Beyond Individual Leadership: How Relational Culture is Transforming Mission-Driven Organizations

A deep dive into Cedar Landsman and Lucien Demaris's revolutionary approach to organizational development through relational practices

Originally featured on the ALC ChangeMakers Podcast with host Jennifer Sconyers

In a world increasingly focused on individual achievement and performance metrics, two change-makers are offering a radically different approach to organizational development. Cedar Landsman and Lucien Demaris, co-founders of Relational Uprising, are pioneering work that challenges the dominant culture of individualism and offers transformative models for building power and connection in mission-driven organizations.

The Crisis of Individualistic Leadership

Most organizational development approaches focus on enhancing individual skills and capacities, operating under the assumption that the sum total of improved individual performance will create organizational success. This paradigm dominates everything from corporate training programs to nonprofit capacity-building initiatives.

But this individualistic lens has a fundamental flaw, as Cedar Landsman explains in a recent podcast interview:

"We actually say, no. You need collective capacity to hold a whole culture where relationships are cared for and protected, meaning we value each other's experience by deep listening deeply and caring about that."

This individual-focused approach often leaves organizations functioning in silos, with departments that rarely communicate effectively and teams that struggle to collaborate when they need to work together. The result? Organizations that appear whole on paper but operate as fragmented, disconnected parts.

Consider a typical scenario: different departments within an organization work in complete isolation, developing their own cultures and practices. When collaboration becomes necessary, conflict emerges because these departments have evolved in completely different ways of working, with no shared understanding or relational foundation to bridge their differences.

Defining Relational Culture: Beyond Team Building

Relational culture represents a fundamental departure from surface-level team building or conflict resolution. It's a comprehensive approach to organizational development that recognizes relationships not as byproducts of work, but as central to making change work successfully and generatively.

At its core, relational culture involves:

Deep Listening and Storytelling Practices: Rather than quick check-ins or status updates, organizations implementing relational culture use structured storytelling methodologies with what Relational Uprising calls "sharing resonance" - a practice of listening and responding that creates genuine connection and understanding.

Collective Assessment Over Individual Performance: Instead of focusing solely on individual skill development, the approach emphasizes building shared capacity to assess conditions, challenges, and opportunities as a collective.

Narrative Examination: Teams actively explore their shared stories about each other, the often unconscious narratives that shape how different departments, roles, or individuals relate to one another.

Embodied Connection: Drawing from Lucien Demaris's 25+ years in somatic and embodiment practices, the work recognizes that true organizational health requires attention to how people experience relationships in their bodies, not just their minds.

As Demaris explains:

"If you really are serious about wanting to change the unconscious bias of an organization, of our community, of a team... You've got to pay attention to... the deepest structures and frames of language and behavior."

The Deep Work: Why This Isn't a Quick Fix

Jennifer Sconyers, host of the ALC ChangeMakers Podcast and founder of Abundance Leadership Consulting, describes organizational development using a swimming pool analogy. While some interventions happen in the "shallow end" with basic training and terminology, Relational Uprising's work happens in the "deep end" where:

• Complex problems require sustained attention over time
• Multiple previous attempts at organizational improvement have failed
• Leadership commitment to behavioral change and openness to critique is essential
• Harm may have already been caused and needs careful, skillful repair

This depth requirement isn't a barrier - it's recognition that meaningful culture change requires what Damaris calls "a campaign of prevention and promotion that will have a long-lasting effect in the whole organization."

The work operates "upstream," focusing on building relational infrastructure that prevents many organizational conflicts and breakdowns before they happen, rather than responding to crises after they emerge.

Applications Across Mission-Driven Sectors

Relational Uprising has successfully implemented their methodology across diverse organizational contexts, including:

Grassroots Social Movement Organizations: From frontline organizing spaces to large advocacy nonprofits, where the urgent pace of social change work often strains relationships and creates burnout.

Educational Institutions: Working with both students and educators in high schools and colleges, addressing campus culture and professional development for teachers.

Legal Aid and Social Services: Organizations where the intense emotional demands of serving vulnerable populations can create secondary trauma and staff isolation.

Cooperative Businesses: Particularly in farming and food justice spaces, where shared values around sustainability and equity require strong relational foundations to implement successfully.

Faith-Based Communities: Supporting congregations and faith-based organizing that seeks to live out social justice values through community action.

The common thread across all these contexts? As Cedar notes: "Groups of humans that come together and care about what they're doing" and are "mission driven."

