Hope Is Something We Build: Interview with Jess Lewis

What if hope isn't wishful thinking, but a leadership practice? Susan Clarke talks with Jess Lewis, founder of the Center for Hopeful Leadership, about the difference between optimism and hope—and why meaningful hope requires a vision for a better tomorrow, multiple pathways forward, and the agency to act. Their conversation explores leadership as a relational practice, organizations as living systems, the deeper roots of burnout, and the responsibility to create conditions in which emerging leaders can thrive. Jess also shares why they created the center: to build what they once needed, transform the loneliness of leadership, and help people and institutions create change that can endure beyond any single leader.