Is Compassionate Governance Possible? How Do We Change Systems to Cultivate It?

By Linda Leogah Forkwa

Introduction: Drawing on lived experience and reflection

In May 2025, the 7th Spirit of Humanity (SoH) Forum, convened in Reykjavík, Iceland, under the theme Inner Wisdom in Governance and Leadership: Acting with Courage and Compassion, brought together over 160 leaders and change makers from more than 40 countries to explore the possibility of a new kind of global governance. One that is guided by compassion, courage and inner transformation in making militarism, domination and discrimination obsolete.  

One important panel discussion during the SoH Forum posed a question that reverberates across boardrooms, parliaments, and grassroots movements alike: Is compassionate governance possible? If so, how then can we change systems to achieve it? The discussants included Baroness Patricia Scotland, former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth; Katrín Jakobsdóttir, former Prime Minister of Iceland; Prof. Youssef Mahmoud, former UN Under-Secretary-General; and Dr Thomas Legrand, author of Politics of Being and expert in spiritually-based systems transformation. Each offered a distinct yet interconnected perspective on the central question. Their contributions, drawn from lived experience and deep reflection, form the basis of this paper. The paragraphs that follow are not a singular answer, but a multidimensional guide, one that reimagines governance as a practice of care, narrative stewardship, inner work, and collective healing.

Strategic Disruption Rooted in Love: Scotland’s Framework for Compassionate Systems Change

Baroness Patricia Scotland’s contribution to the SoH forum offers one of the most grounded and actionable responses to the question of compassionate governance. Drawing from decades of institutional leadership, she demonstrates that compassion is not merely a moral orientation; it is a strategic force capable of transforming systems from within. Her approach is neither sentimental nor abstract; it is pragmatic, data-informed, and deeply relational. Firstly, she challenges the assumption that compassion is passive or conciliatory. She reframes it as a form of courageous disruption, which is an insistence on doing what is right even when it defies political convention. Her repeated reference to being called “crazy” from childhood underlines that compassionate governance often requires going against the grain of dominant logic. It demands the courage to question entrenched norms, to reframe problems, and to act on behalf of those whose voices are least heard.

The practice of deep listening also came up repeatedly as a central methodology throughout her career. To her, ‘deep listening’ does not only refer to what is said, but to what is unsaid. Compassionate leaders should listen for silence, for emotional subtext, for the fears and hopes that shape how people engage with systems. This kind of listening is not secondary to governance; it is a diagnostic and design tool. It enables leaders to surface hidden dynamics, build trust, and co-create interventions that reflect lived realities. Her insight that “you have to love the people you are working for” reframes governance as a relational practice that upholds values such as empathy, dignity, and ethical responsibility. In this light, she dismantles the myth of individual expertise. Personal knowledge is then seen as “a drop in the ocean,” emphasizing that no single actor can grasp the full complexity of a system. This epistemological humility opens a space for distributed intelligence, cross-sector collaboration, and the recognition of diverse forms of knowing: technical, emotional, intuitional, and experiential. 

Scotland’s roadmap methodology offers a replicable framework for systemic change. It begins with a shared vision of success, proceeds through inclusive needs assessments and gap analyses, and culminates in backwards planning that builds resilience and adaptability. Her metaphor of the obese body ‘distinguishing fat from bone’ captures the nuance required in transforming systems: not everything must be discarded, and not everything should be preserved. Compassionate governance, in her view, is about discerning what is life-giving and designing processes that honor complexity while enabling collective agency. Thus, Scotland’s leadership affirms that compassionate governance is not only possible, it is institutionally executable. Her work bridges the philosophical and the practical, the emotional and the analytical. It transforms governance from a mechanism of control into a practice of care, showing that compassion is not a liability but a source of resilience, innovation, and legitimacy. In contexts of crisis and complexity, it enables leaders to respond not just efficiently, but humanely and, in doing so, to change systems from the inside out.

