Meaningful Leadership for a Better World

Description

You want your life to matter. You want your work to mean something, your leadership to make an impact. The world needs leaders who dare to ask: what is my life in service of? Leaders with moral courage. With wisdom. With the compassion to stay connected to what's real, and the guts to act on it. 

If you care about the world and you're willing to do something about it, good! This course is for you.

Martin Luther King Jr. put it both poetically and urgently: "Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." That was 1963. More true now than ever. The world is on fire. Ecologically, socially, politically. We don't need leaders who optimise harder. We need leaders grounded in meaning.

You will practice a new kind of leadership that knows what it stands for and has the skill to act on it. That combines creative strength with the patience to listen. That takes the state of the world seriously enough to do something about it. Leadership rooted in compassion, driven by meaning. You will dig into what you truly stand for, sharpen your vision for the world, and build the capacity to make it real. Not through theory alone, but through deep experiential work, philosophical inquiry, and hands-on practice.

Purpose

So what happens in this week? You explore what drives you, and what quietly holds you back. You learn to turn overwhelm into grounded engagement. Doubt into clarity. Frustration into fuel. You practice compassionate communication, discover how inner work becomes outer courage, and learn to look your monsters in the eye, because that's exactly where your deepest source of inspiration is hiding.

We call this compassionate leadership. It means feeling the weight of the world without looking away. Leading from that place, with ambition and active hope. You do this in a group of people from different countries and cultures who are just as serious about this as you are, and who share your commitment to making a real difference. You will leave with sharper vision, real skills and a fire that sustains you. You will find your ground, to change the world.

Who Is This For?

This course is for:

• Professionals who want to develop their human leadership capacities
• Idealists who want to strengthen their ability to change the world for the better
• Students who want to escape the Bermuda Triangle of Talent and build a meaningful career instead
• Anyone who wants to explore the depth of themselves in relation to our beautiful planet

We will work outside in and inside out, exploring essential questions: What world problems touch you to the core? What is your mission? What are your core values? What kind of leader do you wish to be? What are your strengths, and what are your honest challenges and areas for growth?

What unites the people in this room is a shared conviction: the world needs a fundamentally different kind of leadership. More human, more honest, and more connected to what's really at stake.

Going deeper

This course is not for the faint hearted. We ask you to look honestly at yourself: at your ideals and your blind spots, your strengths and your fears, your vision for the world and the inner obstacles that stand in the way. We ask you to bring the real questions. The ones you carry but rarely voice. About the state of the world and your place in it. About the gap between your ideals and your daily reality. If you're looking for comfortable inspiration or theory you can observe from a safe distance, this isn't it.

We combine philosophical inquiry with deep experiential work, drawing on subjects such as moral ambition, compassionate communication, the psychology and philosophy of purpose and meaning, positive psychology of character strengths, parts work (Voice Dialogue/Hakomi), Joanna Macy's concept of active hope, Roman Krznaric's vision of the good ancestor, relational mindfulness, and widening the circle of moral concern.

The work is challenging, but you won't do it alone. We create a space that is warm, honest, and safe enough to take risks in. And we take the time to sit with the big questions, because that's where the real answers live.

Four core aims

• Discover what you stand for. Clarify your vision for the world and find where you can make a meaningful contribution. Connect your deepest values to a clear sense of purpose and direction.
• Bridge differences with others. Explore how to work with different perspectives, values, and worldviews. Develop the capacity to build bridges where there is resistance to change, meeting conflict with honesty and compassion.
• Face what holds you back. Work with your own doubts, fears, and limiting beliefs. Through experiential work, discover how your inner obstacles can become sources of wisdom and more grounded leadership.
• Commit to your next steps. Move from reflection to action. Formulate clear intentions for your path forward, rooted in everything you've felt and discovered during the week.

Learning Method

Our programme combines:

• Interactive workshops and philosophical inquiry
• Reflective exercises and visualisations
• Personal leadership exercises
• Embodiment and contemplative practices
• Deep group dialogue

Led by experienced trainers, this summer school offers a rare combination of intellectual rigour and personal depth, in a warm and intimate setting. You will be challenged and supported in equal measure.

