Developing a new sense of leadership

By Jeanette Stanfield

Since the Nepal Conference in 2012, a team continues to dialogue online with the mandala of growing a new sense of leadership. I am sharing a few of my reflections after working with the team this past year.

Janet Sanders shared this image of the mandala.  “It is a road map of what new leadership capacities when woven together might look like.  We recognize that we must grow a new type of leader for the complex times that we live in today.”

The mandala reflects both the internal and external capacities needed for a new sense of leadership to grow within us and to be practiced every day.

The leadership compass in The Courage to Lead workshops is my standing place as I work with the Mandala.  Other members of the team are engaged with ToP methods and Social Artistry. We combine approaches depending on the situation.  These three approaches develop both internal and external capacities of leadership.  The guides and facilitators of The Courage to Lead and ToP are skilled in verbal reflection processes. Social artistry practitioners are particularly skilled in non-verbal processes. What other approaches are you practicing which develop these capacities?   

Since I am working with the leadership compass in The Courage to Lead, I will share the internal and external questions raised in that work. Perhaps others will share their practices at another time.

I find that the four questions of the compass are very important.

The internal questions are: 
            Where do I find meaning in everyday life?
            How do I keep learning from my experience,
                        and trust my own inner wisdom?   

The external questions are: 
            In what context do I make decisions?
            What role do I want to play in the change process in
                        society, work, community and family?

During the last course I facilitated, a young woman came up to me and said, “When I came to this class there was so much chaos in my life.  Now I feel grounded and able to be effective again. ”  

In the evaluations, people talked about their new found ability to be open to the opinion of others and to welcome their wisdom , the power of self conscious reflection, the challenge of making comprehensive decisions, and the practice of using the leadership compass to look at how they relating to life, self, the world and society. 

Perhaps, the mandala of A New Sense of Leadership is really a call, almost an announcement of a new sense of leadership being born in our time. Eventual products may include online events and practices.  Maybe humorous You Tube clips, tweets and cartoons will emerge.  I welcome your suggestions.

The old sense of leadership - of power and position - of course is very strong in all of us.  Supporting and encouraging people to operate from a new place is an ongoing challenge.

Spiral Dynamics by Beck and Cowan is part of the dialogue. What does this new sense of leadership look like in the different levels of the spiral? Does it even speak to people operating in early levels?

In the case of The Courage to Lead, is growing a new sense of leadership only relevant to people who have decided to be social pioneers or transestablishment or can those who have chosen to play establishment or disestablishment roles grow in a new sense of leadership?

If we answer “Yes” to the last two questions, then our challenge is how we “announce” and engage diverse people in calling forth this new sense of leadership. For those steeped in this new sense, practising it when complex issues arise, when passion is strong, or when time is limited is a continuing challenge. I know this is true for me. 

I encourage everyone to share experiences of growing this new sense of leadership via e-mail to Janet Sanders (janetasanders@hotmail.com).

Jeanette Stanfield is a member of ICA Associates: Canada