In a global study by the Workforce Institute at UKG, a workplace software provider, 80% of people said they were energized at work when they had better mental health, and 63% said they were committed to their work. Some 69% of workers reported that their leader has a bigger impact on their mental health than their therapist or their doctorand about the same impact as their partner. When organizations prioritize well-being, the DDI data finds, people are 12 times more likely to rate leadership quality as high. Demonstrate spacious leadership by ensuring people have the space to nurture their wellbeing. CREATE SPACE FOR SELF-CARE As a leader, your own strength is critical to how you can support others. Just as you create space for your teams excellence, do the same for yourself. Be consistent, present, and accessible, but also ensure you have time to get away and turn off. Also consider the self-care that works best for you. The popular narrative about self-care suggests that you should spend time alone, but you may choose to spend time with others who energize you. Many people think self-care must always involve saying no, but it can also include saying yes to activities that you feel passionate about. Most important is to make choices that are nourishing for you. Another way to ensure self-care is to create a small group of trusted colleagues. Leadership requires a balance of authenticity and transparency with appropriate professionalism. Youll want to establish trusting relationships with other leaders (or people outside your organization) with whom you can relax, share worries and concerns, or get advice. Demonstrate spacious leadership by giving yourself space to regroup, rejuvenate, andbring your best. THE LANGUAGE WE USE The way we think about things and how we talk to ourselves have a significant impact on the choices we make and how we behave. With spacious leadership, youll focus on all the ways you can create space for others and for yourself, resulting in terrific success.
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The climate crisis is worsening. Last year was the warmest on record, global sea ice levels are at a record low, and the economic toll of extreme natural disasters continues to mount. Just this week, the World Meteorological Organization said the global average temperature is likely to rise nearly 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels within the next five years, with growing negative impact on our economies, our daily lives, our ecosystems and our planet. Experts are adamant that the only way to slow the warming is to stop burning the fossil fuels that create the greenhouse effect. And yet, in 2024, emissions reached a new high. As the WMOs Secretary-General Celeste Saulo put it: We are heading in the wrong direction. And as the temperature rises, so does the chance that Earths natural systems will cross thresholds that trigger irreversible and cascading destruction. The encroaching threat of these tipping points is why the British governments Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) is pouring 57 million ($76 million) into studying climate cooling approaches. Thats a fancy way of referring to climate geoengineering, or intentionally tinkering with the Earths weather systems in an attempt to cool things down. More specifically, ARIA is examining whether we might be able to reflect some sunlight away from the surface of the Earth and back into space. With this investment, the UK government becomes the top funder of solar geoengineering research in the world. But whats really raising eyebrows is the news that some of ARIA’s experiments could take place outside, in the real world, and with a governments seal of approval. Could this be a step toward legitimizing what has, up until now, been seen as a climate hack of last resort? Geoengineering has long been a somewhat taboo topic in the larger conversation about climate change. Many scientists worry it could have unintended and irreversible consequences, possibly doing more harm than good. For example, modelling from a recent study published in the journal Nature Climate Change suggested that so-called marine cloud brightening off the U.S. West Coast would indeed help lower temperatures locally, but could inadvertently trigger more intense heat waves in Europe. At the same time, environmentalists fear geoengineering would give a free pass to polluters to carry on with business as usual. ARIA acknowledges these anxieties, and gives concession to the net-zero purists. Decarbonization is the only sustainable way to reduce global temperatures, says ARIA program director Mark Symes. But ARIA also says that the dearth of real and relevant physical data from outdoor [geoengineering] experiments is itself dangerous given the direction were headed. What might be the risks of hurried deployment of under-researched climate engineering approaches where we have little understanding of the consequences? the group asks. In other words, if things get so bad that we have to use these tools, wed better know what were doing. As things stand, if we were to face a climate tipping point in the near future, we currently lack the basic knowledge needed to understand what our options are, Symes says. ARIA aims to fill the existing knowledge gaps and answer fundamental questions about whether solar geoengineering is practical, measurable, and controllable. ARIA aims to fill the existing knowledge gaps and answer fundamental questions about whether solar geoengineering is practical, measurable, safe, controllable, or even whether [it] should be ruled out entirely, Symes says. It will fund 21 projects over the next five years, four of which are controlled, small-scale outdoor experiments focusing on solar geoengineering methods including: spraying seawater into the air to brighten clouds over the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and in the UK; using an electric charge to brighten clouds in the UK; and using weather balloons to expose small amounts (as in milligrams) of mineral dust to the stratosphere to understand whether this method could be used to reflect sunlight (the balloon launch locations have yet to be determined but are likely to be in the U.S. or the UK). A fifth outdoor experiment will focus on trying to re-thicken Arctic sea ice in Canada (which, if successful, could also have the knock-on effect of reflecting more sunlight back into space). The soonest any of these outdoor projects would begin is early 2026. The other 16 projects will examine the ethics of geoengineering, how it might be responsibly governed, as well as computer modeling and simulating climate cooling in the lab. ARIAs broad program of research will help advance our fundamental understanding of solar geoengineering and help to ensure that policymakers have the information they need to make informed decisions about these ideas in future, said Dr. Pete Irvine, a research assistant professor at the University of Chicago who studies solar geoengineering, and the co-founder of SRM360, a nonprofit focused on fostering discussions around solar reflection methods. Previous attempts to conduct outdoor geoengineering tests have been short-lived and quickly condemned. At least eight U.S. states have passed or are considering legislation to ban the practice, and the Environmental Protection Agency is investigating a geoengineering startup called Make Sunsets, accusing it of polluting the air (nevermind the EPAs loosening of pollution restrictions for, say, coal-fired power plants). On an international scale, many nations have signed onto a de facto large-scale geoengineering moratorium. The U.S. has also been building an alert system that would be able to detect if other nations are using solar geoengineering.