Posts tagged Love!
How to Get Along With an Enemy
Aug 26th
Thank you for dropping by! Thursdays are Servant Hearts day. Gracious leaders around the world guest post to NorthFork’s blog, A Servant’s Heart, sharing their fabulous insights regarding the serving nature of leadership. We’re delighted you’ve joined us. Be prepared for a variety of experience!
Today, I am especially DELIGHTED to introduce you to Mark McKinney. Mark is a young emerging leader endeavoring to share what he learns on his journey to encourage other young people to develop their leadership ability and make a difference in whatever they are doing. Mark helps us better understand we can learn to serve the world around us by learning how to use our gifts. Mark blogs and he is developing an awesome leadership web site for young people called Leader: Me! You can read Mark’s original post, and comments, here. Mark’s bio reads, “Love the outdoors, reading, building things, languages, HTML, Krav Maga, learning anything, spying, codes and ciphers, leadership.” Friends, Mark inspires me. I’m sure he will inspire you, too!
How to Get Along With an Enemy
by Mark McKinney (California)
We always want to avoid making enemies, but it will certainly happen. It may be the opposite of what you would want to do, but the first step to try to turn enemies into friends is to get to know the person better. As Abraham Lincoln said, “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” Getting to know them will enable you to learn about most of his or her strengths and weaknesses. Knowing that will help you understand them and get along. You might even figure out what you did (if you did really do something) to them. Then you can apologize to them and this will hopefully turn your enemy into your friend.
Now what if that doesn’t work because they just don’t seem to like you for whatever reason, you must now learn how to get along with them. To do this, you must first ignore their comments. Now I don’t mean that you should blow them off like “who cares about them” because that’s just what they would do to you. No, you must not react to their comments in a negative way. Don’t make their problem your problem. The next step is to not say anything about what he or she does. Don’t be critical of them. Don’t make negative comments. Otherwise, again, you are doing exactly what they are doing. You must ignore the urge to get back at them or the desire to embarrass them. Finally, you must always remember to be nice to them even if they are being a jerk to you. If you do this you will be setting an example. Hopefully they will follow your example.
The people we don’t like are usually the people we don’t know or seem to be not like us. We don’t usually like people that are different from us. The solution is to get to know others even if they are different and be nice to everyone we see. Will Rogers, speaking of Leon Trosky, said, “I bet you if I had met him and had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I never yet met a man that I didn’t like.” Get to know people. You’ll be surprised how much you might like them.
“You been doin’ your job?”
Aug 24th
Ever thought about what is it, exactly, leaders should be doin’? If so, you’re not alone.
Remember the Titans, a movie starring Denzel Washington as Coach Herman Boone, is based on a true story of hope set in the newly created and integrated T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1971. In the clip that follows, we learn of two young men — Gerry Bertier and Julius Campbell — coming of age, coming to terms with humanity as it relates to racial harmony, and coming up against the true meaning of leadership. What they learn, and what many of us learn from them, is this: fear, if not confronted, stands in the way of trust, integrity, friendship, hope, and love.
We also learn fear, given its tendency to deceive, is quick to disguise itself behind long, thick curtains pretending to be something it is not; these ‘curtains’ (e.g., where we come from, gender, socio-economic/class status, the color of our skin) often hang precariously from the rusty nails of man’s inhumanity to man. Over time, they are jostled loose by the unrelenting march of time and the resolute persistence of the human will’s desire to overcome. If we look carefully, the light of other-centered leadership, as it majestically rises over the horizon, pierces these curtains to give us, with renewed clarity, a glimpse of the beauty that lies on the other side — a beauty that helps us ‘see’ what really matters: who we are as people and what we need from those we have chosen to lead us.
Julius helps us get to the point: “attitude reflects leadership.”
There exists a prevailing sense that leadership has somehow lost its authenticity. In many corner offices, we find ‘leaders’ surrounded by “good people with great talent and awesome attitudes,” to borrow John Maxwell’s words, who, like the Wizard of Oz, expend great effort to deceive. They put on a show, of sorts, highlighting ‘outstanding’ results, results that have little to do with talent or leadership. ‘Great talent and awesome attitudes’ sound pretty good on the surface but, when left to their own devices, come across as shallow, biased, and often badly presented, if not self-centered. You see, if our job as leader is merely to gather ‘good people with great talent and awesome attitudes,’ what’s next? We need only look to C suites around the globe to see the catastrophe that befalls such thinking.
