Revisiting Leadership [2]

Revisiting Leadership [2]

Over twenty years of research and study has persuaded me that much of our present understanding of leadership is somewhat flawed. It certainly lacks both philosophical and empirical rigour and is beset with contradictions that tend to lessen the possibility of any positive consequence that the exercise of leadership could bring to our communities, businesses and organisations.

Mention ‘leadership’, and the word invariably evokes images of leaders, boards of management, heads of industry as well as leading political figures etc. Following more that twenty years researching leadership, and particularly social, business and organisational leadership, I have arrived at the conclusion that any concept of ‘leadership’ that is intrinsically linked to ‘leaders’ or to ‘management’, is essentially flawed, and therefore of little, or no, benefit regarding sustainable success.

I suppose my real concern is about the lack of common-sense relating to much of our present use, or indeed misuse, of the concept of leadership, a concept whose heritage goes back thousands of years before the dawn of management speak.

The origins of the word leadership are closely associated with the word path, and the leader, or more correctly, the elders not so much directed as accompanied others on their journey through life. Here, the exercise of leadership was very much allied to having the knowledge and understanding, along with the empathy necessary when people felt lost and sometimes frightened, or when they thought the journey too difficult and maybe so long that the sustaining aims and objectives of the group became difficult to hold onto, and thus were in danger of becoming unreachable.

At such times the elders inspired enthusiasm, articulated the common aims of the group and kept the goals alive so that those tasks that needed to be achieved in order to survive were indeed accomplished.

Meanwhile, the exercise of leadership provides a sense of direction, a focus, it also permeates the entire enterprise with values, purpose and integrity for the ‘why’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ of improvement. It could be further argued that without the exercise of leadership learning, and certainly shared-learning, is much impaired. In addition, the exercise of leadership allows communities, businesses and organisations to act early in accommodating necessary change. It also mobilizes positive elements of human interaction.

The Leadership and Learning Pathways (LLP) posts will resume in mid-September 2011

Revisiting Leadership [1]

People seem to agree that leadership is something worthwhile. The problem is that there exists numerous theories and ideas about what leadership is all about. Leadership ‘experts’ and gurus seem to have their own individual ‘theory’ regarding leadership. Indeed, there are so many variant views on what leadership is, or means, that the term itself is rendered practically meaningless.

You could say that the idea of leadership has lost its power in the welter of ‘management speak’ as well as in political and organisational jargon. Leadership and Learning Pathways (LLP) sees as one of its principle tasks as rescuing leadership from the purveyors of the latest management fads, and as Simon Caulkin writing in some time ago in the ‘Observer Business’ sector states: “The question is: Is it leadership they are referring to? And although they probably think so, nevertheless it is highly unlikely. They are confusing leadership with management, or authority, in the sense of having control over others.”

The exercise of leadership is not prone to the whims or understandings of individuals or groups. Instead, it is a particular way of going about things. It is not susceptible to changing interpretations, to fashion. Leadership is not intrinsically linked with individual values and beliefs. It is about the totality, the oneness of social and organisational life. If it is not understood as such its positive impact in bringing about necessary change is certainly diminished.

Any discussion of leadership must be based on four interlocking pillars of human understanding. They are the philosophical, psychological, empirical and the common-sense. From the philosophical perspective one must endeavour to ensure that the word ‘leadership’ has clarity, coherence, is free of any ambiguity, or contradiction, and reflects a meaning that has universal accord. It must reflect the nature of man thus must be based on our best understanding of what it is to be human. It must also take account of the nature of the world we inhabit, and it must be based in common sense corresponding to the world we live and work in. Otherwise, it is just a word devoid of meaning, of power, of the capability to change for the better the lives of people, their societies and organisations.

 

Natural Rights : Part 4

Possible ‘articles’ relating to “Natural Rights”

Article 1.

• As with the “Human Rights”, nature via the “Natural Rights” must be treated with respect and dignity.

Article 2.

• Nature, as with humankind, has the right to life.

Article 3.

• Nature shall not be subjected to human greed and indifference.

Article 4.

• Nature has the right to recognition as the source of human life.

Article 5.

• Nature and humankind are equal before the law of survival and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of that law.

Article 6.

• Nature shall not be subjected to arbitrary exploitation in order to appease human greed.

Article 7.

• Nature has the right to the protection just as much as humankind.

