Cynthia Mitchell AO on leadership in a warming world

As climate change intensifies, the water community is navigating more than operational pressure. It’s also carrying the emotional reality of working in a rapidly shifting and sometimes terrifying world.

Cynthia Mitchell AO says the work demands leadership that is as internal as it is external: building the capacity to hold multiple truths.

Here, we’re sharing a recent Q&A from the 2026 edition of Current magazine.

How has your journey in sustainability shaped the way you carry the emotional and ethical weight of climate change today?

Cynthia: In the early years of working in climate change, we used to say: people don’t get it because they can’t see it – it’s not a physical experience – but once they begin to experience climate change, things will shift.

Over my career, I’ve tried all the obvious levers for creating change. I started in the technical space – my background’s engineering. I thought making arguments for treatments that were both low cost and environmentally friendly would shift investments. I mean, you can’t argue with figures, and what’s not to like? But nothing happened.

So I went further upstream into policy, governance, et cetera. We keep trying these external things, and we’re still not moving at the rate we need to. I was left with the question: why do we find it so hard to progress this work?

In 2019, I was seconded to Switzerland and had time to explore that question. I ranged across disciplines, studying how leading transdisciplinary researchers work, and distilled it into a simple idea about how we relate to truth and certainty – a relational, contextual way of being. Much like what this continent’s Aboriginal peoples have practised for millennia. Then I came home to the 2019–2020 bushfires.

For me, that summer made clear the enormity of the gap for us as a community and as a society, in terms of grasping what climate change means for our collective future. In Sydney, the sun was white in the sky because of the ash, and the moon was yellow. I remember thinking: these are the wrong way around. And people largely went about their business. I didn’t realise it at the time, but it was a profound illustration of precisely what I’d been working on in Switzerland.

The scale and intensity of the fires were hard enough for me to come to terms with – the grief I felt was overwhelming. On top of that, the realisation that even this experience was not enough to create societal shifts was utterly discombobulating. I was floundering.

Around that time, I had an integrative GP who suggested I get counselling. Even though it took me a long time to be able to say the word, psychotherapy, the experience was profound – it helped me see and begin to unpick some patterns and assumptions that underpinned a whole bunch of things in my life.

I also began to practise structured mindfulness. I’d meditated for 20 years, but doing the Mindfulness Based Stressed Reduction program gave me powerful new insights and techniques, which were profoundly helpful. I bring this into my work now in lots of different ways.

And all this helped me realise something very important: the shift that needs to occur is in us. It’s the system, yes – cultural and socioeconomic, and that has its own momentum. But it’s also us: how we feel able to show up in the world. Now, I talk about the inner–outer process of transformation. We have to do the inner work of transformation in order to be able to lead the outer work of transformation that our world needs.

What helps you recognise and navigate moments of overwhelm when new data or events feel particularly confronting?

Cynthia: I think a lot of it is sitting with it. There’s a lot that’s terrifying, and we’re seeing that more and more. But what structured mindfulness offers is growing the capacity to be more accepting of ourselves, which allows us to be more accepting of challenges and challengers. That’s the foundation of common ground.

For me, mindfulness has become a tremendous practical path for what’s central in transformative learning, which is the kind of learning we need now, and that’s reflexivity. There’s reflection – stepping back to think about what you did and how you might do it differently next time. But we very seldom take another step back and think about how we were thinking about it.

What lens was I bringing? That extra step back lets you see more of the context you’re operating in. It’s not necessarily about doing the same thing better – sometimes it’s about doing a completely different thing, literally heading in a different direction.

There is a phrase I love from Timothea Goddard at OpenGround: life sucks and sings. You can hope for it to be different, or you can wake up each day with the expectation that life sucks and sings. It holds both. That ability to hold multiple truths is part of what I believe to be a healthy response to climate change.

Many young professionals openly talk about climate stress, while senior leaders are often quieter. What are your thoughts on this generational gap in our community?

Cynthia: I think it speaks to how societal ideas of health have shifted over my lifetime and are continuing to shift. For younger people, the idea that psychological health is as important as physical health is a no-brainer. For people of my generation, it’s been something we’ve had to negotiate in our work lives differently.

And it’s still not really part of our workplaces yet – especially when we’re talking about workplaces peopled largely by folk with objectivist worldviews. Engineers and scientists, lawyers and accountants. People trained to understand the world as mostly predictable, when these days it’s mostly not.

Sometimes a courageous response might be a senior leader simply talking about their feelings, showing up as a whole, imperfect person trying to make sense of things.

How can organisations and the broader water community better support people who are feeling the strain of uncertainty in climate work?

Cynthia: We can do more in workplaces to support the development of all of our people. Mindfulness is one thing that can help, but there are also adult development frameworks and good coaching processes that encourage people to notice and get gentle and curious about themselves. Certainty is useful in complicated situations. But in complex situations, by definition, we can’t predict. We don’t understand what’s at play or what the cause-and-effect relationships are.

So all we can do is experiment. Step forward, test something, see what happens. That requires an individual capacity and an organisational capacity to function well when we don’t have certainty.

And when we’re having fun, the capacity for learning is radically different. So there’s something about being able to hold the seriousness of the work, without losing the possibility of creativity.

Shifting our language can help: moving from “this is a problem we need to solve” to “this is the situation we and others need to improve – what would better look like, and how do we get there together?”

Where are you finding connection, purpose or optimism right now, and what helps you stay grounded as the challenges grow?

Cynthia: Two things come to mind. One is finding sources of awe – not only bearing witness to what’s challenging, but also sitting with the marvellousness that’s here, too. The other is a part of the climate story that we aren’t talking about enough yet.

Back in the 1970s, when scientists first got together and expressed concern about our climate, there were two parts to the story. One was atmospheric carbon, and the other was landscape and hydrology.

The landscape-and-water part is as significant as the carbon part, but harder to pin down. It’s complex and contextual. We’ve radically shifted about 70% of the earth’s surface in terms of vegetation and

where water is held in landscapes – or isn’t. There is actually a lot more we can do with the water we cannot see. Re-establishing local water cycles – the water in vapour, soils, vegetation – can have a profound cooling impact locally and contribute to global cooling.

And what’s powerful is that it brings a whole suite of co-benefits, including healthier soils that hold more water, which not only helps with water security but also helps withstand floods, droughts and fire.

With the global commitment to be nature positive by 2030, there is money looking for homes in the natural solutions space, so there is potential here for us to do some incredible work.

If there’s one thing I’d suggest: find ways to lead from the heart. Find the people who inspire you. Lean into community. Doing this work in a warming world requires courage (the root of which is heart) – and taking action grows courage and is easier with pals.

Cynthia Mitchell AO is still experimenting with what it means to live a good life. She feels privileged to be Chair of The Peter Cullen Trust for Water and Environment, Professor Emerita at UTS, and a member of the national Community Directors Council. Her business, the good ancestor, offers a regenerative take on strategic and futures advisory, executive and leadership development and coaching. She’s always up for some time in the bush and a good yarn, book, meal or wine.

Interested in reading more features from Current magazine? Take a look at the 2026 edition on Indigo by AWA.