Here’s the lesson for me.
I think Gerry and Julius found themselves confronted with the problem of authenticity. Top-down strategies, even those on high school football fields, that insist on surrounding the leader with ‘good’ people, fail to place the people first. By design, the leader becomes the center of attention. I’m reminded of a bygone era during the long, hot summer days on dusty, American grade school playgrounds when the two very best players stood in front of the rest of us selecting, one at a time, what he (yes, in those days, it was always a he) considered the best players available for his team. Sounds nice enough, I suppose, if your only interest is looking good (aka, seeking fame and admiration because you are so adept at gathering ‘good people with great talent and awesome attitudes’). Of course, it doesn’t look so good to the one left standing after everyone else has been selected. And it doesn’t take into account the rest of us who are making judgments of our own as we look on.
For me, the way to get attitudes to go up, up, up is not for leaders to select great talent predisposed with awesome attitudes but, rather, to take on the challenge of first improving their own. “Attitude,” Winston Churchill taught us years ago, “is a little thing that makes a big difference.” You see, with the right leadership — a leadership with an other-centered attitude — people of all walks of life can come to terms with their differences, overcome a long history of fear, hostility, and mistrust, sacrifice self for others (indeed, for a better humanity), dream their very own dreams, and come together to achieve great things, even if they are not very good at the game. That’s what leadership does.
Want to see for yourself? Next time teams are being forged on the school playground in your community, look for those leaders who go out of their way to pick players not based on any great talent or attitude but, instead, on their love of the game and their desire to be part of the team, whether they can play or not. That will be the team that learns the most, loves the most, and has the most fun because that’s the team that stands on the shoulders of a true leader. They may not win on the scoreboard, but they’ll be chalking up some heavy points in the game of life. And it won’t take other folks long to notice. Why? It’s quite simple really. Such a leader “tames the savageness of man and makes gentle the life of this world.”
Isn’t that exactly the job leaders ought to be doin’?
From the Inside Out
Aug 19th
Thank you for dropping by! Thursdays are Servant Hearts day. Gracious leaders around the world guest post to NorthFork’s blog, A Servant’s Heart, sharing their fabulous insights regarding the serving nature of leadership. We’re delighted you’ve joined us. Be prepared for a variety of experience!
Today, we are happy to welcome Stash Serafin. Stash is inspiration personified! I have enjoyed the wonderful opportunity to connect with Stash outside of Twitter and I find myself in awe of his positive energy, his enthusiasm, and his love for others. Stash has been a figure skater since 1968, but he’s not your run-of-the-mill figure skater. Blind since birth, Stash takes skating to a new level. Through skating, Stash helps script life, sensing the grace and majesty of movement — movement best distinguished, you guessed it, from the inside out. Stash hails from the City of Brotherly Love, but you don’t need me to tell you that. It shows!
Servants from the Inside Out
by Stash Serafin (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Thanks to our wonderful Dr Jack King for inviting me to post my thoughts about being of service and how to feel like we are valued because we serve.
I took a long look at my life and realized that being of service feels really good. I liken ‘servant’ and ‘service’ to an inside job; both come from the heart.
For me, as a blind person, I feel everything. I mean everything. I feel when our dog is sick. I feel the trees, and their energy as the seasons change. I feel the wind with all its different textures, storms, calm, stillness, and its gentle breezes. Heart gives sensing a home; it is always whole, pure, and full when we really feel what it has to teach us.
Sensing can be tricky; we as humans tend to want everything yesterday. {Sigh.} I’m no different, but I’ve learned a few tips and tricks along the way; some help me not to ignore anything while others help me pay more attention, especially to what my heart has to say.
One of the more important tricks I’ve learned is when I am very gentle—very sensitive to heart—I can feel tiny dots, something like tiny grains of sand or tiny mustard seeds. I think of these dots as pixels, what sighted folks use to design the wonderful digital images folks have come to know and love, images often used to share messages of hope, faith, and insight. Like amazing images that come into focus through tiny pixels, gentleness helps us become more aware of tiny dots of energy all around us.
