10.02.06

creating culture

Posted in ekklesia, emergence, formation at 2:17 pm by len

My views of leadership have undergone drastic change in the past four years. Where once I saw leadership as a hierarchy in the context of a team, I now see it as a communal process.Where once I saw leadership as fixed, I now see it as fluid. With McLaren, I"ve gone from the leadership metaphor of the Wizard to Dorothy. I"ve detailed my thoughts on this in a number of articles, the best being Leadership in the Postmodern Era and Leading from the Margins. We no longer have the luxury of assuming that the established models, nor the recognized leaders, have what it takes to lead us forward. More than ever, we need the wisdom and participation of a broad and diverse group of people, in particular, those on the margins. In these times of uncertainty and transition, we need to be finding ways to create diverse cultures of learning and leadership.

How do you create cultures? There are at least five foundational ideas..

1. Identity originates in alliances, not in individuals

Identity derives from what we borrow from others, and from how we differentiate, not from how we become like others.

2. Experiences are instrumental

Knowledge and practical competencies are best framed on a need to know level. When we discover our own limits and needs as we encounter circumstances beyond us, we also become engaged and impassioned about knowledge and change. Internships and mentorships are also a key part of the dance of learning.

3. Tension, uncertainty and failure are neither good not bad, but necessary.

Success at all costs is deadly to learning and growth, and tends to result in homogenized content and mechanistic programs. Instead, we need the wisdom that knows how to build from tension and uncertainty. This requires a foundational spirituality.

4. Reflection and action commingle

Action without reflection is dangerous (mere unprincipled acting). But reflection without action is pointless. Life circumstances shape neither pure knowers nor pure doers, but individuals in which these two are co-determined.

5. Practice has its own practice

All institutions and most movements are conservative and reproduce the conditions of their own existence in their activities, no matter how hard they try not to. The best way to resist this internal pressure is to cede control to participants as early as possible ”? give people voices, and encourage them to reflect on the interface between their learning and growth and the venues and field of that process itself.

I closed that 2003 article on leadership with a quote that still defines for me the need of the moment. But that quote was not so different than a more recent one in “Presence,” which I will paraphrase once more..

A new way forward will emerge from building three integrated capacities: a new capacity for observing that no longer fragments the observer from what is observed; a new capacity for stillness that no longer fragments who we really are from what"s emerging; a new capacity for creating alternative realities that no longer fragments the wisdom of the head, heart and hand; a new capacity for cooperation that harnesses the intelligence and spirit of all people at all levels.

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