Article 8.

• Nature is the natural and fundamental provider of life, including human life, and is entitled to protection by society and the State, as well as the individual, or groups of individuals.

Article 9.

• Nature shall not be arbitrarily deprived of its right to survive.

Natural Rights, or the Rights of Nature is the recognition and honoring that Nature has rights. It is the recognition that trees, oceans, animals, mountains have rights just as human beings have rights. Rights of Nature is about balancing what is good for human beings against what is good for other species, what is good for the planet as a world. It is the recognition that all life, all ecosystems on our planet are deeply intertwined.

The Leadership and Learning Pathways website http://www.leadershipandlearningpathways.co.uk will be relaunched mid-September 2011

Natural Rights : Part 3

In relation to natural rights, recognition of the inherent life-giving property of nature is the foundation, not only human life but of all life on the planet. Whereas disregard for nature has, and continues to have, a destructive impact on the very life that sustains human existence.

It is essential, that is if we wish humankind is to continue to exist on earth, that nature is fully acknowledged and respected as the nourisher of all Peoples on the Earth now, and in the future. Thus the rights of nature, as of the Earth itself, should be protected throughout the entire world.

It is also essential to promote the development of mutual life partnership between humankind and all of nature. It could be said that the Peoples of the Earth should, in what could described as the Charter of the Rights of Mother Earth, affirm their faith in the fundamental worth of life, and therefore be determined to promote the awareness of human survival on the overall health of Mother Earth leading to better standards of life for humankind itself.

The purpose of the Charter of the Rights of Mother Earth would be to encourage governments and Peoples throughout the world to pledged to achieve, in co-operation with Mother Nature, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of the life of the planet itself.

Such a Charter would encompass the notion that people, and certainly their organisations and institutions, keeping the principles associated with the Rights of Nature and indeed of Man constantly in mind. That we and our organisations and institutions shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance among the Peoples of the Earth.

To be continued:

 

The Leadership and Learning Pathways website http://www.leadershipandlearningpathways.co.uk will be relaunched mid-September 2011

 

Natural Rights Part 2

A number of places across the world have already begun to change their laws in accordance with this new way of thinking concerning natural rights. For example, in November 2010 Pittsburgh became the first major U.S. city to recognize the legally enforceable rights of nature. Faced with dangerous gas-shale drilling, Pittsburgh’s city council unanimously passed a law that stops such drilling by elevating the rights of communities and nature above the interests of energy corporations.

Nearly two-dozen other U.S. municipalities have passed similar ordinances, finding that existing laws cannot protect their local ecosystems and, by extension, their human health, safety and welfare. Canadian communities are also wondering if legally recognizing rights for nature can stop the privatization of their public water systems and halt dangerous tar-sands drilling in the fragile Alberta region. And these bold municipalities are not alone.

In 2008, Ecuador became the first nation in the world to rewrite its constitution to include rights for nature to exist, flourish and evolve. This year, Bolivia is set to pass 11 separate laws recognizing the rights of Mother Earth.

These laws aim to stop the kind of development that negatively impacts with the existence and vitality of local ecosystems. A worldwide movement, led by indigenous peoples, has emerged to support this cultural and legal shift.

Every now and then in history, the human race takes a collective step forward in its evolution. The earth, and all its inhabitants, urgently needs this to be one of those times.

To be continued.

The Leadership and Learning Pathways website http://www.leadershipandlearningpathways.co.uk will be relaunched mid-September 2011

Natural Rights: Part 1

The President of Bolivia, Juan Evo Morales Ayma: ‘The Earth cannot be treated as simply a resource, or object. The earth also has its rights and if we do not respect the rights of its life given properties then we will be the cause of our own destruction.’

Much of modern society looks at nature as if it is simply a resource for profit and convenience and we do what we want with it and dump whatever we want. Meanwhile, we have rights for corporations, business, the market etc., that endanger the rights of nature and indeed of people. Yet governments still allow the promotion of this destruction. The question is: What will the Earth look like in the future without humankind acknowledging the rights of nature? It certainly isn’t looking too healthy at present.

Unlike humans, corporations and governments, the Earth is seen simply as a form of human property. It can’t go to court and seek damages. You cannot have human rights and values if you don’t respect the life of the Earth that in turn gives us life. For example, you cannot simply destroy natural water resources to get at the gas below, no matter how important it may be to source that gas. You must always take into account the damage you are doing to nature.

