When your dream collapses, you need an anchor

How Laura found a different way of leading

From the outside, Laura Kunnen’s career looked like a success story. She was preparing for a management buy-out and a future CEO role at a growing international logistics company. The path ahead seemed clear.

But internally, something no longer fully aligned.

“I felt I needed support to stay connected to myself throughout the process,” Laura explains. “I was operating in a very rational, performance-driven environment. Over time, I started noticing that the way people were being managed inside the organisation no longer felt right to me.”

That was the moment she started working with Debbie Baute.

Bridging the analytical and the intuitive

“What immediately stood out to me in Debbie’s approach was her ability to bridge both worlds: the analytical and the intuitive,” Laura says.

The conversations helped her reconnect with something she had gradually learned to silence: her own inner observations.

“I became more willing to trust what I was sensing.”

That inner shift slowly started changing the way she led.

Instead of focusing purely on technical competencies and individual performance, Laura became increasingly interested in the health of the wider ecosystem around the team.

“What strengths were already present? What energy was missing? What kind of environment would allow people to thrive together?”

Those questions began influencing hiring decisions, team dynamics and ultimately the culture of the organisation itself.

The ecosystem changes with the leader

One of the biggest shifts was the way people were recruited.

“Before, the focus was mainly on expertise,” Laura explains. “But I realised that someone can be extremely competent and still not strengthen the ecosystem.”

As the organisation started paying more attention to trust, openness and complementary strengths, the atmosphere inside the company began to evolve as well.

The team grew quickly, but more importantly, people stayed.

“There was more openness, more trust and more positivity inside the company.”

And something else started happening too.

“Instead of constantly searching for the right people, it felt as if the right people started finding us.”

For Laura, this became one of the clearest examples of ecosystem leadership in practice.

“The energy you create inside a system shapes what and who the system attracts.”

Finding a different kind of support

A few years later, Laura joined Debbie’s Ecosystem Leadership Circle, a peer learning community where leaders from different organisations come together regularly to reflect, learn and support each other through the realities of leadership.

“That experience transformed me even further,” she says.

The Circle became much more than a professional learning space. It became a trusted ecosystem where difficult conversations could happen openly and honestly.

“A place where people could talk about uncertainty, difficult decisions and leadership tensions without pretending they had everything figured out.”

That support became especially important when the management buy-out trajectory inside the company started shifting.

“I never outgrew the vision I had for the organization. If anything, I became more deeply connected to it. But sometimes growth also reveals where you and the system are no longer moving in the same direction.”

When one system breaks, another becomes an anchor

What made the difference was that Laura no longer had to navigate that tension alone.

“Through the Circle, I had people around me who helped me stay connected to myself while going through a very difficult period. Sometimes they offered practical support. Sometimes they simply helped me reflect more clearly.”

Looking back, one insight stayed with her most strongly:

“When one system started breaking apart, another became an anchor.”

The Circle gave her a place where she did not need to perform certainty.

“I could bring the doubts, the tension and the complexity of what I was experiencing without feeling I had to carry it alone.”

Eventually, Laura made the difficult decision to step away from the future she had originally planned for herself.

“It was not impulsive. Quite the opposite. It came after years of inner work and reflection.”

Leading from alignment

Today, Laura describes herself as being in an “in-between” phase. The old path no longer fits, while the next chapter is still unfolding.

And yet, she speaks about that uncertainty with remarkable calm.

“I no longer make choices based on what is expected of me,” she says. “I choose differently now.”

What changed most profoundly was not only her leadership style, but the way she relates to herself, to others and to the ecosystems around her.

“And what I notice is that when you become more aligned with yourself, the ecosystems around you begin to change as well.

Different people appear. Different conversations become possible. Different forms of support emerge.

You stop forcing connections that no longer fit. And gradually, you start finding your people.”