Practices that Leader-Facilitators of Change Cultivate & Grow Within Ourselves to Keep Going
Some people have dance, some music or visual art. Some have theater, writing or even video game development. But our creative expression comes through the medium of leadership toward social change.
For you, that may mean leading an organization, network, association or agency.
For you, that may mean leading an intermediary, district, coalition or initiative.
For you, that may mean leading yourself amidst complex systems, relationships and policies.
Our commonality is that we all care deeply about young people. And our work is to support adults so they can better support young people, families and communities.
We do our work with integrity–being in the world the way we tell adults to be with young people. The way we want young people to be in the world, too. We embody what appear to be very simple, everyday interactions, knowing they can actually be powerful, rippling exponentially beyond what we will ever be able to assess.
We live in widening circles.
“I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it.“ ~Rainier Maria Rilke
While some days hold instant gratification like a nodding head, a “hell yeah” or <finally> a grant approval, those are not the norm. We embrace the long term investment that we make day in, day out. That is actually what keeps us going–our belief
No, belief is not the right word. Our knowing.
Our felt sense of knowing is what keeps us going. We know in our hearts, in our full bodies, that the work we do matters.
If even for only one person.
And that one person affects one young person.
And that is a seed that will grow and flower. Then, like a dandelion, all it takes is a gentle breeze for that care to burst forward and take root elsewhere.
I really do think it starts with our own simple, everyday interactions.
And how we choose to be within those interactions. Meaning what, exactly? Ah, glad you asked.
As leaders or facilitators of change, [leader-facilitators?] we cultivate and practice qualities within ourselves that help us make intentional connections with the adults we support. We practice:
Presence: being grounded, self-aware and embodied which makes us available to
Possibility: being open, receptive and willing to be surprised which make us available to
Power: being able recognize and elevate the inherent greatness in ourselves and others which makes us available to
Pleasure: being able to find joy and hope–even in the most difficult situations which makes us available to persevere.
Meg Wheatley describes leaders like this, leaders like you as those who persevere no matter what. She says:
Every single one of them is grounded in an ethic that puts people at the center of all decisions and actions. Their unshakable faith in human capacity is continually rewarded by acts of creativity, generosity, and compassion from those they lead.
(That’s you. I know it is.)
We persevere because we care deeply about young people. We care deeply about people and treating humans as human beings.
Let me be clear–our perseverance is not saviorism or even altruism, nope.
It is sanity.
“Sanity is in treating people, as the great activist Grace Lee Boggs said, as human human beings.” ~Meg Wheatley
It is logic.
"The essential thing was to save the greatest number of people from dying….And to do this there was only one resource: to fight the plague. There was nothing admirable about this attitude; it was only logical." ~Albert Camus, The Plague
“In our case, I think, our case as educators, one of the essential things . . . is to overcome carelessness, thoughtlessness, and indifference to the best of our abilities--and to refuse mere compliance with what is.” Maxine Greene, Countering Indifference–The Role of the Arts
It is relationship.
Consider your small, everyday interactions as a shared experience, a gift that “establishes a feeling-bond between two people, while the sale of a commodity leaves no necessary connection.” ~Lewis Hyde, The Gift, 56
It is reciprocity.
“It’s about giving of one’s time, treasure and talent, and existing in a state of reciprocity – just because – you love others and you do for others because you know that they would do that same thing for you.” ~Edgar Villanueva, Decolonizing Wealth
I view our work—the work of leadership, facilitation, capacity building—as an art. I also view our work through Edgar Villanueva’s vision as a medicine, a way to heal and repair what has been destroyed.
Our simple interactions, our everyday interactions are opportunities to engage with our art, and to offer our medicine. As we center others, we create a culture of mutual reciprocity that sees all people as human and deserving.
Together with our participants and alongside young people, we create spaces that build power. And that power creates space for the much needed possibility and potential to improve the world.