&bsp; None of this has stopped scientists and private companies from dabbling. If anything, the stigma around geoengineering has pushed projects to become more rogue and secretive. Just last year, a study on cloud brightening techniques in Alameda, California, was forced to shut down in part because local officials only learned about the research from an article in The New York Times. The ARIA program is hoping to avoid a similar fate by engaging with local communities at the outset of a project, and keeping lines of communication open as work progresses. ARIA sees consultation and engagement with the public as processes that will be sustained for the lifetime of projects, Symes wrote recently. A key aim is to earn and maintain trust in the research that is being undertaken. The group will conduct environmental assessments, and be transparent about any known risks, as well as test results. The program is also overseen by an independent oversight committee. ARIA says it has no intention of actually deploying or scaling any of the solutions it wants to test. That may be a comfort to some, but it could also be seen to undermine the value and legitimacy of the research. “These technologies will always remain speculative, and unproven in the real world, until they are deployed at scale, said Mike Hulme, a professor of human geography at the University of Cambridge. Just because they work in a model, or at a micro-scale in the lab or the sky, does not mean they will cool the climate safely, without unwanted side-effects, in the real world. There is therefore no way that this research can demonstrate that the technologies are safe, successful, or reversible. Theres no real guarantee these experiments will go ahead. According to ARIA documents, the tests will be required to start indoors, and can only move out of the lab if questions still remain unanswered and researchers are certain that any effects would last no longer than 24 hours. And ARIA might pull the plug on a project that fails to meet certain research milestones. Our current trajectory suggests that warming is happening at an alarming rate, Symes says. Our goal is to build knowledge and help shape global standards for how this science is conducted responsibly.
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Theres a financial crisis hiding in plain sight: the American household vehicle fleet. Families are hemorrhaging money through car payments, insurance, fuel, maintenance, depreciation, parking, and registration. In many cases, this adds up to more than a familys annual savingsor the cost of sending a child to college every four years. Car ownership is nearly universal in the U.S., with 92% of households owning at least one vehicle. About 37% own two cars, and 22% own three or more. In 2023, the average annual cost to own and operate a new vehicle climbed to $12,182. For households with two cars, thats nearly $25,000 per yeara recurring expense that too often escapes scrutiny. Now consider how those vehicles are used. In 2021, more than half of all daily trips in the U.S. were under three miles. Nearly 30% were less than one mile. Were paying a fortune to go nowhere. The rise of remote and hybrid work has amplified the mismatch between cost and use. As of 2023, more than a third of U.S. employees worked remotely full time, with another 41% following hybrid work models. Pew Research Center reported that almost half of remote workers would look for a new job if their employer took this option off the table. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}} Cars are parked roughly 95% of the time, depreciating as they collect pollen and bird droppings. And yet they demand monthly payments, insurance, fuel, and maintenance. The long-distance commute has been the primary reason for every working member of the family needing their own vehicle, but our travel habits have changed. What if owning fewer cars was a sign of more success? A growing number of families are experimenting with a car-lite lifestyleditching the second or third car and rediscovering local travel through bikes, transit, or walking. Theyre not doing it to make a statement. Theyre doing it to make ends meetand to take back their time. At the center of this quiet shift: the e-bike. Part appliance and part liberation machine, e-bikes are redefining what a vehicle can be. School drop-offs, grocery runs, commutes, and social visitstrips once assumed to require a carare increasingly accomplished with battery-assisted pedaling. Terrain and distance fade as barriers. In 2022, more than 1.1 million e-bikes were sold in the U.S., nearly quadruple the number from 2019. E-bikes now account for over 20% of total bicycle sales in the U.S., and they represented 63% of revenue growth in the bike industry between 2019 and 2023. Bikes have become robust enough to handle everything from kid pickups to bulk grocery runs, and more cities are creating rebate programs to accelerate adoption. Replacing a car with an e-bike can save a household $120,000 over a decadeenough to wipe out debt, fund a college account, or boost retirement savings. And as infrastructure improves with more protected lanes, slower streets, and secure parking, the e-bike can graduate from practical to preferable. What if you spent less on movement and more on meaning? What if streets worked as well for bikes as they do for cars? What if getting around town felt like a lifestyle upgrade? For too long, success was measured by how many vehicles fit in your driveway. But those cars arent status symbolstheyre financial sinkholes. Remember, more than half of Americas car trips are under a few miles. If you’re going broke to go nowhere, the journey needs a new map. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
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