This is not about the rights of nature via the rights of humans. Nevertheless, human beings cannot have genuine rights if we have an unhealthy and dying Earth.

We need to start envisioning a future based not on exploiting nature but on recognising that nature has inherent rights. Every day we dump two million tons of toxic waste into the world’s water, the equivalent of the weight of the entire human population. And it’s all legal, because under current law, nature is nothing more that human property, like a slave. But thanks to some innovative thinking by governments, and indigenous people’s, a wiser mindset is taking hold. Indeed, the United Nations has also begun to consider the rights of nature.

This may be the first step toward the adoption of a Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth. A companion piece to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. This emerging declaration — which would be backed by enforceable laws around the world — seeks to redefine our human connections with all other life forms from one of dominance to one of harmony.

To be continued.

 

The Leadership and Learning Pathways website http://www.leadershipandlearningpathways.co.uk will be relaunched mid-September 2011

 

Deep Ecology

The Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess (1912 – 2009) in the early 1970s, after three decades teaching philosophy at the University of Oslo, devoted himself to environmental work and developed a theory that he called deep ecology.Its central tenet is the belief that all living things have their own value and therefore need protection against the destruction inflicted by thoughtless human behaviour.

The philosopher’s goal was to promote an all-embracing connection between the earth and the human species. It formed part of a broader personal philosophy that Arne Naess called ecosophy: “…a philosophy of ecological harmony or equilibrium” that human beings can comprehend by expanding their narrow concept of self to embrace the entire planetary ecosystem.”

Over his career, Mr. Naess progressed from a radical empiricism to pluralism and scepticism. In his many publications, he took on a wide variety of philosophical problems. Harold Glasser, the editor of “The Selected Works of Arne Naess” (2005), has called him “the philosophical equivalent of a hunter-gatherer.” In 1969 Mr. Naess left the university to develop his ecological ideas, which, he believed, demanded political action.

Surveying the continuing destruction of the environment, Naess was pessimistic about the 21st century but interestingly optimistic about the 23rd. By then with wisdom and understanding be believed that technology would be non-invasive and children would grow up in a natural environment. At that point, he said, “we are back in the direction of paradise.”

The Leadership and Learning Pathways website http://www.leadershipandlearningpathways.co.uk will be relaunched mid-September 2011

Power Structures and their Beneficiaries

Power Structures and their Beneficiaries

In early 2008 Robert Peston, the BBC’s business editor, wrote the book (‘Who Runs Britain? How the Super-Rich are Changing Our Lives‘) denouncing the greed and ruthlessness of those he described as turbo-capitalists. He states: “…we are more vulnerable than perhaps we have been since the 19th century to … rule by an unelected oligarchy” and “the fabric of the democratic nation-state” is threatened.

The super-rich, he points out, can threaten to take their money and their business elsewhere if they don’t like government policies, and particularly the tax rates. And they can buy political influence, an influence that may not necessarily benefit particular individuals, but certainly ensures that ministers always listen carefully to the views of what it often refered to as ”the wealth-creating community” and nearly always give them the benefit of the doubt.

For Peston, the galling thing – is that the people and organisations who got us into our present social and economic shambles don’t themselves pay the price. And yet the figures for their earnings are grotesque compared to the earnings of over 98% of the world’s population. For example: “ Hedge fund managers can earn up to £120m a year in the UK, £500m in the US. Sir Philip Green, in British private equity, paid himself (or rather his wife) a tax-free dividend of £1.2bn in 2005.”

Yet the Government at the time told people to be “intensely relaxed” about such astonishing sums. Thus, as Peston wrote: “Leaving the new super-rich prosper at our expense. Their tax breaks cost the Exchequer, at a conservative estimate, enough money to build several hundred secondary schools or hospitals. Private equity’s company takeovers load established firms with debt, creating chronic insecurity for hundreds of thousands of employees. Company pension schemes – reflecting the quaint idea that employers might have obligations to long-serving employees – are treated as intolerable liabilities.”

The question is: Was Peston simply being envious, or was he highlighting a serious imbalance in the division of wealth and power throughout most of our social and organisational worlds? Even if he were envious he was still pointing to a disturbing and unstable reality that is costing humankind in general dearly. Millions of people dying from lack of food, clean water, preventable diseases and wars each year.

