“Leaders must take responsibility for their shadows – the unseen and unacknowledged parts of them that trap potential,” says Robin Alfred, New Story Summit Co-facilitator and Chief Executive of the Findhorn Consultancy Service.
Change the Story, Change the World
The Findhorn New Story Hub is an initiative of the Findhorn Foundation: Scotland, UK, IV36 3TZ. Registered charity number: SC007233
I have been thinking a lot about “leaders”… We call leaders men and women who do top jobs in the hierarchy. Sometimes they are the most enlightened figures, and the wisest ones, and should indeed lead us all. But many times they are the most ambitious, which is why they got the job, or the most competitive, or their face fits the corporate image, or they made the fewest waves… There are many paths to the top job, and it doesn’t mean by any chance that a person doing it is a leader. Or should be. Or can be.
But another thing is that everything that is said in this article about leaders and their baggage applies to all human beings, there is nothing in there that is specifically applicable to the ‘leaders’. Does it mean that they are simply human beings too – in which case, why would we listen to them and they wouldn’t to us? (which is pretty normal occurrence in hierarchies).
In my experience, hierarchies lock most people ‘under’ the top job person into having to agree with them, for better or worse. Which means that a lot of people in hierarchies spend their lives not thinking or feeling properly, which is a huge amount of human potential lost. To free people to think and feel, Open the Space and sit together with them in a circle and not at the top of the pyramid. (see Open Space Technology)
On the subject of baggage, absolutely right. It creates a lot of problems on top of all other problems, and it needs to be dealt with and let go of. I think about it as “know thyself”, which means know your own motivation etc, which is what the article says too. But how to let go of it? And when?
We need to introduce some kind of something into the lives of all of us, so that this letting go of baggage becomes a normal part of our lives. A ritual or rite of passage or… I don’t know exactly what, or how. Schools are not useful in this sense, as the time to do this work is well past the school age. Churches are largely abandoned. Communities (and even families) not functioning very well. So… what to introduce and how? Or should we just introduce the idea and leave it to each person to work out the when and the how for themselves?
Any thoughts?