In Parker Palmer's seminal work The Courage To Teach, he points out that conversations on teaching focus mostly on the 'what's' of teaching, i.e. the subjects of teaching, a little on the 'how's' of teaching, and even less on the 'why's' of teaching. But the missing aspect, according to Palmer, is the discussion of the 'who' of leadership.
By this Palmer means that one of the most complex and dynamic aspects of teaching goes altogether unexamined - the inner life of the teacher. And, he strongly asserts, the various efforts to reform education fail in large part to the reduction or all-out refusal of communities, administrators, and teachers to acknowledge the importance of a teacher's inner life.
As a result, emphasis is placed on classroom practices, subject material, learning evaluation, and reductive attempts at accountability. All the while, teachers are mocked, insulted, blamed, and too often ignored as full humans.
As Palmer sees it, "we teach who we are", but rarely stop to ask the question, "who is the self that teaches?" For that reason, it's important to ask, who is being projected onto our students?
The parallels in community leadership are strong, although with significant differences.
Leadership also suffers from an obsession with the 'what's' of practice. Answering the question, "leader of what?" is a common starting place for development of leaders. Certainly the 'how's' of leadership also get plenty of attention in the form of techniques and best practices. This sort of learning usually pass for deep analysis in leadership development.
More so, the 'why's' of leadership are nearly altogether ignored. Usually the 'why' of leadership is attributed to the cause, or 'what' of leadership. That is, 'why' we lead is due to an apparent self-explanatory reference to the 'what' we are leading toward. (I am a leader in homelessness prevention - an obviously important thing to be). The more compelling the case for the what, how, and why, the more resources and people are mobilized.
But the 'who' of leadership suffers from a slightly different kind of neglect than the 'who' of teaching. The 'who' of leadership often flows from cults of personality, hero worship, or a sense of special capability. Rarely does a leader stop to ask, who is the 'self that leads?'
When we say at Looking Bear Leadership that "Leadership starts from within", we are insisting on a rather countercultural way of looking at the subject. We are saying that leadership springs up from self-knowledge, critical reflection, and humility before our own complexity.
That is fundamentally different from leadership that is defined only by the knowledge of techniques, reductive best practices, and level of charisma a person possesses. Instead, we are insisting on a deep reflection upon the inner complexities from which leadership emerges.
The 'who' of leadership is very much at the heart of Looking Bear Leadership. The desire is to marry the 'who' to the 'what's', 'how's', and 'why's' of leadership through one-on-one coaching, organizational consulting, and small group convening.
Admittedly, this focus can feel indulgent in the face of our communities' urgent needs. The surprise we find when we start with the 'who' is that we emerge more grounded, more effective, more resilient, and more confident as we engage our shared challenges.
In this we find another one of the paradoxes of community leadership - that urgency requires patience, not as an excuse for slowness, but as a catalyst for transformation.
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