Sometimes, it is easy for me to think of these dots in terms of Braille, the way I learned how to read and write. Braille, after all, opened me to the world of universal ideas; it allows me to feel again—everything. When we find this link to feeling life, we begin to connect, vibrate, and put together life in a new way, a way that really makes some sense.
Serving is at the heart of life’s connecting, because as we sense something such as a dot, a pixel, a grain of sand, or a mustard seed, we feel it, we deal with it and, somehow, the smaller we manage to condense our senses to a dot or pixel, the better we focus on it, and the more it grows. It grows like a newly planted field of corn grows. Did you know it’s especially easy to hear a field of corn start crackling and snapping in the quiet of night as the corn gently grows?
The idea of growing gently may have its issues (e.g., the gentleness of the seed to harvest process takes time and patience), but when gentleness has it due, we stop to take notice, often allowing it to guide us rather than picking a fight with it. When gentle growing happens, we can — and we do — make a difference, not only in our own lives, but in every life we think about, every life we touch by action or kind word that encourages energy to ebb and flow, and move easily to and fro. In making a difference for others, we discern a sense of grace about ourselves only visible when we, too, dance through life.
The idea of serving from the inside out is an ongoing experience: balancing as we go, feeling as we go, dealing as we go, and coming to understand how much we can give without stress or struggle. I’ve always somehow knew — without knowing why — real charity begins at home and, for me, home is where my heart is. Home and heart, when full, have to overflow like a cup that runs over; it has no choice but to flow, go, and flow some more. Where it goes we sometimes know and, sometimes, we have no clue. But there is no denying it flows like a river.
If spirit is wholeness, heart is whole. Our heart helps to center and balance the physical, mental, and emotional aspects of who we are. Sometimes playful, and at all times with a gentle touch, a gentle thought, and a gentle image of what we want, our heart helps us focus. This knowing is moving energy; it comes and goes — and flows — through our experiences of heart. As our heart feels, it guides and we go places. We move and we thrive, not just survive.
You see, when we serve from a full cup, an open heart, a full sense of our true self — whole, beautiful, brilliant — we radiate this fullness, no matter what field we find ourselves in, and results happen. I’m not sure why results happen, but I suspect because we love what we are doing, our actions speak louder than our words, and our actions and our words come together from a loving place inside our heart. As that happens, we succeed; we can accomplish any task, any plan, any goal we set forth to do because we love. In love, we see fullness, much like a seed of corn or a mustard seed knows with certainty the plant it is sure to become.
Likewise, gentleness allows us to really feel when we are truly inspired — truly moved by inspiration. We act because we are moved to act rather than merely doing so simply because it is expected. As such, our action becomes an uplifting experience, much like the wind that lifts an Eagle in flight. It is not an eagle’s power that enables it to fly so gracefully. Instead, something silent and unseen satisfies its will to fly and soar and rise above every battle imaginable.
So it is with leadership. It’s an inside job. In my humble opinion, everyone wants to be of service, and everyone can be a servant. The trick is to be gentle enough and patient enough to feel how we want to serve and how we want to be of service. As we feel, we deal. And as we feel and deal, we heal because our serving nature is a healing act of universal nature. You see, giving and receiving are one. How we give and how we receive can be as kind and as gentle as grass or corn grows, showing the way to be more, to do more, and to love more, with a full cup and an open heart.
In closing, let us not forget it matters not the size of our cup. What matters is our heart — our servant heart — and how it feels as we serve, live, and love, honoring everything.
A Greater Victory (originally published with Lead Change Group)
Aug 6th
Earlier this week, Mike Henry graciously published this post on the Lead Change Group blog. Comments to date have been fabulous! You can find it, and the wonderful comments, here.
For the benefit of those unable to visit the Lead Change Group, “a peer-based open-source leadership community dedicated to applying character-based leadership around the globe to make a positive difference,” I take this opportunity to republish the post in its entirety.
~Pam Knox, Head Coach, Western Oregon
We all know leadership when we see it. The problem for most of us is this: we expect leadership greatness to look something like a CEO, the Chairman of the Board, or the President. We have somehow come to a place where leadership is commensurate with graybeards waxing long on the wisdom of the ages.
