A great quote from Dr Margaret Wheatley helps us tie together the strands of value we’ve been discussing so far. Dr Wheatley says this:
“Leadership is a series of behaviours not a role for heroes.”
…and we’ve all met a few heroes, haven’t we?
The last 6 episodes explored how value is conceived – essentially around people and behaviour. We’ve explored:
1. Valuing HONESTY – start with the truth, without which nothing.
2. Valuing TRANSPARENCY – the whole truth, not just the bits that suit our positioning, or cherry picking the evidence for the paths we favour.
3. Valuing MINDFULNESS - not in the meditative sense but being mindful of the whole. Our every thought, word and deed has influence. Be mindful - we matter more than we think.
4. Valuing COLLABORATION – If we want the world to be better than we left it, we must build the capacity to working artfully with others to make (big) things happen.
5. Valuing ACCOUNTABILITY - Not in the behaviourist sense of knowing who to blame; but in the spirit of collective mutualism in working artfully together - that we DO WHAT WE SAY WE WILL DO; and that if things change in the process (as they will where ambiguity and complexity are present) we maintain accountability to start back at 1) be honest about things that are not working out and transparent about what else you now see as a better path. And so to…
6. Valuing RESPECT - Things will go wrong, so when people act accountably and tell you this, or they bring a counterpoint from a different level of perspectival and participatory knowing, show respect for them. The consequences of NOT showing respect will be found in regression to a behaviourist paradigm where truth and transparency are the first casualties.
What I failed to say in the video that’s important is that RESPECT is the place to START not finish this conception of value in people.
This is a simple conception of value in people. Leadership behaviour is all about people. A relevance applicable recursively from individual to international agency.
Only when we realise this, might we get to a position where any crisis including the meta crisis can be resolved, with agency, when each of us becomes INVESTED in the other, encouraging, caring, and enjoying other’s success as if it were our own.
In a complex world we are all students. We can change society one student at a time and, shift society at scale within a generation.
I’d love to see that happen in the time left of my life.
Take care. Have a great week.
Richard
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