Tag Archives: leader

Wisdom in Action

Common Cause: Climate Justice

By Rick Fullerton | Bio

On my way to a candlelight vigil for climate justice, I wondered who else would show up. It was minus 5 Celsius and with the wind chill it felt like minus 25—bitterly cold by any measure. Hardly a day to be concerned about global warming. Yet some 200 committed souls braved the cold—some on foot, some on bicycles, and others (reluctantly) by car. By the time I arrived, the vigil organizers had thankfully decided to move the event inside. Once out of the cold wind, I was impressed by the strange bedfellows who had come together to express their commitment to the future of the planet.

The event’s ad hoc planning group represented many faith groups, but this was not your typical ecumenical gathering of various Christian denominations. Leaders in this service of reflection were Canada’s aboriginal first nations, Jews, Pagans, Muslims, Christians, Unitarians, and Buddhists. Clearly, the vision of a sustainable future was sufficiently broad and inclusive to attract people of many faith traditions.  

The service itself blended periods of quiet reflection

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Leadership

Second-Guessing

By Jim Selman | Bio

Over the past few years, I have written about how life in our society is increasingly becoming a ‘spectator sport’. I am again reminded of this as I listen to week after week of pundits second-guessing President Obama and other leaders as if their points of view are a) true, b) somehow contributing to a civil public discourse, and c) honest and not contrived to produce controversy or provoke conflict and drama. I am not naïve: I am aware that the media is in the business of creating and satisfying audiencesand that drama, conflict and controversy sell more than relatively straight-forward information. Personally, I’ve managed to disconnect from the mainstream media channels about 90%, but even so the conversations are persuasive whether we’re getting them first or second-hand. If my observation about all of us is valid that we’re becoming spectators rather than being active participants in the democratic process, then the question becomes what can we do about it? As an example, a majority of us voted for a President and before the ink was dry we began to hear daily ‘score cards’ about his ‘popularity’ and is he doing a good or a bad job. Mostly we’re second-guessing his decisions and undermining his (or anyone’s) capacity to lead. Imagine what it would be like if you got married and then had a daily report by all your neighbors of how the marriage was going and how you were doing as a spouse. Either you’d have to stop listening or you’d end up reacting to the feedback to the point where you are a pawn of public opinion and no longer an actor in the relationship. I admire any leader’s capacity to balance sage advice and counsel from those committed to making things work and their ability to ‘screen’ out all the ‘devil’s advocates’ who have no other commitments than to destroy whatever possibilities may exist for change and/or to forward their own points of view.  Lately there is a back-and-forth argument about whether the President is being tough enough on Wall Street. Frankly, I don’t know what his longer-term game plan is, but I would bet the story isn’t finished. He is fighting wars on a dozen fronts. He must pick his battles. He must be strategic. If any president were to declare war on Wall Street, it is not clear who will win and, as has been the case with healthcare, we will, in all likelihood, lose the opportunity to correct and clean up the mess we’ve created.

There is very little (if any) benefit to second-guessing our leaders. If we have personal priorities and requests, there are lots of ways for them to be communicated. There are lots of forums for discourse and debate that are not daily ‘spectacles’.
 
We remember the story of Emperor Nero watching Rome burn. We forget that, for years before it burned, the population was drawn to the Coliseum to watch the gladiators live or die. They voted on the life

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Leadership

Where Is a Genie When You Need One?

By Jim Selman | Bio

There is a widely understood belief in Argentina’s culture that “the way we are is a big part of the problem … and one of our characteristics is that we’re always waiting for a leader to come along and save us.” The first time I heard this I was giving a talk to a large event in Buenos Aires. A man stood up and challenged my ‘American optimism’, suggesting that I just didn’t understand the way things really were in ‘their’ country. My response was to acknowledge that this may be true and to suggest that, since they were all waiting for the leader to appear, perhaps he could take the job until the leader came along. That got a chuckle or two and drove home my point. We live as if the causes and the solutions to our problems are somehow outside of ourselves and that they are beyond our ability to resolve. This view of the world inevitably leads to resignation—giving up—and has us drift into a kind of spectator relationship to life and the future.