You are invited to view a clip that’s proof positive leadership is anything but old people (mostly men) telling everyone else what to do. You see, leadership never was about power, position, perks, prestige, or privilege. Instead, it’s always been about people, and it has always manifested itself as someone of character. Anne Frank said, “Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness.”
Mallory Holtman, the conference home run king, embodies this goodness. Her Central Washington softball team is behind in the second game of a double-header in a quest for the conference championship. As you may guess, there’s a lot at stake. Every decision matters, especially with their opponent at bat. On the second pitch in the top of the second inning of the second game with two runners on, Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky hits her first career home run. But there’s a problem. Only a true leader will do what Mallory does next.
Mallory and her Central Washington team went on to lose the game that day. But what they found will carry them — and all of the graybeards who realize just how much they have to learn from young & emerging leaders like Mallory — through a lifetime: leadership is love.
The next time we go looking for leadership, let us remember leadership without love is no leadership at all.
Make Gentle the Life of this World
Jul 27th
Today’s #servantheart quote is, “A servant heart makes gentle the life of this world.” As such, I wanted to share a few thots on the nature of leadership’s gentleness. What follows is the relevant text of a comment I recently left on a Servant Hearts post by Monica Diaz. She, too, spoke of Gentle Leadership. In her gracious words I found myself taken back to a time and place much in need of a strength of character capable of serving others with little or no thought of their own wants and desires, a time and place not unlike our own, a time and place much in need of the advice of the ancient Greeks.
Strength manifests itself in ways counter to our expectation. “Nothing is so strong as gentleness,” Ralph W. Sockman teaches us as he goes on to say, “nothing is so gentle as real strength.” We read of a similar sentiment in Han Suyin’s turn of phrase, “There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness.” As we look back across time, we begin to discern, first hand, what Leo Rosten meant when he expressed, perhaps with some level of sadness, “I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.”
It’s April 4, 1968. Senator Robert F. Kennedy had just began his campaign for the presidency a few weeks prior and was a front-running candidate of the Democratic Party. He is enroute to the Ghetto, one of the poorest areas of Indianapolis, Indiana. While on the plane, Robert received word that Dr Martin Luther King had been shot. Dr King dies before Robert Kennedy arrives in Indianapolis. Word of Dr King’s assassination had not yet been broadcast, and it fell to Robert Kennedy to inform the people of Indianapolis of this terrible news and the tragic loss to this country, indeed, to the world.
Robert Kennedy’s son, Max, who was three years old at the time of his own father’s assassination, later relates a remarkable story leading up to what has perhaps become one of the most poignant American speeches ever delivered. Driving into the Ghetto, Robert Kennedy’s police escort (and the car carrying Robert’s prepared speech) pulled away and refused to enter. Apparently, the Indianapolis chief of police warned Kennedy that the police could not provide adequate protection for the senator if the crowd were to riot, but Kennedy decided to speak to the crowd regardless. Standing on a podium mounted on flatbed truck in the midst of a very poor area of Indianapolis’ inner city, Kennedy spoke from his heart for just under five minutes.
He begins by telling them, “I have some very sad news for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.”
Did you feel the empathy in his voice, his love for humanity? Robert’s speech continues to tug on the heart strings of all who understand a leader’s role is not to place oneself upon a pedastal but, rather, lift others within reach of dreams of their own. That night, many felt as though the dream they shared with Dr King had died too. Robert Kennedy, in the short span of five minutes, showed people not only in Indianapolis but the world over, that Dr King’s dream — our dream — remained alive and was still within reach of those who held it dear. He tells them (and us), “Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort.”
Love. Wisdom. Compassion for one another.
Near the end of his speech, Robert reminds the audience of Dr King’s efforts to “… replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.” “What we need in the United States,” he tells them regarding this injustice against all people, “is not violence or lawlessness, but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.” Because our spirit of unity is at stake, Robert suggests we find the courage to “dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”
Robert Kennedy understood what it means to lead with the heart of a servant. He easily could have justified the cancellation of his appearance. After all, Dr King’s death was sure to instill vengeful hearts certain to rise up in unimaginable anger and riot (more than 180 riots that night across our great land), the police chief admittedly could not protect him, and his prepared speech never arrived. Instead, Robert knew what he had to offer resided in his heart, and he knew American citizens in Indianapolis and elsewhere needed a leader they could trust, a shepherd of sorts, a gentle giant of a man who would help them stand firm on moral ground and reach, once again, for the dream that was within them. History records the impact of Robert’s leadership: Indianapolis was the only major city in America that did not riot that night. Such is the influence of a servant leader.
