OK, so curious what yall think of this. I just wrote a looong response to one of Lairds webinar participants who weve had many interesting exchanges with. Todays webinar topic was on power and leadership, and heres what this person sent us right afterward: [Something that} struck me from the questions was the lack of understanding what a leader is/was... NOTHING happens without some sort of leader. I wish I had a good way to that across. Can I assume from the webinar that at least some groups actively discourage leaders? If so how do they last or dont they? Heres my response: I think cooperative groups are coming from a place frequently of mistrusting power, and this can definitely be discouraging if you are someone who is either a) comfortable wielding it or b) not comfortable, but reluctantly in the role of managing, leading or influencing something. In a lot of ways, I see the downside to cooperative culture being a kind of emasculation of the active principle of life. To go really big picture with this, I believe that cooperative culture emerged in response to a more materialistic, hierarchical, meritocracy that defines the core of American, business-oriented culture right now. Cooperative culture got footing because of a kind of spiritual and relational emptiness of that (now) mainstream culture-- a kind of every man for himself attitude that left a lot of voices out and a lot of people (plus the planet) being grist in the capitalistic mill. So here comes cooperative culture-- caring, anti-hierarchical, advocating for those minority voices and flat power dynamics. Competency is less emphasized in the face of no one being left behind. Our relational skills flourish, our selfishness dissipates, the spiritual is welcome once again. Its beautiful, and fair, and idealistic, and truly everyone has a chance to be valued for what they bring to the table. It becomes OK-- even expected-- to think about the health of the planet on equal or higher footing than profit margins. And... people dont trust anyone with power... it takes a looong time to get stuff done, and even then it sometimes seems like the point of the thing got missed in the effort to make it work for absolutely everyone. The good sides of hierarchy cant be brought into play because we are so busy protecting everyones equal access to resources and a voice. (Equal is in quotes because I think it is both a worthy goal and impossible to achieve.) Everyone should be able to play-- even if they are incompetent, careless, and arent doing their own work to not be abusive, sloppy, etc. In some ways, I see many people losing their edge because they dont have to work for it. Every voice matters-- even if it in uninformed, not very well considered, frankly incompetent. Its a strange combo of wonderful and utterly maddening. What I think Laird and I are advocating for is a vision of community (and the world) where we move past pitting these things against each other. Profit strengthens community when it is in the context of care for the planet and people, and when it springs from meeting true human needs. Leadership is needed and should be honored (because we cant get a damn thing done without it) even while we are careful to not abuse the power we are granted and/or have because of privilege or circumstance, or a truly superior vision. Superior is, in fact the goal if it means quality and competency and mission alignment. We make efforts to not leave people behind, even while we push each other to grow (and grow up). Maturity is awarded with power and leadership being entrusted into the person. Remember when I contacted you earlier this year to talk about the spiral dynamics training I was interested in (and Im still hoping to get to do it at some point)? What Ive written above is really what that training is all about-- learning how to better support this kind of evolution from step to step, both individually and collectively. Its about seeing the deep value in what each paradigm brings us and then finding the ways to bring them together in the most beneficial way possible. I think this is the direction community needs to head in, and I feel really blessed to have had Laird as a mentor for all of these years, because I think he gets it (even if that framework isnt one hes embraced).
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 22:40:15 +0000
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