A lovely paper by Mark McKergow from the UK which defines the art of hosting as a leadership practice: the essence is that the host creates space and is active within it.
I’ve been using Dave Snowden’s conception of simple, chaotic, complicated and complex systems for a while. This video: How to organise a Children’s Party is a brilliant redux of these helpful distinctions.
Johnnie Moore posts a touching analysis of what drives bullying bosses in organizations. Some recent research concludes that a perceived sense of incompetence can cause people to lash out against others.
This has been my experience. Our culture demands answers, expertise and bold confidence in making decisions. Most people are trained starting in pre-school that these traits are in the domain of the individual and that your success depends on them.
What is missing is training in asking questions, seeking help and acting from clarity. In schools, these practices are forbidden in exam rooms, where students are evaluated on their progress. You are not allowed to ask questions, to ask for help, or borrow other’s ideas. All of that is considered “cheating.”
The stress that comes from needing to perform as a solo act can be huge and the resulting manifestation of this stress can be toxic. I have worked with and under both kinds of leaders and once worked with one leader who started collaborative and curious and evolved into a frightened bully. It seems to me that these individuals that suffered did so alone, with the thought that as a leader, they should somehow carry the load by themselves.
In a world in which nothing is certain, and answers are elusive, these expectations will always result in stress. I can find it in myself, when I step into new work, at a new level, how my anxiety rises. This is why, when I am doing something new, I almost always work with friends.
My take away from this piece is that relationship and work are equally important. To sacrifice relationship[ building for “outcomes” is to not only jeopardize the sustainability of good work, but to create a climate in which good work is unlikely to ever get done.
Why conversation for reconciliation is important: this story about neighbourhood dialogue in a gentrifying Portland, Oregon neighbourhood contains this sheer nugget of wisdom:
“The one who strikes the blow doesn’t know the force of the blow,” Mowry says. “Only the one who has received the blow knows its force.”
That quote serves to me to point out why reconciliation efforts led by the striker don’t really heal. I think a little about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission here in Canada which is supposed to look at the residential school experience in a way that hears the story. But it is a Commission that has been set up by the federal government as a part of a legal settlement. It is not the aggreived forgiving the oppressors, as it was in South Africa. It is – or has the clear potential to be – simply the government feeling good about itself, as it did with teh Royal Commission in the early 1990s.
The one who received the blow has a story to tell in this country. A powerful story that needs to be heard and collectively owned before we can truly move to justice for First Nations in Canada.
via Speak. Listen. Heal. | Special Coverage – – OregonLive.com.
Plucked from vines of RSS feeds and tweets:
- David Abrams on The Air Aware