It seems to me our world desperately needs more servant hearts with the courage to stand against the status quo, realizing a leader’s first love is serving the wants, needs, dreams, and aspirations of others.
It is certain our world could use a lot more gentleness.
It Takes a Servant Heart
Jul 23rd
William Arthur Ward said,
For me, thus describes the servant heart. Not in its totality perhaps, but in a well-balanced, general sense. You see, a servant heart must know when to be silent. Only then can it deeply listen. A servant heart is always eager to learn; feedback is diligently sought to help better prepare the servant heart for all that lies ahead. What lies ahead for the servant heart is opportunity — opportunity to serve. Service, of necessity, is a choice left up to each of us. When presented with that choice, a servant heart says, “Yes.” Sometimes, a servant heart is asked to do more, in large part because of the love they express in their service. When people see love as a natural extension of your service, they are most inclined to follow you where’er you go because they want to be near you and near the love you radiate. In time, that expression of love is naturally translated as leadership. Leadership without love, they learn, is no leadership at all.
You choose to serve. They choose you to lead. Such is the journey of a servant heart.
We at NorthFork want to bring more attention to servant hearts. And we want you to help us. It is our delight to open a discussion each day with the hope you will keep it going for days without end in areas of your life that encircle family, friends, school, places of worship, recreation, work and, of course, social media.
By launching a series of tweets (one tweet each day) that highlights one remarkable aspect of the servant heart, it is our wish to shine a small light on the servant heart. Each tweet in this series will begin with, “It takes a #servantheart …” From there, we hope you will re-Tweet it, share/tweet your own thoughts and experiences related to that particular aspect of a servant heart, introduce us to someone who possesses such a servant heart, recommend someone to #follow, share a blog post or video link that resonates with the day’s sentiment, tweet additional related quotes, and the like. To help us collect and share your wonderful thoughts and contributions, we ask you to use the hashtag #servantheart on each tweet. We, in turn, will find ways to conveniently share the joy of a servant heart with you in subsequent blog posts, live updates, etc.
What all of us, I believe, would like to see come from this outgrowth of community is action. We want folks to share what they learn with others. We want folks to take some of these thoughts and considerations out into the streets. That is to say, we want folks to find ways to explore the influence of a servant heart by preparing and serving in their own cities and towns. And we want you to report back so all of us can celebrate with you! You see, the world is in desperate need of servant hearts. We can talk about servant hearts all day but talking does precious little to feed the hungry, show compassion on the down-trodden, get water to the thirsty, visit those who are alone or afraid. A servant heart, well, serves.
Don’t forget. Look for the hashtag #servantheart. Better yet, don’t hesitate to send out a few #servantheart tweets of your own! Here’s our first one:
Please know we are deeply listening to you. Do drop by to tell us what servant hearts have been up to in your community. And let us know what we can do to help servant hearts around you, young and old alike, do even more.
The ‘Art’ of Leadership
Jul 15th
Thank you for dropping by! Thursdays are Servant Hearts day. Gracious leaders around the world guest post to NorthFork’s blog, A Servant’s Heart, sharing their fabulous insights regarding the serving nature of leadership. We’re delighted you’ve joined us. Be prepared for a variety of experience!
Today, we are happy to welcome John Paul. John is first and foremost a friend. He is also an artist with a great passion for photography. You can discover for yourself the Beauty that radiates from John and his work on his site, The Jeweledway. From time to time, John embarks on photographic excursions to remote places around the world. He refers to these enlightened expeditions as VisionQuests. Do join him sometime! When he is not busy with his life’s work, you are likely to find him doing his part to make our world a better place in his professional role as an IT Strategist. For John, love is the important thing and he sees all of us, all of humanity, as an ocean—an ocean of love.
Tapping into Servant Leadership
by John Paul
In the past, as I first began thinking about the process of making photographs, I became immersed in a quest for meaning. It started with a visual exploration of discovery wherein I tried to understand what was taking place in the process of making an image. The intent was to develop a watchful eye and set of techniques that could be relied upon repeatedly during the image-making process. This effort quickly evolved into a greater grasp of other forces at hand, working in mysterious ways to contribute to a final image and my understanding of it.
