What Happens When Changemaking Crosses Borders?

What does it really take to lead, innovate, and create meaningful change? That's the question a cohort of professionals from Latvia came to Berkeley to answer in The Berkeley Changemaker ® Program.

They brought diverse professional backgrounds to the table, and a common set of questions about what it really takes to do all three.

For participant Māra Kukaine, one challenge stood out: 

“One of the biggest challenges in my work is leading an organization through constant change. Change affects all of us, all the time, and I wanted to better understand how to lead people in a way that creates trust, resilience, and shared purpose.”

Liene Voroņenko’s goal was distilled into just six words: 

“Improve how results can be reached.”

Their reflections offer a window into what happens next: not simply what leaders learn in Berkeley, but what stays with them after they return home. What actually travels home with a leader after an experience like this?

A few themes emerged.

A New Setting Can Make Old Assumptions Visible

Sometimes the clearest view of a system comes from stepping outside of it.

Immersion in Berkeley and the Bay Area offers more than proximity to a global center of innovation. It puts leaders in an environment where curiosity is encouraged, convention is questioned, and new possibilities are continually explored. That change in surroundings can create a meaningful shift in perspective.

“Berkeley was an environment that expanded my thinking—not only through the ideas we explored, but also through the people I met and the atmosphere that surrounded us. There was a unique energy in being surrounded by curious, ambitious, and open-minded people from all over the world.” — Māra Kukaine

Different Contexts Often Reveal the Same Leadership Challenges

Bringing leaders from different parts of the world together does more than expose them to different perspectives. It can reveal just how much they share. Their reflections suggest that while leadership is practiced across vastly different cultures, industries, and systems, many of its hardest questions are remarkably universal.

“It was inspiring to exchange experiences and realize that, despite our different cultures, industries, and backgrounds, we face many of the same challenges and opportunities.” — Māra Kukaine

Human-Centered Leadership Isn’t at Odds With High Performance

Periods of rapid change can create false choices for leaders: performance or humanity, results or empathy, accountability or trust.

The participant reflections point toward another possibility—one where trust, empathy, shared purpose, and high expectations reinforce rather than undermine one another. The human side of leadership isn’t separate from the work of creating change. It’s often what enables people to move forward together.

“The experience reinforced my belief that values and high performance are not competing priorities; they can and should go hand in hand.” — Māra Kukaine

“There was an activity of … creating [an] environment for my team through positive leadership. It shaped [the] different approach I follow in my daily work now.” — Liene Voroņenko

Learning Becomes Changemaking When Possibility Turns Into Agency

Leadership development isn’t only about acquiring knowledge. At its best, it expands a leader’s sense of what they can do with it. Knowledge reveals what could be different. Agency gives leaders the confidence to act on that possibility.

For Kukaine, that growing sense of agency translated into action. After returning home from Berkeley, she initiated a conversation with her team about their personal and shared values, which she says strengthened trust and collaboration.

“I choose to trust my colleagues, recognize their strengths, and create an environment where people can succeed.” 

That change in practice reflected a deeper change in perspective: 

“I feel more confident making decisions that reflect my values, even when they are not the easiest path.”

How Changemaking Travels

So what does travel home after an experience like this?

The most valuable leadership ideas aren’t practices to bring home and replicate. They are principles leaders can interpret within their own contexts—ideas that help them question inherited assumptions, imagine alternatives, and decide what meaningful change should look like in their organizations and communities.

That matters especially when change means challenging long-established organizational cultures, hierarchies, and ways of working.

Voroņenko sees the experience as particularly relevant for leaders who:

“…have to work with ‘ancient’ cultures, hierarchies and public companies and bring significant changes in business management process.”

And for Kukaine, the shift is expressed more personally:

“One of my biggest takeaways was that I don’t have to settle for mediocrity or accept ‘the way things have always been done.’”

That may be how The Berkeley Changemaker® Program ethos travels best. Not by exporting answers, but by expanding a leader’s sense of what’s possible—and their confidence to act on it.