Nature Has the Best Models for Leadership— our leadership lab brings them to life
A Lab for Leadership and Work, Inspired by Nature
We don’t need more heroes. We need ecosystems. Leadership isn’t just about visionaries pulling us forward. It’s about networks, resilience, adaptation—the same forces that sustain forests, rivers, and soil.
Soil and Shadow is a Leadership Lab that turns to ecosystems to understand what makes systems thrive, adapt, and regenerate. Because leadership, like nature, isn’t static. It evolves. And in a world defined by uncertainty - visceral, gut-wrenching uncertainty - leaders and teams must become more like ecosystems—resilient, dynamic, and deeply interconnected. The best models for leadership don’t come from boardrooms. They come from ecological wisdom. Microbiomes teach us how to collaborate. Biodiversity teaches us resilience. Soil health principles show us how to sustain long-term growth. We take these insights and apply them—in coaching rooms, executive teams, classrooms, and conference halls.
For over a decade, we’ve been designing new ways of leading and working. We’ve published papers that push the climate sector forward, partnered with universities to teach what we’ve learned, and shared our research from national and international stages. With executive coaching and consulting we’ve applied our mix of innovation and best practices in real-world settings.
Our purpose-driven sectors need spaces where bold ideas are tested, where new ways of leading are designed, and where leaders are inoculated with the mental toughness, emotional stamina, and skills to pull hopeful futures into reality.
Our Leadership Lab is that space.
Work With Us
At Soil and Shadow, we help leaders and teams cultivate connection, adaptability and renewal through coaching, facilitation, and professional development training designed to regenerate workplaces from the inside out. Just as healthy ecosystems rely on biodiversity and symbiotic relationships, resilient organizations depend on trust, clear communication, and structures that nourish their people. Whether we’re facilitating executive teams through connective conflict, supporting women leaders in executive coaching sessions, training teams on feedback and implicit bias or embedding regenerative practices through fractional People Operations and HR services, our work is rooted in one truth: thriving workplaces, like thriving landscapes, don’t happen by accident—they are intentionally cultivated.
Engage and Learn
A Mycelial Network of Hope & Commitment
Every ecosystem is shaped by both intention and action. A seed doesn’t grow by chance—it responds to the conditions around it, bending toward sunlight, sending roots deep into the earth, and drawing in unseen support from the soil. Our leadership, our movements, and our futures evolve the same way. Intention is the root system of transformation.
At Soil and Shadow, we honor the ritual of setting intentions and the rigor of following through. When spoken, written, and shared, intentions become a form of stewardship—an active way of shaping the world we want to live in. Like the mycelial networks beneath the forest floor, our collective intentions connect us, nourish us, and shape the landscapes of change.
We take this work seriously. Four times a year—on the equinoxes and solstices—we print these prayers and intentions on seed paper and plant them in the ground, allowing them to take root, decompose, and bloom into something new.
What intentions are guiding your leadership? What quiet prayers are shaping your journey? This will only be shared among our team, not publicly.