Somehow, unknowns would happen or “come together” that contributed to a peak experience for me in making images that celebrated, illuminated, and inspired greater seeing and the acquisition of truth. Through these experiences and the image-making of others, I have come to see this process as a key ingredient for creating great images. Sometimes these forces seemingly take on a life of their own, separate from the photographer who becomes merely an instrument of a higher creative self.
It is as if a force or other mind has orchestrated events as such that place you as an artist or, rather, a channel for the message that is to be conveyed. Art is an ever-flowing exchange of discovery and meaning that enfolds and unfolds knowledge in meaningful relationships. This meaning is different for each viewer and yet somehow meaningful. How Art conducts this mystery in such a broad way remains a mystery. It is like the multiplicity and complexity was designed in advance.
I see servant leadership in much of the same light. If we are to expect the photographer or the artist to create and define their art, we place too great a burden upon the individual to perform and, as such, things become contrived, insincere, or ineffective. So it is, too, with performance as a leader. There is a higher guiding element that, in a sense, selects a person as a leader, the type that is followed somehow magically by the multitudes. It is so uncanny that it seems like destiny has chosen the leader who is willing to select or take hold of the commission from a higher source.
We cannot contrive leadership, force its performance, or even claim it to be our own. Leadership is something that is brought upon us in such fashion that it carries the broad support of many and relates on a multiplicity of levels. In the TED video below, the poet sees her muse on a distant horizon and takes aim at claiming her work as it passes overhead. For me, this is the leadership that is authentic and so needed in our world. One does not choose leadership – it chooses you. Are you ready to accept the challenge when leadership chooses you?
A Mad World Masquerades
Jul 13th
Ever given much thought to YOUR world? You know, the one many of us tend to take for granted. Do you realize just how far its breadth and depth easily extend beyond our families, our neighborhoods, and our places of work? No longer does it merely reside in our places of worship, our villages, towns or cities, our country, or even our continent. It’s no longer tied to nationality or race. Your world and my world, more than ever before, have evolved from a world of ‘me’ to a world of ‘we.’ Its borders will not be contained within riches or religion, gender, geography, or generation. It is a world neither popular nor politic. Ours is a world much, much bigger than many realize. Yet it is refreshingly intimate and near.
It’s also a world under siege. Robert Greenleaf, who coined the phrase servant leadership as a contemporary measure of the serving nature of leadership, observed, “Awareness is not a giver of solace—it is just the opposite. It is a disturber and an awakener.” “Able leaders,” Greenleaf suggests, “are usually sharply awake and reasonably disturbed. They are not seekers after solace.” And, if the following state of affairs are any indicator, they are very much in demand. Just within the last 3 or 4 years, it’s been reported (Hawken’s Blessed Unrest, 2007) …
-
• The Dayak peoples of Borneo (more than 200 ethnic groups) face siltation, erosion, and destruction of their homeland from extensive clear-cutting of primary forests and water and crop pollution from oil companies
• The Ijaw and Ogoni people of Nigeria have seen the rich Niger River delta devastated by oil pipeline ruptures, air and water pollution, toxic wastes in their rivers and fisheries, and firs from the accidents and flaring of gas
• The Kogi of Colombia face extermination due to aerial spraying by U.S. planes of herbicide cocktails (Agent Green) designed to prevent the cultivation of coca, which the Kogi do not grow as a cash crop
• The Wapashani of Guyana are challenging patents on their native foodstuffs by multinational corporations
• The Garifuna of Honduras are protesting the construction of resorts and developments on expropriated land
• The San people in Botswana have been banished from their ancestral lands of 20,000 years, the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park and the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, in favor of tourism and diamond mining concessions, and now face extinction in resettlement camps
• The Lenca of Honduras are fighting an IMF-promoted law that allows for removal of indigenous people who live adjacent to mines and mineral deposits
• The Arhuaco of Colombia are subjected to guerilla warfare between paramilitaries, drug traffickers, and the Colombian army within their lands
• The Adnyamathanha Aborigines in the Flinders Range of Australia confront radiation spills from uranium mining
• In Chile and Argentina, Barrick Gold proposes an open-pit mine at Pascua Lama that will destroy portions of three different glaciers, literally blowing them up to uncover what will become a large open-pit gold mine at the headwaters of three rivers
• The Maasai are being displaced by large-scale, export-oriented agriculture in Tanzania
• The Bagyeli, Sara, Mass, Mundani, and Hakka people in Chad face oil wells, pipelines, and destruction of their way of life from petroleum exploration
• The Anuak faces upheaval and violence as the Ethiopian government makes way for oil exploration in their territories
• The Embera-Katio of Colombia have been displaced by the Urra Dam, which flooded their ancestral home
• The Gwich’in people in Alaska confront ongoing threats to drill in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge
• The people in northern Alberta (Cree, Athabasca, Chipewyan, and Dene) face proposals to build the world’s largest nuclear reactor to power expanded oil exraction from the Athabasca Oil Sands
• The World Bank and several international oil companies are financing a pipeline that cuts through the heart of Mindo Nabillo Cloudforest Reserve in Ecuador which is expected to precipitate oil drilling in the territories of the Seoya, Siona, and Cofan people
Similar stories are on the hearts and minds of people around the globe, from Morocco to Brazil, from Norway to … the United States of America.
