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Landmarks for
Leaders
In Times of Uncertainty and Chaos
Bob Stilger, PhD,
June 2005
All around the world,
people are stepping forward in new ways to provide leadership. In many
cases, they are not the people in positions of power in organizations or
communities; they are simply those who see what must be done and are
willing to speak, and then to act. Often, as they begin to step forward,
their hearts are pounding with fear, but they believe the time has come
to offer a new possibility for the future.
Where do these leaders come from? What gives them the courage to speak
up? What capacities and practices, if cultivated, support people in
developing their own leadership?
Over the last four years at The Berkana Institute, I’ve worked with a
number of younger leaders involved in community initiatives in many
parts of the world. They practice a kind of leadership that comes from
mind, heart and spirit and provides a foundation for effective action in
the world. I’ve come to call this approach “enspirited leadership.”
The leaders I’ve worked with come from places like Santos, Brazil, where
the Instituto Elos (www.institutoelosbr.org.br)
works in favelas, or slums, where people have few material goods but
where the human spirit is still strong. They always begin their work by
asking the elders to talk about their lives and to look for patterns of
possibility in their stories. These leaders come from Edcouch-Elsa High
School in Texas in the United States, where a school serving migrant
workers has gone from having one of the highest dropout rates in Texas
to having the highest rate of placement in top U.S. colleges. They come
from Johannesburg, South Africa, where downtown Joubert Park (http://joubert.newworkspaces.net),
once a danger zone with frequent murders, has become a true place of
community for the surrounding neighborhoods.
To support this enspirited work in the world, in 2004 Berkana launched
the Berkana Exchange (www.berkanaexchange.net).
We work primarily with centers around the world that are helping
ordinary people step forward as leaders. Working with urban youth in
Dakar, Senegal, with villagers in rural Zimbabwe, across the generations
in Udaipur, India, and with indigenous peoples in Chiapas, Mexico, these
centers are helping people offer whatever leadership they can in these
changing times.
I have identified six key landmarks for enspirited leaders:
- They work from a sense
of true calling
- They journey in the
company of others
- They live with a
spiritual center
- They demand diversity
- Reflective learning
guides their lives
- Their work is filled
with ambiguity and uncertainty
A Sense of True
Calling
Each of these pioneering leaders has stepped into his or her work
because of a strong sense of calling, rather than through a methodical,
strategic decision-making process. In many ways, life leads them to
their work. And, of course, their work then leads them to their life.
Marianne Knuth from Kufunda Learning Village (www.kufunda.org)
in Zimbabwe explained her commitment to her work in this way:
“I had this feeling that I had to do it. If I would have thought someone
else was going to be able to do it, I would have let them. Maybe that’s
being arrogant, but I just had to do it. There was a real fire that was
burning—and it was really exciting.”
Tim Merry, who began a learning centre in Holland and now has started
The Shire (www.oftheshire.org)
in Nova Scotia, Canada, said it this way:
“It has been a really personal journey, and the reason I am doing this
work is because it is making me stronger. And because it is making me
happy in what I do. I am beginning to understand the greatest gift we
can give to the world is our own happiness, and that’s all we really
have to do. We don’t need to do anything more than be content with who
we are. We don’t have to change the world.”
What stands out to me from many conversations is that these leaders
follow deep gut instincts that tell them where to place their attention
and where to create their intentions for action. Their actions are
conceived in a place of spirit, not in a place of thought. What gives
these young men and women the confidence and courage to respond to that
which called them? How were they able to step forward while so many who
hear such a calling choose to ignore it?
In the Company of Others
Part of the answer is that they don’t do their work alone. Close friends
and family who share deep bonds of trust, love and respect are essential
for finding the courage to follow the inner voice. Moving into new
territory, doing work that seems unconventional and perhaps even foolish
to some, requires companions.
Some of the most striking characteristics of the companions who move
together are that they come from different age groups and are frequently
family members. This pattern is different from the activists of the
1960s. What I recall from my 20s was precious little connection with
siblings, a distancing from my parents’ ideas, and suspicion about most
people over 30.
In describing how he began his work, Cire Kane of Synapse Center (www.synapsecenter.org)
in Senegal said that he kept remembering his grandfather’s and parents’
advice:
“’Dare to build on your relationships rather than pursuing money.
Success in life lies in relationships.’ I have learnt from them the
value of understanding myself and my place in this world. I’m here
because many people contributed to my development. And I remember so
much of what happened to me and understand more myself when I listen
closely to others. My whole life is a simple movement circling around
community, relationships and joy. And this community is expanding
everyday beyond the borders of my birth land, crossing oceans and
connecting with many good-hearted people around the world.”
There may be some who believe they can make these journeys alone, as
rugged individuals. But why? Why wouldn’t we all want to find close
companions to share our journey? Why wouldn’t we seek others excited by
the same possibilities and the same questions? Where would we find
nourishment if we traveled alone?
A Spiritual Center
What do leaders need to have in order to stand with confidence in a
complex, changing and unpredictable world? A partial answer, I suspect,
is that holding an encompassing view requires, at least from time to
time, a higher level of consciousness. The evolution of such
consciousness seems to require a spiritual practice. Each of these
learning center founders works from a spiritual center. Their practices
are simply a part of their daily lives.
Zoë Nicholson, founder of LifeWorks in England, says:
“I started a meditation practice about the same time I began this work
and I realized it was possible to have a fuller life at a slower speed.
I didn’t really need to run around filling up my life. I could just slow
down, unpack and my life would be a lot fuller… We can do all the
intellectual stuff about saving the planet, but the bottom line is how
can I find a way to feel alive?”
