On Leading today

I think that this should be my last blog on leadership for a while, but I do want to pick up on some issues that have been raised in earlier conversations. (of course having written that if the conversation zooms off then .. who knows :-)

Let me state a few positions I work from, then I'll look at what followers can do, finally I'll look at what those with a leadership status can do.  So, first a summary of a relational perspective on leadership:

1. There is not such thing as leadership.  Leaders are not born, made or individuals.  All we have are relations, and within relations are two (amongst many) aspects: action and persuasion.  We will seek to persuade people to undertake certain actions,
2. Perhaps we are uncertain of our ability to persuade others and so don't try.  Or perhaps we find that other people are skilled at consistently persuading us?  We might find that some folk aren't persuadable but seem happiest when we do what they say/suggest.  Where's leadership in these sentences?  There might well be some good and wise leadership.  We don't know until we are in a relationship at a particular moment. 
3. We have a tendency in the west to locate power and other attributes in things rather than in processes of relating (we even create things called relationships!).  This means that we have a tendency to make relational processes like influencing, persuasion or leading into a thing  called a leader. Instead of looking for what persuades us, what assumptions guide us, what values shape our hearing and acting; we look at what a leader looks like, what a leader does, how a leader can be successful.  We tend to ignore the relational processes involved.
4. Many of the comments in the last conversation started from a premise that are leaders, I don't want to start from there (although later, I'll have to address the current situations and hierarchies we (re)create daily).  I want to start from the process of relating and look at how we persuade and are persuaded, how we can tune our ears to hear wisdom from areas we don't expect, how we can work in a way that gives space for others and ourselves.

OK, so that's my starting point.  How should we followers act in order to play our part in co-constructing our worlds?  We should be active and strategic.  Our values, hopes and desires have a value, they are worth something, but they are part of a larger picture and our actions should have that tentativeness and openness that I spoke of in 'Creative Followership'.  You see, my answer to Maggi's point about poor followers not just being the fault of leaders is "Yes, if we are to co-construct our worlds then we can't just leave it up to others"  This is the curse of our consumerist world where we pay in our cash, vote or tithe and say "get on with it".  It might be part of the slavery I spoke about here yesterday.  What do you think? 

And what about leaders, those people who hold a status of leader; what should they be doing?  I might not want to start with assumptions of leaders but if the rest of the world is passively going along with leaders then for me to ignore that would be folly and alienating! So how could leaders contribute to co-constructive relations?  Some ideas:

• frame your words and actions in such a way that they need someone else to supplement and complete them
• choose your conversational contributions in such a way as to provoke/invite a response rather than compliance
• look for ways that illustrate how you are growing from others' ideas
• focus your words and actions on the next moment, how can what you say give more space for others rather than define what is to be done
• contribute to conversations rather than complete them

.. and the rich young ruler said "All this I have done since my youth" and Jesus looked at him in love and said "One thing you still lack ..."

Comments

[Jason Clark]

wonderful, thank you Caroline..and please do say more :-)

[Jason Clark]

Dr MaryKate Morse, my disseration superviser, is bringing out a book called 'Bodied Leadership' based the idea that leadership is through presence in relationship. I wish you two could meet. Jason

[graham]

I don't know what to say? Thank you, Caroline, so much.

This seems to have so many implications, provoke so many more questions and question so many more assertions.

Thanks - you continue to make my "job" so much harder! :-)

Let's get together and relate soon. ;-)

[maggi]

"There is not such thing as leadership. Leaders are not born, made or individuals..."

This makes me think "yes" and "no" (good Anglican that I am!!) - yes, wonderful to think that leadership is not a THING. Leadership is something that happens among a group of people when one or more persons become the catalyst for the group to act. But as to whether leaders are not born... I would have been more persuadable to this view before I had my son. Watching him play in the playground the year before he started school, there were undeniably some kids that were "born" leaders, and others who were "born" loners and others who were "born" contemplatives... Whatever the nature/nurture mix is, it is pretty deeply ingrained by the time they are 5. Maybe, then, the activists need to be trained to listen very carefully to the kids who sit in the corner dreaming big dreams... THe ones with the really good ideas are not always the ones who get to lead the group. Not in the playground at any rate.

Thanks for more good thoughts!

[Jason Clark]

I had to come back Caroline, your post ha shad me mulling over and thinking since I read it.

When the metaphor of the modern world was machine, system, and acheiving a goal was the object, we used people.

But leadership is relational, not a mechanism. Leadership is incarnational, prescence based.

And bringing relationship to others in relationship, visioneering of goals gets replaced with leading others into presence, with community, god and the world.

Reminded me of Shackleton and that all the great leaders in history had prescence and relational intelligence.

Thanks for your posting, do some more , please.

Jason

[Wes Roberts]

Caroline...I've only read your first paragraph...and will go back and read the rest in a bit...BUT...please Do NoT stop writing on this topic. I/we/others need your insights and guidance. I welcome it...sincerely. OK? OK. Now...I'll go back and read the rest of your post....... :)

[Wes Roberts]

...ok (and I've not changed one iota from what I wrote in the previous post)...more glad than ever for what you have written. Thank you!

Having lunch today with one of the young emerging business leaders of our community, what you wrote was part of the topic of our conversation. "Presence" is a significant missing element in the development of many relationships...especially, it seems...among many leaders. My friend today asked, since were on the topic even before reading your blog, "Can 'presence' be taught...or only modeled, experienced, and thus taught?" What would your answer be if you had been in on the conversation?

PS...you are welcome over here any time for lunch...and much more. :)

[susiealbert miller]

i have to echo the comments above. please continue to write on this important subject. your voice and insights are so important.

btw, & imho, i think presence mus be modeled... that is the hebraic way as talked about in deuteronomy, "as you sit, as you walk by the way" as well as the way that Jesus, the Hebrew, taught and led his disciples and followers during his time on earth. I think that "presence," our truly being aware and engaged in the moment with another's life, story, journey, thoughts, ideas, struggles, etc is the fundamental part of leadership that makes mankind essentially not a machine! Presence is the offering of the soul, of the senses and what causes people to want to follow and to share...

[rob]

one of the key ideas of biblical leadership must be that of joshua and the idea that moses leadership would get you out of egypt but only joshua leadership would get you into canaan. infact, the book of joshua starts with the information that moses is dead.

if we are not to follow leaders as people [and look for joshua leaders], then can we look for things/systems/groups that embody joshua type processes? this is likely to be rather more agressive, subversive and direct than many pomo collagues would appreciate (eg, joshua 2v1: secretly) - but it does seem to be in scripture...

maybe you can re-tell the traditional john c maxwell reading of joshua from a process point of view?