We Don’t Own the Earth: We Belong to It
We Don’t Own the Earth: We Belong to It
What if leadership began with the idea that we are part of nature, not separate from it? This episode explores the case for keystone leadership, rooted in reciprocity, balance, and ecological awareness.
We Don’t Own the Earth: We Belong to It
Boardroom Briefs with Frans Versteeg
When we ask whether today’s leadership models are still adequate, we must begin with the assumptions beneath them.
For too long, we have behaved as if the Earth belongs to us, as if we are above or apart from the ecosystems we inhabit. This mindset has shaped not only our environmental impact but also how we organise companies, economies, and value itself.
But what if we reversed that logic?
What if we began with a much older idea:
The Earth Does Not Belong to Us: We Belong to The Earth.
The case for keystone leadership.
This shift in thinking is not just philosophical. It reframes our role from extractors to stewards. It invites us to consider leadership not as control, but as care, not as domination, but as participation.
In ecological terms, a keystone species plays a disproportionately large role in maintaining the health of its ecosystem. Remove it, and the system begins to unravel.
Likewise, keystone leaders are those who understand their embeddedness in broader systems, social, environmental, and organisational and who act to strengthen those systems rather than exploit them.
A story from Hawaii.
Until the end of the 19th century, Hawaii was self-sufficient in food production. The local systems were in balance with the environment. People lived in reciprocity with the land. They were not a threat to nature; they were part of it.
That balance was disrupted with the arrival of monoculture and Western economic logic. Today, 99% of Hawaii’s food is imported.
The point is not nostalgia. It’s awareness. A balanced, sufficient, resilient system was replaced by one that depends on extraction, externalisation, and vulnerability.
We see this story replicated in our boardrooms and business strategies. When leadership assumes control is the goal, we lose sight of the systems we depend on and eventually undermine them.
Leadership as stewardship.
If we accept that we belong to the Earth, then leadership becomes less about maximisation and more about contribution.
It becomes:
A responsibility to sustain balance, not just performance.
A practice of reciprocity, not one-way extraction.
A call to think in systems, not just in silos.
A deeper form of accountability, extending beyond quarterly reports.
Keystone leadership asks us to rethink how we show up not only in nature, but in organisations. Are we reinforcing ecosystems or depleting them? Are we enabling others to thrive, or pulling from a shrinking pool of trust and resources?
Final thought:
Leadership does not begin with answers. It begins with questions.
And perhaps the most urgent one is this:
What kind of ancestor will your leadership make you?
Now is the time to lead from a place of connection, not separation. To shift from ownership to belonging. From extraction to regeneration.
Because what we assume determines what we build. And what we build shapes what survives.
Highlights:
00:00 Introduction to Keystone Leadership
00:28 Disconnect from Nature
01:32 Role of Indigenous Stewardship
02:08 Hawaii's Autonomous Food Production
03:13 Impact of Western Capitalism
04:00 Restoring Balance
Links:
Website: https://www.fransversteeg.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fransaversteeg/
Transcript:
So you're asking me whether we need a new kind of leadership and I actually think we do. Um, we need what I would call keystone leadership and, um, let me simplify it enormously, but the basic assumption is the earth does not belong to us. We belong to the Earth. Now that's a sort of like, uh, but basically if you look at the way we run our companies, the way we organize our economy, we behave as if the earth belongs to us.
We behave as if we are completely disconnected with nature, as if we are apart from it, super superior to it, and we are absolutely allowed to simply extract. Um, there is nothing. About, Hey, we are part of creation, we're part of this ecosystem, and what would be our role in this ecosystem? Uh, are we just simply one of the, uh, spectators that are enjoying, uh, uh, the cinema or that are enjoying the theater and what is being offered?
Or are we actually responsible to perform in really essential role? If you look at a lot of, uh, indigenous history, you see that those people really took on a steward role, really connected with their, uh, ecosystems and understood that they, there were no, no threat to nature, no on the country. They were a keystone species.
They helped flourish, they helped to make sure that the Amazon rainforest or, uh, uh, so many other examples, uh, all flourished. Um, just one, one example that should make us, uh, really think up till the end of the 19th century. Hawaii was completely autonomous in its food production, so for all the people that lived there, their own food systems were completely sufficient, and they were basically capable of keeping the environment in balance to live in reciprocity, et cetera.
Um, what has happened is that basically due to, uh, to our western, uh, society, um, we now have a situation where in Hawaii, uh, 99% of their food is being imported because they have the all sorts of, uh, monoculture, uh, uh, uh. Systems. And basically that has changed with the coming of, I would say, in this ca uh, case, uh, Western capitalism.
Um, and that's also what has in the end led up to the, to the fact that they've become the 50th states of, uh, the United States. Um, and it's not a matter of being political about all this, but what we need to appreciate. That, uh, there was a, a system in place that was in complete balance. And by replacing it with our enlightened West model, we basically destroyed the, the balance. And, uh, when having, having destroyed the balance, uh, should make us wonder. And also should make us aware that we can restore it. But then we have to, uh, to learn to, uh, to start from other assumptions.