Consider for a moment the tale-tale signs of oil exploration and drilling by large familiar corporations: contaminated soil, toxic waste pits and rivers (hydrocarbons, heavy metals, salts), air pollution, illegal logging, crime, and prostitution. Other signs include natural forest loss, permanent habitat conversion, fertilizer and chemical runoff, water pollution, carbon emissions, threats of species endangerment, loss, and extinction, wide-spread disease (cancers, skin lesions, breathing problems, malnutrition), violence, and heartbreak (e.g., the wellbore tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico). The biggest offenders are easy enough to discern (alphabetically): Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Russia, and the United States of America. Shall we now add Great Britain to the list? When weighed against indigenous sovereignty, “complex trade rules, corporate interests, and international agreements” easily strangle and dismantle legitimate resistance and tear deep into the very fabric of native cultures, natural habitats, and our children’s future.
Corporate and political privilege, position, and power tend to pursue and exploit globalization at any cost; there’s is a survival of the fittest mindset where coerced assimilation, indifference, cultural irrelevance, “civilized” domination, and patronization, especially if their pursuits are conducted in isolation in remote parts of our world, are an accepted way of life. For them. Is this leadership? Are we left with no recourse other than to complacently throw our collective arms in the air, apathetically compromising our values and conceding all that is right to the condemning actions of a ‘trusted’ few who abuse the privilege of power and position entrusted by the very same people they exploit, all for the sake of expediency?
The most salient issues of our day — water, hunger, poverty, deforestation, loss of language and culture, climate change, conservation, human rights, and education, among others — will not go away simply by wishing it so. And we cannot expect worn out places surrounded by worn out faces to quietly disappear simply by willing it so.
What are we to tell our children, and our children’s children?
Seems to me they are not looking to us for advice. They see one world, and they want us to take action, to be a positive role model, an example they can proudly emulate. The time is now, as I see it, to nurture servant hearts.
Indeed, the serving nature of leadership recognizes we possess the wherewithal and we have an opportunity to help make whole those with whom we come in contact; in 21st century terms, that ‘contact’ includes the use of sensing devices, satellites, video cameras, and the Internet. Villages in the remotest jungles now find a home in our neighborhood. In his essay, The Servant as Leader, Greenleaf writes, “There is something subtle communicated to one who is being served and led if, implicit in the compact between servant leader and led, is the understanding that the search for wholeness is something they share.” This general awareness and, more specifically, the leader’s self-awareness, strengthens one’s understanding of ethics, power, and values while lending itself to a more integrated, holistic position on pertinent matters of concern.
Left unaddressed, pertinent matters of concern can overwhelm us. Though many in our midst are drowning their sorrow for fear of no tomorrow, servant leadership undeniably offers great hope for the future in creating better, more caring, communities and organizations. Though daunting challenges generate urgent and compelling needs for people the world over, servant leadership puts forward heart and soul to correct, not create, convoluted conflict responsible for manipulating and intensifying man’s inhumanity to man. Though a global age imposes a reactionary will on so many who find themselves running in circles, servant leadership gives us reason to pause in celebration of servant hearts, standing stones who quietly lead through love, serve with gratitude, and graciously place others first. Servant leadership helps us find ‘greatness’ again, making whole all who sojourn with us.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
Emerging leaders, young and young at heart, arise! It no longer need be a very, very mad world.
