Most of us have been in a meeting where something important was happening that nobody named. In our previous article, we met Jonas — a data analyst at Aurora who noticed something important: the organization’s structure had changed on paper, but the way power was used and decisions were made hadn’t. He brought that observation into a leadership conversation. What he opened wasn’t a debate. It was an inquiry. What do you suppose happened next?

In regenerative organizations, ownership and accountability do not sit only with those at the top. People are invited to be more attuned: to notice patterns, think critically, speak up, and resist hiding behind “that’s not my job.” And yet, that invitation (often unspoken) can be a challenge for individual contributors as they might feel it’s ‘outside of their paygrade’.

These same talented contributors may feel resistance due to past observations and experiences: If a decision is quietly being shaped before the meeting, that matters. If someone’s perspective is repeatedly welcomed in theory but ignored in practice, that matters. If a team keeps saying it wants empowerment while leaving people guessing where authority actually sits, that matters too.

In that sense, regenerative leadership is not about removing all hierarchy, nor about defending hierarchy as inevitable. It is about creating conditions in which what is real for an individual can be made visible for the team so that it can be worked with. That includes roles and responsibilities, but also flows of information, influence, accountability, and initiative.

Jonas began inviting reflection around questions like these:

• Where are decisions really being shaped? In the meeting? Or what has become known as ‘the meeting before the meeting’ or ‘the meeting after the meeting’?
• What is explicit, and what is happening informally? If you had to write it down, could you?
• Where do people have genuine room to act? Not in theory — in practice, i.e. “last week I was able to…”
• Where might we be asking for participation after the important choices are already leaning in one direction? And does the team know that’s what’s happening?

Those questions are softer than accusations, but they are not weak. They help make the invisible visible. And that is one of the disciplines of regenerative work.

Once a system can see more clearly, it can learn more honestly.

A team can clarify who decides what.

A leader can acknowledge when a decision has already been narrowed and reopen the conversation.

A colleague can name a concern sooner instead of carrying it into the hallway afterward. Like the team member at Aurora who stayed silent — who told a colleague later, “It didn’t feel like my place.” That silence had a cost. To her, and to the team.

These are small moments, but they change the quality of a system over time.

That was Jonas’ contribution: To name the issue but not to solve it. And to open up a space so others could stay long enough with it; making it harder to turn away from it.

Perhaps the more regenerative question is not, “Where did the power go?” but “What are we noticing about how we are using ‘our power’ – the power that each and every one of us has?” That wording leaves more room for shared reflection. It invites curiosity rather than defensiveness. And it reminds everyone that in living systems, authority is not the only thing that shapes outcomes — attention, silence, timing, trust, and candor shape them too.

Regenerative leadership, then, isn’t a choice between flat or hierarchical structures. It’s the practice of strengthening everyone’s power and responsibility to have more honest conversations – with candor and care, so that people and systems can flourish together. That work doesn’t belong only to those who run the meeting. It belongs to whoever notices the gap between what was said, what was felt/sensed/experienced and what was decided: the person who stays quiet and later wishes they hadn’t, the one who senses the room shift before anyone names it, the colleague who carries a concern into the hallway instead of into the conversation. Both flat and hierarchical structures can reward these behaviors and can fail because of them.

Our invitation to you: This week, you might sit with one decision you were part of — nothing big, just one. What shaped it, really? What was said in the open, and what moved quietly beneath it? And if you named one thing you noticed to someone else who was there, not to critique, but to wonder aloud together, what might open up? Sometimes that’s all it takes for a system to become a little more attuned, and a little more honest.