Evan Renaerts

The Leader’s Invitation

October 16, 2007

The leaves on the trees bordering our city streets glowed orange and yellow in this morning’s crisp, brilliant sunshine and then, as though with the wave of a wand, blue sky turned gray and warm air became cool, then cold, and finally the rain began.

A recurring question in this work that I do is the “true” understanding of leadership; does it mean to take charge and give direction, to charismatically stand out in front for others to follow, to support and nurture, to lead alongside of the others or even to step back and “do nothing.” And the answer, of course, is yes – to all of those definitions and to still more.

The most dynamic understanding of leadership for me is that it is an energy, a current, power or force that flows in to the moment in accordance with the context of that particular moment. From moment to moment the sum total of conditions changes and so does the kind of leadership that is needed.

In this understanding leadership doesn’t automatically belong to any one person but is accessible to all who are willing to embody the energy. The world from this perspective is seen as alive, fluid and in a continuous flux of change. Here a key component of leadership is the readiness and openness to flow quickly from one set of operational realities to a radically different set.

You might say that this is leadership as dictated by reality rather than in accordance with the latest “hot” leadership theory. At the same time this fluid style is amongst the oldest and most intuitive forms of leadership in self-organizing groups from tribal to agrarian across the globe.

With the advent of the Cartesian worldview and the industrial revolution there emerged a belief in a mechanistic and predictable world and from that a mechanistic or systematized approach to leading. In this mode of understanding the world, nature and resources are seen as unchanging, abiding by scientific rules, and profoundly separate from us humans.

In the short term this perspective and the leadership it spawns can produce significant and even beneficial results – everyone gets where they wanted to go and on time too, it’s just that they may ultimately have ended up in a place that is very different from what they imagined. In current terms this is referred to as the law of unintended consequences (it seemed like a good idea when we started out).

Today as the global pace of change leaps exponentially and as we become more “connected” with ourselves the truth of life’s complexity is becoming harder to overlook. Every decision, every choice point is nested within an infinity of potential consequences; how can anyone know enough to make truly good long-term decisions?
Perhaps the great invitation for today’s leaders, and for all of us, is to realize and acknowledge the magnitude of what we do not know. Starting with what we don’t know can create an openness to see reality as it is, rather than reality as we prefer to see it.

Evan Renaerts
604 314 0835
evan@evanrenaerts.com

posted by Evan Renaerts at 18:53