Is such imbalance the natural order of things? Not according the growing anthropological evidence regarding the social nature of our ancestors, the hunter gatherer societies. Societies that survived for hundreds of thousands of years. Will the unequal structures of today’s societies ensure that our generation and its descendants will survive over the next thousand, or even hundred, years? It is seems increasing doubtful.

Does it then follow that we abandon the effort in building a sustainable future for ourselves and our children? Of course not. Nevertheless the challenges are great. The first, and major, challenge is changing much of our present and distorted picture of the world and of our place in it regarding not only our own lives but that of others, and indeed the life of the planet itself.

The Leadership and Learning Pathways website at: http://www.leadershipandlearningwebsite.co.uk will be relaunched in mid-September 2011.

The Purpose of Leadership

The exercise of leadership provides societies, organisations and their people with a sense of direction, a focus.  It permeates the entire enterprise with values, principles and integrity.

It provides the ‘why’, ‘what’ and ‘now’ of sustainable improvement.

In relation to the life of our hunter-gatherer ancestors the inherent exercise of leadership allowed them to develop the social skills of cooperation, along with the sense of the need to create common and shared values. Indeed, as communities our ancient ancestors shared the aspiration to advance the common good with cooperation been seen as more than simply individuals working together.

 It could be said that the exercise of leadership – seen as cooperation – became a set of obligations of conduct, of morals, an understanding of right and wrong enveloped within a healthy society.

Without cooperation – within groups, among groups and through the assemblage of groups – there is little doubt the much of our present technical know-how and understanding would have severely limited. It might be worth considering that another name for such cooperation is ‘leadership’, and another name for development is ‘learning’. It could be further argued that:

Without the exercise of leadership learning, and certainly shared learning, is seriously impaired.

The exercise of leadership allows people, their communities and organisations, to act early in accommodating necessary change. Nevertheless, leadership cannot be adopted into effective practice without first understanding what it means.

Most of us have the potential, if not the willingness, to exercise leadership, channelling it throughout our communities, as well as throughout all aspects and levels of social and organisational life. The exercise of leadership harnesses positive elements of human interaction, at the same time:

The essence of leadership is concerned with aligning the work of individuals with those of the overall legitimate aims of the communities and organizations to which we belong.

The exercise of leadership provides balance and equilibrium furthering the evolution of social, educational, health, organisational and environmental well-being, as we navigate the complexities of the ever-changing demands of human social order, particularly regarding early 21st. century life.

The Leadership and Learning Pathways’ website http://www.leadershipandlearningpathways.co.uk will be relaunched in mid-September 2011.

Leadership – Back to the Beginning

In general the idea of leadership is traditionally linked with the exercise and allocation of power in various forms. Nevertheless, it remains one of the least understood issues throughout the realm of scholarship. Certainly, over time our ideas about leadership, and its role regarding effective governance, has become confused, particularly in relation to various power structures.

Such confusion has led, not only to social, organisational and business failure, but also to unnecessary human suffering, and environmental degeneration. To succeed, people, and particularly those in authority, must somehow move towards a better understanding of the nature of leadership and its effectiveness in bringing about a more evenly balanced and sustainable world.

In relation to leadership and its utilization:

We need to establish an understanding of leadership itself on a secure philosophical, empirical, and common-sense foundation.

The study of leadership is a relatively recent phenomenon, nevertheless, the exercise of leadership pre-dates recorded history. For the moment let us go back to a time before it became closely associated with such terms as management, political elites, the establishment or whatever. Back to the origins of the word leadership itself.

The origin of the word leadership was associated with the word path, or way, or the course of a ship at sea, and the leader, or more correctly the elders, not so much directed as accompanied others on a journey.

Here, the exercise of leadership was very much allied with the empathy necessary when people thought themselves lost, or frightened, or when they viewed the journey too difficult, or too long, or when objectives became blurred and difficult to hold on to. At such times people listened to and encouraged each other while others, particularly the elders, inspired enthusiasm, articulated the common aims of the group, and kept the goals alive in order that those tasks that needed to be achieved in order for the group to survive were indeed accomplished.

The Leadership and Learning Pathways’ website http://www.leadershipandlearningpathways.co.uk will be relaunched in mid-September 2011.