“Mad World” Lyrics
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places,
Worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere,
Going nowhere
And their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression,
No expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow,
No tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cos I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad World
Mad World
Mad World
Mad World
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday,
Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen,
sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me,
No one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson
Look right through me,
Look right through me
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cos I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad World
Mad World
Mad World
Mad World
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cos I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad World
Mad World
A raunchy young World
Mad World
Leadership, in a Word
May 25th
I recently enjoyed the great pleasure of joining one of Jen Kuhn’s awesome conversations on her wonderful post, “Take Me to Your Leader.” What follows is some of what I had to say:
I submit leadership is not a thing. It is not a process. Nor is it a position (or positional authority). I would further submit leadership is not self-seeking, or self-serving. I’m not suggesting it ’shouldn’t be;’ I’m saying it cannot be these things.
For example, Hitler used strife in Europe after WWI to further his own goal of seizing power. Do we say Hitler was among the worst leaders of all time, or do we say Hitler was no leader at all? I know some would say he was a great leader, but for all the wrong reasons. Let’s see.
Is leadership about power, or people? If one says, leadership is about power, it becomes easy to discern a darker side of ‘leadership.’ It’s easier to see Hitler as a ‘leader.’ If leadership is about people, what we have instead is Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, among others, illustrating well for us the perils and pitfalls of power (e.g., hubris, nepotism, myopia, ineptitude, arrogance, and isolation). Power is not leadership, and these are not qualities we would ascribe to leadership, not even failed leadership. They do, however, describe a number of individuals in positions of authority.
I contend leadership cannot be about people AND power. Said differently, maintaining power over people is not leadership. One can maintain power; that’s not hard. But that’s not leadership either. However, it probably explains why a lot of wrong people are chosen for leadership roles.
Is relentless manipulation and cruel intimidation leadership? Is the extermination of those who disagree with you leadership? Is the use of violence leadership? Is dictatorship leadership? Can leadership ever emerge from a regime of terror?
Is one who lords over another their leader? Is control leadership? Is manipulation, political or otherwise, leadership? Is coercion leadership?
If we are met with conquest, are we led? If we are subjugated, are we led? If we are mastered, are we led?
What is leadership? Think about everyone you just ruled out. What’s left?
Let me suggest leadership is relationship; it’s a journey shared by those who choose to be led and those they choose to lead them. Mark Frankel puts it this way: leadership “is in part a moment, a chance opportunity, when someone steps forward and says, ‘This way, follow me.’ But, we find that once the moment passes, the leader just as often steps back and allows others to lead. The notion of moment assumes context; there must be people to lead, a need for leadership, and someone capable of leading.” I would add, it is up to the people to determine just who, in their hearts, has the capability to lead them. Marc goes on to say, leadership “is largely about understanding and connecting.”
John C. Maxwell teaches, “The measure of a leader is not the number of people who serve the leader, but the number of people served by the leader.” Leadership doesn’t just happen. “Leadership,” according to Marian Anderson, “should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.” “Only when service for a common good is the primary purpose,” suggests Sheila Murray Bethel, “are you truly leading.” Otherwise, she says, “If leadership serves only the leader, it will fail.”
Kouzes and Posner point out, “Leaders do not focus on satisfying their own aims and desires; they respond to needs, interests of [others].” George Barna, a contemporary research scholar, reminds us leadership “is not about position, power, popularity, or perks; it’s about servanthood.” Native American wisdom can help us here. The Cherokee say, “To lead is to serve ….” Their Kiowa brothers and sisters put it this way: “A leader is a servant of the people.”
So, why lead? Seems to me the fulfillment of leadership is the gratification of knowing that all of your efforts paid off in helping other people. Indeed, some of the best leaders are those that lead by being led. Perhaps that’s because a leader needs the people more than the people need the leader. Why? Because leadership, in a word, is love, and leadership without love is no leadership at all.
