Let's create a new language of leadership, together!
For the last 30 years the Co-Active Training Institute (CTI) has been offering the gold-standard in coach training and leadership development for individuals and organizations. Now we are creating a new language of leadership. Let's do this together.
Creating Leadership and Legacy Through the Co-Active Leadership Program
Creating Leadership and Legacy Through the Co-Active Leadership Program
With Emmanuelle Verhagen
Emmanuelle is an entrepreneur in the sustainability, inclusion and leadership sphere. With a ton of management experience, both for international, publicly traded companies and in the SME sector, Emmanuelle is now building a new consultancy initiative, DUIN.partners: an initiative to create the necessary cultural backbone for sustainability initiatives to succeed and truly make a difference.
Emmanuelle is also active as an independent actor/director and fights for queer justice through their work as president of Intersekse Vlaanderen, Board Director of çavaria (the Flemish LGBTQI+ movement), and Board Advisor of The Humanity Summit and Amnesty Vlaanderen.
They identify as gender fluid, using they/them or e/ir pronouns.
We spoke to Emmanuelle about why they joined the Co-Active Leadership Program and what changed for them as a result:
“The Leadership Program gave me the permission to explore what I was here to do. I think the powerful part of the program is the fact that it’s experiential and you’re in a super safe space. You cannot fail and that makes a difference.”
Why did you join the program?
When Emmanuelle decided to join the Co-Active Leadership Program, they were in the middle of their coach training. Emmanuelle was inspired by what they’d seen of Co-Active leadership from the front-of-room leaders on their coaching courses. They’d connected to both how they demonstrated leadership, and how they led together in synergy to deliver a group experience, and it was this way of leading that attracted them to the Leadership Program.
“I was exposed to a Co-Active way of leadership and a way of leading groups that I wanted for myself. I love leading groups, and co-leading with another person made a lot of sense for me.”
It was in pursuit of this centered and resonant stye of leadership that Emmanuelle started the program, but what they discovered there took them on an entirely unexpected journey.
What was your experience of the program?
“The location was a magical place to be. Part of the magic is what’s happening there, but the fact that the location was far away helped to make it precious and helped me leverage more out of it.”
The program is always delivered at a venue that’s been hand chosen for certain qualities: it needs to have plenty of outdoor space in a secluded location of natural beauty. This immersion in nature aids learning and creates the right conditions for transformation.
When Emmanuelle joined the program, they signed up for 4 retreats over 10 months, with intervening calls and projects. The retreats that take place on location are designed to facilitate powerful moments of discovery, which are supported by the safe, exploratory space that’s created.
“The Leadership Program gave me the permission to explore what I was here to do. I think the powerful part of the program is the fact that it’s experiential and you’re in a super safe space. You cannot fail and that makes a difference.”
What also contributed to Emmanuelle’s experience was the energy that’s inevitably generated when growth-oriented people come together to learn from each other. Emmanuelle was in a program that was co-led by Karen Kimsey-House, co-founder of CTI and one of the earliest pioneers in the coaching industry, as well as John Vercelli.
“I’d trusted in the content when I started the program — I’d done CTI courses before — but what motivated me to choose this specific program was the opportunity to learn from Karen.”
With Karen as co-leader of Emmanuelle’s program, and her fellow co-founder Henry Kimsey-House as a co-leader of the next cohort, Emmanuelle benefited from a very unique dynamic: they got to witness the originators of the Co-Active philosophy in action, while also observing the experiences of the incoming cohort who were at the very start of their Leadership Program journey.
“My group was there at the same time as another group just starting the program and it created so much more vibrancy. It was super interesting to have meals together and there was something special at work there, especially having the founders there with us.”
The program has many elements, but one way it elevates the learning is through physical experience. Emmanuelle talked to us about how incorporating the physical helped them to connect to what they were learning about themselves:
“You create the learning in the body. That’s where it must start. You have to listen to what your body is sensing, because your brain can only do something with information if it receives it. And it only receives information through your body. So your body is everything. If you’re not sensing how information comes into your being you lose so much, including connection to your thought processes and emotions.”
“What came out of this word ‘legacy’ was the question: what am I doing on this planet now? And that ties into the inclusion work I now do: I create a legacy for leaders in other companies to enable people to work together and create something beautiful with those they haven’t met before, or with people who seem initially different or scary. That’s part of my legacy.”
What was your leadership quest?
“As part of the program you need to identify a leadership quest and that was always in the back of my mind. I was coming up with ideas for that, but everything felt very bland. It’s got to have conviction, and the ideas I had were all very practical, but nothing felt centered. This was my big question.”
Some people come to the program with a passion or a mission in mind, while others discover theirs over the course of the experience. Emmanuelle came upon theirs unexpectedly — and dramatically — as they worked with one of their program peers on an assignment in New Mexico.
“I was driving across the desert to meet my partner at a venue when I stopped at a natural rock formation. I’d wanted to be present on this journey, to really connect with the experience, and so I went to see this beautiful attraction. It’s hollowed out so it’s an echo chamber and I was alone because it was mid-winter. Then a huge raven came flying out at me, circling my head and cawing and a word came into my head with startling clarity: legacy. I heard it again and again as the raven circled, and it stuck with me as if it was a sign. It was the start of a new purpose for me.”
Legacy became the focus of Emmanuelle’s leadership quest. It was a word, a concept, a feeling that didn’t have shape yet, but it started to inform and guide their actions and choices.
“What came out of this word ‘legacy’ was the question: what am I doing on this planet now? And that ties into the inclusion work I now do: I create a legacy for leaders in other companies to enable people to work together and create something beautiful with those they haven’t met before, or with people who seem initially different or scary. That’s part of my legacy.”
Another part of Emmanuelle’s legacy is the voice they bring to the intersex conversation in Belgium, where they have spoken in Parliament about changes to legislation that will protect the rights and autonomy of people born intersex. They are fighting to protect children born with sex characteristics that differ from the binary ideology from being medicalized to bring them in line with societal expectations of sex. Emmanuelle is fighting for a future where children born intersex can thrive without being pathologized and forcibly medicalized and/or operated upon without their consent — in short, where the bodily autonomy and integrity of all children is guaranteed.
What’s changed for you as a result?
Emmanuelle found more in the Leadership Program than they'd expected. Yes, they learned how to lead experiential groups in synergy with a co-leader, but they also uncovered a need to create legacy that carried them forward and led them to take more action in their life. What’s more, they discovered a whole new way of leading:
“Before I went on the program leadership for me was managing, delegating, telling people what to do, controlling processes, etc. The program made me realize that there’s only one kind of leadership: self-leadership. If you don’t own up to yourself in understanding where you are now and being present to what is, you’ll never inspire a group to move forwards.”
They also developed more trust in themselves, finding the confidence to set a stake and commit fully to it.
“My way of leading is different. Now, when I commit, I really commit. When I’m building a new venture, I’m invested in it so much more. Leadership helps me to not attach myself to the results but to trust the stake I hold, knowing that the stake is good.”
They said they got so much out of the program because they were willing to embrace the experience, during the program and after it. Joining the program is a commitment to self-development that doesn’t end after the last retreat.
“It takes a lot of time and effort, and I started the program fully invested. I think that when you’re fully invested you can turn the program into something life-changing, because everything is there that you need. You have to commit to it, not only during the program but after.”
Joining the program is the first declaration that a person is ready to step up and take control of their life, their impact, and their future. Emmanuelle embraced the program and came away with lifelong learning and transformation.
“It was life-changing because I made it life-changing. And that’s what leadership is about — it’s something you step into and do something with.”
You can learn more about Emmanuelle and connect with them on their website