I make the same point in a different way in my Leadership in Action workshops. I usually begin by asking participants what they would to say to a ‘Genie’ if that magical being promised to grant them one wish to change something in their organization. I am always a little surprised to hear people’s innocuous and tiny wishes (such as better communication, more cooperation between departments, more straight talk, more trust and so on). Not that these aren’t

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The Great Turning

Compassion for the Leader

By Jim Selman | Bio

It is interesting reading the Buenos Aires Herald this week. It is a 130-year-old newspaper written in English filled with Argentinian issues and perspectives on topics often having to do with what’s going on in the USA. There have been two or three articles a day about the new Administration.

One thing that seems to be showing up (and that I suspect is true in the North American press as well) is that the pundits are now falling into the ‘spectator mode’ and starting

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Leadership

Obama

I am more than happy to see Obama back on his game and in what looks like the homestretch in what has been a grueling horserace—for the candidates and the public. I am committed to Obama because I believe, along with a lot of other people, that he is sincere in his commitment to unite the nation and that he has demonstrated his capacity to stand for something beyond politics-as-usual. I have said on more than one occasion how sad it’s been to watch the fracture of our nation and our communities

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Leadership

Obama

Barack Obama’s speech to the United States and the world last week moved me more than any political oratory I can recall. It wasn’t just the content of the speech I found moving but the quality of human being that he showed us—a man willing to take a stand for his convictions and tell the truth about a subject that has been an ‘elephant head on the table’ for decades. He will have my vote and whatever the maximum financial contribution allowed is to support his campaign.

I was also impressed

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Leadership

Being a Trimtab

By Shae Hadden | Bio

With each passing day, it seems as if every environmental and social crisis we’re facing is heading into even more dangerous waters. In the conversations I’ve been having, it has been quickly apparent to me who is resigned about this state of affairs and who is engaged and in action. Although the latter group appears to me (for the moment) to be in the minority, I’m reminded of Buckminster Fuller’s concept of the ‘trimtab factor’ and of the potential influence a

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Personal Empowerment

You Make Me Who I am

By Don Arnoudse
Bio

I read a very sad story about Richard W. Daly, a former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, in the Boston Globe last week. Under the headline “Legislator faded away, died alone” was the report that he had been found next to his bed by his landlord. He had been dead about a week. The Globe reported: “He
was a 32-year-old freshman legislator, impeccably dressed in a
pinstripe suit, crisp button-down shirt, and bow tie, when he strode
through the halls of the State House almost 40 years ago…. Those who
knew Daly then have been remembering that part of his life as they
prepare to bury a man who apparently left no money for his own funeral
and had no known relatives to claim his body…a virtual recluse (who had
been) living in a $130-a-week rooming house."

We
live in a country that deifies the hardy, self-sufficient
individual—the person who asks for nothing, owes nobody anything, and
“does it their own way” without compromising to others. We have
extended our legal definition of individual rights to an overall
definition of what it means to be human. Bad mistake.

My friend Mark introduced me to the traditional African concept of ubuntu, a very different philosophy that focuses on people’s

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Leadership

If I Were a Leader

I’ve been musing about David Suzuki’s campaign some more…. If I were leader of a major nation, I think I’d be overwhelmed by all the input from every imaginable camp, not to mention the politics of decision-making and the drift toward ‘governance by poll’. I don’t think there is a centralized institution in the world capable of taking on all the items that need to be addressed in the timeframes that

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Personal Empowerment

Not Old Enough

I was speaking with a woman today, probably in her late 20s, who works for the Public Service in Canada. She is a graduate of one of top colleges and presumably someone the government doesn’t want to lose. She has a both a big vision for change and a seriously self-limiting conversation about what she is and is not able to accomplish in a big bureaucracy at her age. In the absence of a change in her internal conversation about her future, she will probably leave the Public Service early and

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