The Medicine of Mutuality

Why giving and receiving support is essential for resilient leadership and collective healing 

You cannot hand over the responsibility for your life to someone else. And at the same time, you cannot live only for yourself. 
                                             — Vandana Shiva, Indian scholar, environmental activist, and author 

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that strength means self-sufficiency. That leadership is about having answers, not questions. That it’s noble to give endlessly—but weak to receive. 

That’s a lie. And a harmful one. 

Especially now, in these disorienting times when the rules are shifting, grief is layered, and the old models of leadership are showing their cracks. The path forward—if we want it to be humane, sustainable, and just—requires a new orientation. One that is ancient at its core: Mutuality. 

The understanding that support, care, wisdom, and power must flow in all directions. That what I offer to you is also a gift to myself. That receiving your care doesn’t diminish my strength—it reflects it. 

Mutuality Is a Practice, Not a Transaction 

Unlike the transactional ways of operating that dominate our institutions, mutuality is relational. It is rooted in reciprocity, trust, and an assumption of shared humanity. It doesn’t keep score. It doesn’t tally up who’s owed what. Instead, it honors that our needs and gifts are constantly shifting—and that leadership, at its best, makes space for both. 

Mutuality asks: 

• Can I be vulnerable enough to let you help me? 

• Can I give generously without martyrdom or resentment? 

• Can I see our relationship not as hierarchical, but interwoven? 

• Can I trust that community care is part of the work—not separate from it? 

These are not small asks. Especially for leaders. 

We are often trained to hold others, but not be held. To listen deeply, but not reveal too much. To offer grace outwardly, but hold ourselves to brutal standards. But that model is not only unsustainable—it’s dishonest. It erodes the very thing we’re trying to build: connection, trust, and transformation. 

The Science of Mutual Support 

There’s growing research on the power of mutual aid, co-regulation, and reciprocal leadership in high-performing teams and healthy organizations. According to a study published in The Journal of Applied Psychology, leaders who engage in mutual helping relationships—where they both support and are supported—report greater resilience, higher team trust, and more effective problem-solving. 

In other words, receiving help makes you a better leader. 

 Being supported makes you stronger, not weaker. 

And the reverse is true, too: when leaders model receptivity and vulnerability, they create psychological safety, which research from Google’s Project Aristotle found to be the #1 predictor of team effectiveness. 

Mutuality Is Medicine 

This is more than a leadership tactic—it’s soul work. 

 In times of fragmentation and overwhelm, mutuality is medicine. It softens the sharp edges of isolation. It dissolves the illusion that any of us can—or should—do it alone. It reconnects us with our own humanity and with each other’s. 

I’ve felt it in the quiet pause after someone says, “You don’t have to carry this alone.” 

 In the moment someone insists on holding the door, the schedule, the emotional weight. 

 In the times I’ve offered what little I had—time, presence, food—and received far more in return. 

It reminds me that we are, at our best, a web. Not a chain of command. 

A New Leadership Mandate 

As leaders, we’re being called to model a different way: 

• To give without rescuing. 

• To receive without guilt. 

• To offer our wisdom, and admit when we need guidance. 

• To create cultures where mutual care is normalized—not exceptional. 

This isn’t softness—it’s strategy. 

 This isn’t weakness—it’s wisdom. 

We are being asked to evolve. To lead with heart. To honor the flow of energy, support, and care that moves between us. 

And in doing so, we become more human. More whole. More powerful. 

Where in your leadership are you still holding everything alone? 

And who might be waiting, right now, for you to let them help?