Epistemic Freedom and the Architecture of Inner Transformation

Prof. Youssef Mahmoud’s contribution to the SoH Forum offered a profound critique of conventional leadership paradigms and a compelling invitation to reimagine governance from the inside out. His central argument was clear: systems cannot be transformed unless the individuals who steward them undergo a parallel process of inner transformation. This is not a sentimental claim;  it is a strategic imperative.

Mahmoud’s framing of “epistemic freedom” is particularly relevant to the question of systems change. He defines it as the capacity to unlearn inherited certainties, especially those imposed by dominant cultures, institutions, and languages and to imagine futures using conceptual tools rooted in one’s own lived experience. This challenges the technocratic assumption that governance is a neutral, expertise-driven endeavor. Instead, Mahmoud reveals how governance is always shaped by the epistemologies we inhabit, by the stories we tell ourselves about what is possible, who counts, and what constitutes progress.

His reflection on being “trained to be a problem solver” but realizing that “the problem lies within” exposes a critical flaw in many governance systems: the conflation of leadership with control, and of action with busyness. Mahmoud critiques the performative nature of leadership roles that prioritize knowing over sensing, and doing over being. This aligns with Otto Scharmer’s Theory U, which argues that effective leadership requires a shift from relying on habitual responses to ‘presencing’, tuning into the emerging future with openness and humility.

One of Mahmoud’s most powerful contributions is his articulation of “future-back thinking.” Rather than starting from present constraints and attempting incremental fixes, he proposes beginning with a vision of a regenerative future and walking backwards to identify the seeds of that future already present in today’s systems. This approach subverts the logic of solutionism, which often extends the lifespan of the very systems that created the problem. For example, in climate governance, the dominant framing treats nature as an external “environment” to be managed, rather than as a living system we are part of. Mahmoud’s method invites leaders to reframe such challenges not as problems to be solved, but as invitations to reimagine our relationship to life itself.

His invocation of Leonard Cohen’s lyric, “There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in”, is not a poetic flourish but a strategic insight. Mahmoud suggests that by holding a mirror to systems under stress, leaders can identify the cracks, moments of dissonance, breakdown, or silence that reveal openings for transformation. This mirrors Donella Meadows’s emphasis on shifting paradigms as the highest leverage point in a system. Mahmoud’s contribution is to show that such paradigm shifts are not abstract; they begin with the courage to say, “I don’t know,” especially when one is expected to be the expert.

Mahmoud’s intervention reframed compassionate governance not as a soft alternative to hard power, but as a rigorous practice of epistemic humility, future-oriented imagination, and systemic attunement. His call to become “a good future ancestor” encapsulates the ethical dimension of governance: to act not for applause or legacy, but for the flourishing of generations yet to come. This requires leaders to make space in their “mental cupboard” for new truths to emerge, truths that may challenge their identity, authority, and worldview. 

Therefore, yes, compassionate governance is possible, but only if leaders are willing to unlearn what they have mastered, and to reorient their practice around inner transformation and future-back thinking. And systems can change—but only when their stewards are willing to see the cracks, listen to silence, and act from a place of deep relational wisdom.

Reframing Governance: From Metrics to Meaning

Katrín Jakobsdóttir’s reflections offer a compelling critique of the dominant architecture of political systems and a bold reimagining of what governance could become when rooted in compassion, well-being, and inner awareness. Her journey, from a student of Icelandic literature to Prime Minister, embodies a quiet but radical disruption of political norms. In a system designed around masculine values and economic metrics, she dared to center happiness, care, and human dignity.

Jakobsdóttir’s first major contribution to the question of compassionate governance lies in her challenge to the epistemological foundations of politics. She names the prevailing framework as one that privileges GDP, inflation rates, and budgetary discipline, metrics that, while important, fail to capture the lived experience of citizens. Citing the poet Magnusson’s critique, “If you have sex with your wife, it doesn’t show in the GDP; but if you visit a prostitute, it does”, is more than a joke. It exposes the absurdity of a system that measures economic activity without moral or relational context. In this regard, leaders need to reframe governance as a practice of meaning-making, not just number-crunching. 

