What is pure delight in this conversation is the extent to which we are talking beyond age and labels. If, as you suggest, we can ALL remember that we have wings – what does that say for (as Suze suggested) leadership as a way of “being” vs. a skill for “doing”? Clearly that transcends age or culture or race or gender…

And what might it mean to actively and consciously be a leader inside THAT? Wow. Thank you SO much for this!
HG

Last year, I took two young women to a leadership conference in Atlanta. It was the Women’s Funding Network where we would spend three days talking about the “injustices” women continue to face and how with enough “money”, the world could change. Feeling “unsettled” (to borrow Hildy’s word) yet not having the words to express myself or worse yet, the faith that I would be heard anyway, I listened and engaged where I had the strength. The two young women however took a different route. They spoke…to anyone and everyone they could. They talked of things with wisdom I felt I was just coming into being thirty years their senior. I was moved beyond description. I began, once again, to experience hope that the world we ALL long for IS indeed not only possible, but with the qualities (if I may call them that) these young women displayed so courageously, it is eminent.

On day three of the event, a small group of us excused ourselves from the conference room and sat in the hotel lobby with new friends talking of change and how, for some reason, money did not seem to be the source of it. At the table sat, “Baby Boomers”, “Generation X” and “Generation Y”. What I remember is how “different” the BB’s behavior seemed…they were genuinely interested in “learning” from the rest of us. And naturally, we were compelled to express ourselves…genuinely. They asked questions that made the rest of us not only think, but encouraged us to find ways to put into words that which we had been longing to say. I’m a Generation X-er…my experience was surreal. I could hear beyond the BB’s fancy words and phrases which seemed to “trip up” the GenY-ers and could translate in a manner that “kept it real” for them. I felt alive! Someone asked me, “what do you see your role as”…and almost without thought I responded with “I can bring the resource and the vision together, to bridge unnecessary gaps so we can expedite the change that for now, we continue to just talk about”.

What I sense is missing is the full unbridled expression of gratitude, love and admiration for one another. I believe we, the human race, can work together effectively without having to change the way others think and behave. Can you choose to love and appreciate that which you hate?

Do my parents and those of their generation acknowledge, appreciate and honor that which “they helped to create”? Do they see me as the product of their “would haves” “should haves”?

I say to those who created a space in which I have found my wings, thank you, I love you. Now I want you to do something for me…please, remember that you too have wings…find them, spread them and let us fly together. “And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne Williamson

I long for “leadership this is inspired by the soul”.

Wow. If there is one team, not rival teams – what does that mean for leadership? Who are we leading? Towards what?

I can’t help but picture all those movies like Independence Day, where the circumstance of being invaded from outer space makes us suddenly forge bonds to protect ALL of earth, as one race, one family.

What would it make possible if leadership was about the assumption that we are all one people? Talk about taking Nancy’s great question to the next level!!!
HG

And taking it a step further, what would need to be in place in communities and organizations and interactions overall to make room for that possibility?
HG

Next generation leadership will see and understand things like the fact that the Saints’ status as (48 of many, many, many more) heroes of New Orleans, and not their status as Super Bowl champs, is of most durable value to them, their community and their organization/brand.

The story of the rebuilding of New Orleans is what I a ‘Quantum Narrative.’ It is timeless, fluid, with no beginning/middle/end (and at the same time many beginnings/middles/ends). It is non-causative. It is generative. Change is constant. There is no script, but there are rules. It is highly improvisational. There is no (or little) cost of entry. They are meant to be shared. They are, in fact, the physics and flow of the human experience.

A Super Bowl commercial, by contrast, is what I call a ‘Newtonian narrative.’ These kinds of narratives have a beginning, middle, end. They’re tightly scripted. Causative. They’re rooted in time. The cost of entry is high. Newtonian narratives often emphasize the duality (e.g. what I do not have vs. what I can buy) of experience. Newtonian Narratives are not necessarily a bad thing. Mean Joe tosses his jersey to a Kid in a stadium tunnel, and three generations of fans remember it vividly and fondly, because it participated in a quantum narrative, one you might call, ‘a hero appears to a child.’ How many of the Super Bowl commercials from Sunday will be remembered in 30 years? Like, uh, none? We love our Newtonian narratives, our movies and our books and our recipes for meat loaf, but they are not where the most potential for transformation resides.

Maybe this is just another way of thinking about zeitgeist, or Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces, or the Tao. Whatever it is, I think Quantum Narrative is a useful way of acting on what networks make possible, and how an understanding of the narrative form can bring order, focus, and opportunities for leadership, to a chaotic environment.

A leader is the the Saints player who finds a way to get 400 new homes instead of what would otherwise be 200 built in the Lower Ninth by the end of 2011. Understanding, participating in, and guiding one’s team toward participation in these quantum narratives, (and ‘charging fair rents’ on the Newtonian narratives they spin out) is, I believe, what leadership will look like in the future.

My past experience as an ED trying to bring 4 generations together in one organization, was not very successful. I expected it to be hard, given the large number of BB’s in our organization and it often was. Since studying the Pollyanna Principles, I know that experience could have been different if we hadn’t expected it to be hard, but instead looked at what shared leadership could make possible.

That is the question running through my head today as I’m rereading the comments, “What does this kind of multi-generational shared leadership makes possible in our sector?” Wow – the potential for that is mind boggling!