What if Leadership began with Listening?

Lessons in Emergence from Kufunda

This article arose in response to a pattern we’ve witnessed repeatedly: well-meaning people striving to create change urgently; pushing for impact before cultivating real connection. At Kufunda Learning Village in Zimbabwe, we’ve seen how easily urgency can eclipse listening and how action can get in the way of becoming present with what is.

Over the past two decades, we have been cultivating a different rhythm of development—One that begins with listening: Listening to people, to place, and to what is already quietly present but not yet seen.

Despite the very real challenges our communities face, we consistently hold ourselves back from jumping to the rescue. We have learn—and are learning—to arrive with trust in people's process,and in their wisdom. We turn our attention to attention to what is alive and we seek to cultivate encounters grounded in appreciation. Out of this orientation, something new becomes possible: an emergent way of working that honours the real and rich complexity within every community or team. It trusts the intelligence already present in people and place, allowing solutions to find their way to unfold often in unexpected ways.

We have seen how the strong, linear methods or rigid templates that are often used in leadership and development, often aim to replicate success through control. Instead, emergent practice engages with the relational intelligence of people and place. We enter with warmth, curiosity, and a deep interest in what is alive.

Emergent practice—to us—is:

• Flexible and adaptive rather than rigid and instructive.

• Attuned to relationships rather than abstracted from context.

• Capable of generating surprising, co-created solutions rather than being limited to predefined outcomes

At Kufunda, we live this approach. Not always perfectly but it is in our DNA and it is our striving. While we often invite people into our programmes with a clear intention or focus—be it youth leadership, community building, or regenerative farming—we always begin by inviting what is alive in each person. When we gather in circle with the question, “What called you here?” we are creating space for people to arrive as they are, bringing their voice, story, and presence into the shared field. And we build from here.

Again and again, we’ve seen people who might otherwise remain silent find the courage to speak. The real shift begins when someone feels: I am being listened to. My presence matters. In those moments of feeling valued and welcomed, coherence often begins to arise from the genuine meeting of each person, as they are. We ask ourselves: How often do we take time for this kind of listening? A listening that allows what is present but often hidden to reveal itself.

In Go Deep processes (which we will unpack more in future articles) in communities like Chikukwa and Arcturus, we began by listening for the gifts already present. From there, communities envisioned gardens, clean water, youth centres, entrepreneurial hubs—and experienced renewed trust. Even in politically divided communities, people realised they cared about the same things. But each time it began with the courage to slow down to listen for what was here and then build from it.

Imagine your own community (or team, or organisation) following the pulse of aliveness and gift; listening itself into coherence. What might that bring forth?

Within months of our process, Arcturus had drilled a solar borehole, and neighbours began to heal political divisions. Bee-keeping projects and a small business centre followed. In Chikukwa, youth co-created a cultural club, built a library, and revived community gardens. None of this was delivered by us—it arose from the community listening to itself.

We’ve seen deep conflicts soften, shared visions take root, and fractured relationships begin to heal—all through a practice of listening for what is good, true, and quietly waiting to be seen.

So we are learning - that real change never comes from external templates. We are learning that change grows from the gifts already present in people and in place. As our friend Margaret Wheatley says, “Whatever the question, community is the answer.”

But to receive that answer we have to learn to listen. In a world dominated by urgency and control, this is our question: What would it be to begin with listening?

What would it take to trust what is alive, and follow the unfolding pattern?

We will turn to this, trusting what is alive, in our next reflection—and show how appreciation becomes the compass in the listening, guiding us toward what is already whole and unfolding beneath the noise. It can look like a miracle when we learn to tend to this—new possibilities opening out of our way of being with what is.

To be continued....

Where in your own work has listening changed what became possible?

If you want to learn more from our practice, you might wish to join us for the Upcoming Art of Hosting Training at the Friendship Hub Bench in Harare, October 1-3.

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Painting the Vision Mural at Magada