This reframing took institutional form in her championing of the Wellbeing Economy. By introducing new indicators and budgetary tools that prioritize well-being over growth, she began to shift the machinery of government toward life-affirming outcomes. The works of Kate Raworth (Doughnut Economics) and the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, which maintain that economies should be designed to serve people and the planet, not the other way around. Jakobsdóttir’s contribution is unique in that she implemented these ideas from within the highest office of a nation-state, demonstrating that compassionate governance is not only imaginable, but it is administratively possible and socially and economically successful.

She also addressed the emotional and existential dimensions of leadership. She describes politics as a river of endless demands, crises, and expectations, a flow that can easily consume the inner life of a leader. Her turn to meditation, and the metaphor of stepping out of the river to observe her thoughts, reveals a critical practice for compassionate governance: cultivating inner stillness amidst external turbulence. This echoes the teachings of mindfulness-based leadership and the growing recognition that emotional regulation and self-awareness are not luxuries but competencies for public service. 

It is noteworthy that Jakobsdóttir does not romanticize leadership. She names the “politician’s dilemma”: the tension between implementing systemic change and ensuring its durability beyond one’s tenure. Her concerns, “Is the change durable, or does it simply change back when you leave?” speak to the fragility of reforms that are not embedded in culture, community, and institutional memory. This points to the need for regenerative design in governance: policies must be co-created, culturally resonant, and structurally embedded to survive political transitions.

Her final reflection on exiting politics and rediscovering the human being beneath the role offers a profound reminder that governance is not just about systems but about souls. Jakobsdóttir’s vulnerability in describing the silence that follows public office, and the need to relearn who she is outside the river, underlines the importance of designing political cultures that honor the humanity of leaders. This is not a call for sympathy, it is a call for systemic compassion. When leaders are treated as disposable instruments rather than whole persons, the system itself becomes brittle and transactional. She shows that compassionate governance is not a departure from politics; it is a deeper form of it. By shifting metrics, cultivating inner awareness, and designing for durability, she offers a blueprint for systems change that begins with meaning and ends with collective well-being.

Shifting the Narrative: From Separation to Interbeing

Dr. Thomas Legrand’s intervention at the SoH Forum reframed the challenge of compassionate governance not merely as a matter of policy reform or institutional redesign, but as a profound narrative shift. His central thesis is that systems are upheld and constrained by the stories we tell about ourselves, our societies, and our place in the world. To change systems, we must first change the story.

Legrand distinguishes between two dominant cultural narratives: the “story of separation” and the emerging “story of interbeing.” The former, rooted in 19th-century scientific materialism and reinforced by modern economic and political systems, casts human beings as isolated, competitive, and fundamentally disconnected from one another, from nature, and meaning. This narrative underpins governance models that prioritize accumulation, control, and individualism. It is the story that justifies GDP as the ultimate metric, treats nature as an external “environment,” and frames leadership as heroic individualism.

In contrast, the story of interbeing posits that identity is relational, that flourishing is collective, and that well-being arises from offering one’s gifts in service to the whole. This narrative is supported by emerging scientific paradigms from systems biology to quantum physics and by spiritual traditions that emphasize interconnectedness. This story has direct implications for governance. If we accept that no leader holds the whole solution, then collaboration becomes both strategic and ontological. If we accept that well-being is shared, then policies must be designed to nurture the commons, not just protect private interests.

Importantly, Legrand does not treat this narrative shift as a purely individual journey. He emphasizes that personal transformation must be mirrored by collective consciousness. “We are part of the system we want to change,” he reminds us, and if our minds remain tethered to the old story, we will unconsciously reproduce its logic. This echoes the work of systems theorists like Gregory Bateson and Nora Bateson, who argue that the health of a system depends on the quality of relationships and the stories that animate them.