Join us for this week of personal growth and meaningful engagement. You'll leave with a clearer sense of who you are, what you stand for, and how you want to contribute to a better world.

Day-to-Day Programme

Monday: Meaning & Purpose

What matters most to you, and why? We begin by connecting the world's challenges to your personal mission. Through philosophical inquiry and deep reflection, we explore what a meaningful life truly means and help you cut through the noise of expectations to find your unique path of contribution.

Tuesday: Working with Differences

You can't change the world alone, and the people you need to work with won't always share your values. We practise authentic communication, explore what happens when worldviews collide, and develop the capacity to stay present in real disagreement. Because leaders who can hold that space are the ones who actually move things forward.

Wednesday: Deep Inner Work

This is where we go deepest. Every aspiring changemaker carries inner obstacles: the self-doubt that whispers you're not enough, the overwhelm that paralyses, the inner cynic that says nothing will change. Through experiential work with Voice Dialogue and embodied practices, we meet these voices with curiosity. And discover that they carry unexpected wisdom.

Thursday: Compassionate Engagement

How do you stay engaged with a world in crisis without burning out or going numb? And how do you turn that engagement into something sustainable and alive? We explore compassion as a radical leadership practice and work with Joanna Macy's concept of active hope: the choice to act for the world you want, because it's who you choose to be.

Thursday evening (16:00–21:00): Team activity

Friday: Moving Forward

We bring it together. What do you now know about yourself, your values, and the contribution you want to make? We formulate concrete next steps. We explore practices for the long haul. And we build the supportive connections with fellow participants that carry you forward when you go back into the world.

This is a course in which inner transformation meets meaningful impact.

Lecturers

Derek van Zoonen

Derek van Zoonen is dedicated to helping people lead more examined and meaningful lives.

He is a researcher and lecturer at the University of Oslo, where he collaborates with an interdisciplinary team at the crossroads of philosophy and psychology to explore human happiness and well-being. In particular, Derek’s research focuses on the role of meaning and positive (and negative) affect in the good life.

Before joining the University of Oslo, Derek held affiliations with Oxford University, Columbia University, Humboldt Universität in Berlin, and the University of Groningen, where he earned his PhD (cum laude) in philosophy. His dissertation on the role of pleasure in the good life won the Wierenga Rengerink Prize for the best dissertation of 2022 and was nominated for the Keetje Hodshon Prize for outstanding work in the humanities.

Outside academia, Derek applies his expertise to help individuals enrich their lives. He is training in the Hakomi Method of mindfulness-based, body-oriented psychotherapy at the European Hakomi Institute (approved by the European Association for Psychotherapy and the European Association of Body Psychotherapy), and works as a counselor. Derek also organizes retreats and regularly gives workshops and talks to help people sharpen their thinking and deepen their feeling. He also loves to support people engaging with altered states of consciousness, such as those induced by breathwork or psychedelics, helping them navigate these transformative experiences. 

Imre Végh

Imre founded the Compassionate Leadership Institute and TrueVoice Academy and is an international trainer and (team)coach in higher education, politics and development aid agencies. His expertise lies in personal development, communication and group dynamics. He has a passion for empathic and compassionate communication, personal leadership, finding meaning and critical thinking. As a coach he brings out the best of people in a disarming and an inspiring way. He likes to ask probing questions, challenge assumptions and analyse arguments, all aimed at growth and learning.

For seven years he ran the Better World Foundation in The Netherlands that organized intensive traineeships about practical idealism.

An idealist in heart and soul, he likes to use his critical mind to better the world. Critical when needed, with humor when possible. He likes to connect heart and mind when doing his coaching. He has worked with many politicians and members of parliament, development organisations in Uganda, Laos and Vietnam amongst others, for commercial companies and many universities such as the International Space University in Strasbourg, the Honours Programme at the University of Groningen, Nyenrode Business University and students of the University of Beijing.   

Target audience

This course is meant for advanced bachelor and master students and professionals.

Study load

The courses will start at 10:00 hours every day, and end at around 16:00 hours.

Tags

• peace building
• leadership
• personal development
• climate change
• poverty
• social innovation
• antropology
• compassion
• Communication Skills
• philosophy
• Meaning