Why This Work Matters Now: Isolation and the DEI Backlash

The current moment presents particular urgency for relational approaches to organizational development. The ongoing backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives has highlighted the limitations of approaches that focus solely on policy and training without establishing genuine relational foundations.

Lucien Demaris observes:

"Since we're witnessing the backlash to DEI work... it feels like a very important moment to reflect on... was there enough connection in the effort? Is there enough connection in what we're doing? And are we investing in connection as a step towards inclusion rather than trying to do inclusion by keeping that sort of step [out]?"

This insight suggests that many DEI efforts failed precisely because they attempted to create inclusion without first building the relational capacity necessary to sustain it. Without genuine connection and shared understanding, diversity initiatives can feel imposed rather than organically integrated into organizational culture.

The isolation crisis, exacerbated but not created by the COVID-19 pandemic, adds another layer of urgency. Cedar Lansman offers a stark warning to organizational leaders:

"Isolation is dangerous. Don't tolerate it. Don't allow it. Don't stand for it. Find support, find connection... our leadership thrives when we're well supported and... if we collapse that and think that's just all about our own individual cultivation, we may end up too isolated."

This isolation doesn't just harm individual leaders - it impacts everyone they supervise and support, creating cascading effects throughout organizational systems.

The Methodology: How Relational Culture Works in Practice

Relational Uprising operates through two main approaches:

Training and Development: Multi-day workshops, such as their foundational "Bonding" workshop, where leaders from various organizations come together to learn relational culture theory and practice. These include:

• Critique of dominant individualistic culture
• Hands-on practice with deep listening and storytelling
• Tools for collective assessment and shared narrative exploration
• Embodied practices for building relational capacity

Organizational Consultation: Direct work with organizations facing specific challenges, from departments that can't communicate effectively to organizations experiencing breakdown or harm. This work is highly customized and can extend over months or years.

Both approaches emphasize what they call "collective capacity" - the ability of a group to function as more than the sum of its individual parts through skilled attention to relationships and shared culture.

Getting Started: Resources and Next Steps

For organizations interested in exploring relational culture approaches:

Assessment Questions: Before diving into this work, organizations should honestly assess:

• Have previous attempts at culture change or conflict resolution had a lasting impact?
• Is leadership genuinely committed to examining its relational patterns?
• Are you prepared for work that may take months or years rather than weeks?
• Do you have shared values or mission that can serve as a foundation for a deeper connection?

Entry Points:

• Visit Relational Uprising's website to explore their calendar and join interest lists for upcoming workshops.
• Consider their introductory "Bonding" workshops as a way to experience the methodology firsthand.
• For organizations with complex challenges, reach out about customized consultation.

Preparation: The most important preparation may be shifting expectations from quick fixes to sustained investment in relational infrastructure.

The Broader Vision: Transformation Beyond Organizations

Ultimately, the work of Relational Uprising points toward transformation that extends beyond individual organizations to entire movements and communities. By modeling what a healthy, connected culture looks like in organizational settings, this work contributes to broader social change.

As Cedar reflects:

"It's deeply relevant to work on how we come together around this shared thing we're passionate about... this is work that's designed for mission-driven organizations."

In a time when social movements face unprecedented challenges - from political backlash to climate crisis to rising authoritarianism - the ability to build and sustain healthy, resilient organizational cultures becomes not just nice to have, but essential for survival and effectiveness.

The invitation is clear: move beyond individual leadership development toward collective capacity building. Move beyond crisis response toward upstream prevention. Move beyond fragmented departments toward integrated organizational cultures grounded in genuine relationships and shared purpose.

Learn More

Relational Uprising: relationaluprising.org

• Explore upcoming workshops and trainings
• Join interest lists for introductory programs
• Learn about organizational consultation services

ALC ChangeMakers Podcast: https://www.jennifersconyers.com/

• Listen to the full interview with Cedar Lansman and Lucien Damaris
• Access additional episodes on leadership and organizational development
• Connect with Abundance Leadership Consulting's community

About the Practitioners:

• Cedar Landsman: Background in social movement history, urban planning, and food policy/justice, with years of experience in organizational leadership and facilitation
• Lucien Demaris: 25+ years in somatics and embodiment practices, rooted in indigenous healing traditions from Ecuador, specializing in relational healing and leadership development

This blog post is based on an interview from the ALC ChangeMakers Podcast. For the complete conversation and additional insights, listen to the full episode available on Spotify and other podcast platforms.