Legrand’s call to “create a new saga for the world” is both poetic and practical. He suggests that Iceland, with its rich tradition of storytelling and its leadership in well-being economics, could be a birthplace for this new narrative. His reference to Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision, moving from a society “centered on things” to one “centered on persons”, offers a moral compass for this saga. It invites governance to become a practice of care, dignity, and shared purpose. In a nutshell, Legrand’s contribution expands the scope of compassionate governance beyond institutional reform to cultural transformation. He shows that systems change requires narrative change and that narrative change begins with the courage to act from a place of interbeing. This understanding is a reminder that the most powerful governance tools may not be policies or budgets, but stories, stories that invite us to see ourselves not as isolated actors, but as members of one Earth family, called to thrive together.

Compassion in Liminal Spaces: Navigating the Collapse of Systems

Mahmoud’s response to an additional question on how he views compassion in the face of systemic collapse was both etymological and existential. Drawing on his background in linguistics, he reminded the audience that the Latin root of compassion ‘compati’ means “to suffer with.” This definition, he argued, is not just a semantic curiosity but a profound invitation: to be truly compassionate is to enter into the suffering of the system itself, even when that system has caused harm. This is a radical proposition. It challenges the tendency, especially among change-makers, to “other” the system, to treat it as a monolithic enemy to be dismantled. Instead, he calls for a posture of liminal leadership: the capacity to hold space between what is collapsing and what is emerging, with sensitivity, courage, and care. He invokes the Latin term limens, meaning threshold, to describe this transitional zone. It is a space of ambiguity, discomfort, and possibility, a space where the old myths no longer hold, and the new ones are not yet fully formed.

From this perspective, governance is not just about managing institutions; it is about stewarding transitions. And transitions, especially those involving the collapse of hegemonic systems, are traumatic. Mahmoud recalled one of his mentor’s insights that “when a system nears its end, the worst rises to the top”, speaks to the volatility of this moment. Systems in decline often resort to fear, violence, and exclusion to maintain control. They become reactive, brittle, and dangerous. Yet, paradoxically, these symptoms are also signals of a deeper need: the need for healing. Hence, to respond with compassion in such moments is not to condone harm, but to understand its roots. It is to recognize that systems, like people, can be wounded. And wounded systems require not only critique but care. Mahmoud warns that without this compassion, we risk perpetuating cycles of othering and polarization. Particularly for those who have been historically marginalized, such as Africans navigating global power structures, there is a temptation to celebrate the collapse of oppressive systems without attending to the trauma they leave behind.

This understanding has profound implications for leadership. It suggests that the most transformative leaders are not those who simply dismantle the old, but those who midwife the new, who can hold the pain of collapse without becoming reactive, and who can imagine new possibilities without bypassing the grief of what is lost. Compassion, in this sense, becomes a strategic and spiritual necessity. It is the bridge between critique and creation, between resistance and regeneration. 

Mahmoud’s final thought-provoking question to global leaders was a call to inner work: “What is the best version of myself I need to develop to facilitate the transition from what is to what could be?”. That question  reframes leadership as a practice of self-cultivation, where the capacity to hold complexity, discomfort, ethics and contradiction becomes the foundation for systemic transformation. 

All of the speakers echoed the SOH Forum’s broader ethos and purpose that compassionate governance begins not with structures, but with selves, selves willing to question certitudes, to listen deeply, and to act from love. The Forum as a whole was an enriching generative experience that enabled participants to embrace compassionate governance as the call of our time.. It calls for a leadership that heals from the inside out the scourge of separation, that connects us as interbeings, that incorporates deep listening and treats love as an act of transformative rebellion.

Linda Leogah Forkwa is an African Union scholar passionate about gender peace and security, peacebuilding, and transformative leadership. She bridges African realities with global movements for systemic change. ‎