Una Nicholson, Zoë’s sister, adds:
“Things just seem to happen a lot more harmoniously, bountifully and
easily. The right things happen at the right time. Surprises come along
and good things happen. For me, it just becomes a practice of being
aligned with myself—that seems to provide the path.”
When I asked Manish Jain from India about his work at the core of
Shikshantar (www.swaraj.org/shikshantar),
the learning center he has created with others in Udaipur, India, his
response was:
“This work is not about saving or changing the world, but about how I
live my own life and live it as an invitation to others. As the
Bhagavad-Gita says: ‘Try to live the way that you feel is true with your
own inner values. Don’t worry about the results.’”
The presence of a spiritual center is what allows these leaders to hear
and trust their inner voices and follow their calls. They also move,
with that spirit, into a place of reflective learning that acts as a
compass to guide their action.
A Demand For Diversity
When these leaders look at a given situation, they look for the
surrounding web of relationships and systems. They look for the whole
picture. The younger leaders I’ve worked with all have had experience in
multiple cultures. Such experiences may not be a precondition for
enspirited leadership, but they usually shake people up enough that they
begin to see the world more broadly. Ante Glavas who started Horizon (www.horizont.hr)
in Croatia says:
“When one is born in one culture, it is taken for granted that the world
is as it is. When one then truly learns another culture deeply, then one
realizes that there is not a set way of seeing the world.”
The capacity to understand that the way we view our lives is a construct
our minds have created makes it easier to let go of false certainties.
In Beyond Culture (Doubleday, 1976), Edward Hall suggests that
multicultural experiences literally demand an expansion in
consciousness. An expanded consciousness is required for this work.
The presence of others whose ideas and experiences differ greatly from
our own invites us to let go of our limited view of what’s needed and
what can happen. Diversity is a key to open exploration and inquiry. It
is what helps us let go of old ideas and solutions and to search for
what else might be possible.
Reflective Learning as a Guide
For these leaders, the search for spiritual grounding is accompanied by
a continuous process of surfacing facts and impressions, revealing
patterns and assumptions, examining actions and behaviors, and affirming
or changing the course of action. This continuous process makes up
reflective learning.
In early 2002, I met with many younger leaders in Prague, and we
characterized this approach as follows:
- Above all, this is a
creative adventure. It is experimental. It calls us to focus our
attention on the now. Our work, and our lives, are laboratories of
grace. (Ann Dosher, an elder and community psychologist who serves on
The Berkana Institute’s board of directors, first coined the term
“laboratories of grace” in the late 1990s.)
- This work is much
bigger than any of us are separately, and it still calls on each of us
to be separate and ourselves.
- We are called upon to
use our full imagination and learning, our collective diversity, our
respect for synchronicity and mystery, and our willingness to be
transformed.
- We do this important
work with a spirit of play, humor, friendship and love. We are
connected and we connect to others.
- Our local work is the
critical ground from which global transformation can emerge, with
integrity.
These reflections are
alive. They hold a sense of genuine curiosity. This kind of reflective
learning affirms life and invites inquiry into the uncertain path of
transformation. The process of making such reflections explicit is as
ordinary for these leaders as their spirituality is. They have a
capacity to move easily from the realm of spirit to the realm of
thought, and this motion gives them balance.
Ambiguity and Uncertainty
Ambiguity and uncertainty are befriended in this work. To follow a sense
of calling, in the company of others, aware of a diverse world, from a
spiritual center and with an awareness of assumptions, is to let go of
control. There is simply no other way. Doing all of those things throws
the doors of ambiguity and uncertainty wide open.
A choice each of us can make is whether ambiguity and uncertainty open a
pathway to fear or a pathway to balance. When we think we are supposed
to be in charge, when our self-confidence is based on being able to
predict what will happen and how things will turn out, then ambiguity
and uncertainty usually invite our fear to rise up and bite us.
When we are able to release ourselves into the uncertainty, we are
invited to become explorers, to discover what lies ahead as we work with
others to create that future. Cire Kane put it well:
“Today, the path is still unclear. It is literally invisible, and yet my
heart is often being moved and my soul split open. My lovely work is
taking me every day on a journey of new experiences. These experiences
are opening my heart to the unimaginable beauty of life and community
around me. Every day I awaken to a new day. I go out into the world with
a feeling of excitement and joy and a feeling of being at home,
everywhere in our diverse supportive community. I do my work with
engagement and joy, with lots of downs and still many ups. I break for
prayer, sometimes meditation, often to be with my parents or to hang out
with friends. I love my work. I love my community and I love the life
I’m living. I will persevere through uncertainty and fear about my
ability to carry out the mission before me.”
Landmarks in Your Life
The work of these leaders is enspirited, in that it comes from a strong
inner force that demands attention. It is appreciative, in that it looks
for strengths that can be built upon. It is emergent, in that it creates
both its path and its destination. These six landmarks are a guidance
system for work in this territory.
As exciting as this work can be, it is also easy to get lost. I have
opportunities to talk with people all over the world engaged in this
enspirited work, and they often feel discouraged, isolated, lonely and
disconnected. They’ve forgotten to make sure that what they are doing is
their true work. They have lost touch with those around them. They’re
just too busy to slow down and be quiet. They’ll get to reflection
later. The views of others are just too distracting. And, oh yes,
wouldn’t it be nice to have some certainty?
My work, and that of the Berkana Exchange, is to help people be wildly
excited and deeply grounded in this kind of work. These landmarks are
part of this process. Please think about how they are present in your
life and work.
***
Bob Stilger (bob@berkana.org),
PhD, is a community organizer and social activist. His current passion
is understanding the new forms of leadership emerging around the world
through his work with pioneering leaders in many countries. Bob is
co-president of The Berkana Institute (www.berkana.org)
and teaches leadership at Bainbridge Graduate Institute and Gonzaga
University. |