How can we lead from the future as it emerges?

What does it take to lead from the future as it emerges?  Leading through change often means getting to know yourself more intimately first, and C. Otto Scharmer's Theory U is rich with advice on how to get there.  For students of change, it is 450 pages of complex thought about how to open your mind, your heart, and your will to the future. It's a "must-read" in my library, and it will leave you wanting to re-read it again and again. Although Scharmer's work isn't directly targeted to nonprofits, NGOs or social enterprise, his 24 principles easily translate into some awesome guidance on leading through change:

Here's my "change agent" version of Scharmer's principles and practices:

1. Attend: Listen to what you are being called to do. Is there a magnet that keeps drawing you back? Do you always come full circle to an idea, a thought or a path to follow?
2. Connect: Get into conversations with thought leaders. Not just casual chats or surface conversations, but instead find opportunities to create real dialogue about the change you want to see. 
3. Co-Initiate: Invite others with common intentions to join you in your calling.  This is a "no-pressure" zone. Let those who are similarly called choose to come. Respect those who don't.
4. Team: Actively build a core group of people to raise and ponder essential questions. What is the future that you want to create? What does it look, feel, taste, sound and smell like? Does it already feel present to you? Why?
5. Dive: Go beyond the surface consideration to get at the very core of your work.  Don't be afraid to get inside the tornado, get down in the weeds, or fall into a rat- or rabbit-hole.  Sometimes there's a wonderland to be explored when you do.
6. Observe: Suspend your own judgement and opinions and go beyond listening to discern patterns. Is there a shared language? Are there themes that keep re-appearing?
7. Practice Deep Listening: To open others' minds and hearts, you must start by opening your own. Are you coming to the table ready to embrace diverse perspectives?
8. Co-Sense: Invite your team to use collective sense organs to see and understand the system itself. Pay attention to what emerges via the collective wisdom of the group.
9. Let It Go: Seek out "stuff" that must die for you to move on and send it on its way.  What is holding you back or dragging you to the past instead of the future. Acknowledge and release it.
10. Be Quiet: Use moments of silence to allow yourself to envision the emerging future. Meditate, take a walk, breathe. Introduce quiet reflection so that you can hear the sound of the future.
11. Let It Come: Welcome the change.  Cherish small breakthroughs, creative sparks, and the need for frantic writing. Often the future emerges in spurts and fountains. Be ready for them, as well as prepared for "change-droughts" and "change-famines."
12. Follow Your Journey: Do what you love, love what you do. Make it conscious. Let it shine.
13. Create Safe Places: Find "your people" and congregate. Where can you get encouragement and support for reaching for the highest potential? Surround yourself with cheerleaders, coaches, navigators, sherpas, and other leaders.
14. Crystallize: Work with your team and crystallize your shared vision. Catalyzing change isn't random. It doesn't magically happen. It takes effort, initiative, and focus.
15. Build the Core: Sometimes more isn't better. It may only take a small team or small first step to help the future emerge. Baby steps are often precursors to giant leaps.
16. Create Prototypes: Test different versions of the future as it emerges. Move the puzzle pieces around. Be open to it being considerably different than when you started, and from where you'll land.
17. Integrate Head, Heart and Hand: Don't just think about change.  Feel it. Breathe it. Touch it. Speak it. Until you physically embrace it, change is simply an idea waiting to happen.
18. Iterate: Create and adapt, and then create and adapt again. Change is rarely as straight as an arrow. Instead, it is more like a spiraled coil.
19. Switch Perspectives: View the emerging "change ecosystem" from the future instead of the present.  Take the future and apply it to the present instead of the other way around.
20. Innovate: Create infrastructures that support constant transformaton and growth. The future is always emerging, never just an endpoint. 
21. Return and Revisit: How has the collective journey shaped the emerging future? How will it do so again? How is the present different as a result of the changing future that is emerging?
22. Be Intentional: Always serve as an instrument of the change you want to see.  You are the tool, not the future itself.
23. Be Relational: Always seek true dialogue about systemic change.  Your role as a change agent is only a small part of an evolving future. Stay in touch with the broader future as it emerges, too.
24. Be Authentic: Connect to your highest potential as a vehicle for change. Speak with your voice, lead with your emotions, share your thoughts. Being authentically "you" is the only way to go.

Are you a change agent?  How are you leading from the future as it emerges?