Your leadership is Needed

The phrases "your leadership is needed," and "thank you for leadership," have been tossed around so much they went from being meaningful, to being a joke, to not even being funny anymore. But there's something there.

Anti-Authoritarian Leaders
What we looked at in our final sessions was what it means to be a leader and how to call forth the leadership in each and every person. In anti-authoritarian circles, there is this desperation to assert - there are no leaders! We are all equal.  But as Chris Crass's article, "But We Don't Have Leaders" points out by evaluating tendencies within Food Not Bombs, this claim masks the truth that some people are leading, and not being able to identify the leaders shields them from accountability as well as hinders other people from seeing how to step up their own involvement. It also prevents other people from truly being able to share the responsibilities of leadership.

Betita Martinez says "As organizers, we need to reject the idea of leadership as domination, but without denying the existence and need for leadership. Denial can lead to a failure to demand accountability from our leaders. That demand must be embraced, along with anti-authoritarian methods, in leadership development. Accountability takes the measure of a person's responsibility; it means being accountable to one's fellow organizers, to the goals of one's collectivity, and ultimately to the people one claims to serve."

What is suggested instead, is the recognition that all people have the potential to be leaders and that organizations work best when many people are taking leadership in different areas - and then sharing skills and rotating those leadership positions.  A key here is the skills sharing.  I have come to see that the skills I possess in certain areas are actual resources that I need to share with others.  That my real job, if I want to move from being an activist to being an organizer, is not to take on a project and do it because I'm the one who best knows how to do it, but to train someone else to be able to take on that project. We need to shift the expectation and the culture from "Just do it" to "Each one, teach one."

The idea here is COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP.  We looked at the model developed by Sista II Sista as they stepped away from non-profit structure and into a volunteer-run collective focused on developing leadership among their communities.  They say "Although we do not promote individual leaders, we recognize the uniqueness of every individual involved.  Our experiences continue to show us that real and long-lasting change comes through collective leadership and struggle."  There are clear leadership circles within the organization - for accountability and clarity of responsbility - but people are rotated in and among those circles of leadership as new people are trained and encouraged.

Another key is encouragement.  It is egging people on to step into something (and then providing support and training when they do!). It is listening to what they want to do, and telling them that they can do it, then helping them figure out how. It is building the confidence of others! And this doesn't always happen in a formal way, it can happen all the time within a friendship or authentic relationship.  That work counts!

Heres are a couple definitions of a leader:
* A leader helps everyone understand that their role is necessary.
* A leader is someone who takes someone else somewhere they wouldn't have gone alone.

Leadership Styles

A fun thing we did is look at this article on Leadership Styles, learn about the variety of ways that people lead others, and graph our own leadership style out. I encourage you to do it!  The styles that are laid out are:

• Idealist - the person who keeps clarity of the ideals that motivate the work
• Mentor - the person who focuses on developing the leadership of others via coaching, etc
• Achiever - the person who focuses on getting the team to get tasks done
• Innovator - the person who brings new ideas and methods into the group
• Synthesizer - the person who analyzes the situation and sees patterns
• Partner - the person who likes to team up with peers to do things together
• Enthusiast - the person who infuses energy into the group and keeps people excited about the group's mission
• Advocate - the person who will do anything to keep the group staying true to the group's mission and getting everyone involved
• Diplomat - the person who are genuinely wise about working with people and their various needs, mediating, and respecting individuals

10 Key Commitments of Leadership:

Challenging the Process
1. Search out challenging opportunities to change, grow, innovate, and improve
2. Experiment, take risks, and learn from the accompanying mistakes

Inspiring a Shared Vision
3. Envision an uplifting and ennobling future
4. Enlist others in a common vision by appealing to their values, interests, hopes, and dreams.
Enabling Others to Act
5. Foster collaboration by promoting cooperative goals and building trust
6. Strengthen people by giving power away, providing choice, developing competence, assigning critical tasks, and offering visible support.
Modeling the Way
7. Set the example by behaving in ways that are consistent with shared values.
8. Achieve small wins that promote consistent progress and build commitment.
Encouraging the Heart
9. Recognize individual contributions to the success of every project.
10. Celebrate team accomplishments regularly.

Inspiration
Jacob, a participant in the program said, and I paraphrase, : If you want to build a ship, you don't just ask people to help you put lumber together, you strive to make them long for the endless beauty of the sea.