John asked: what do you see as the relationship between Leadership and Power?
I suppose that depends on what you mean by "leadership" and "power." One of things that I have learned in Open Space is that Leadership appears at the crossroads of passion and responsibility. Or putting it another way, the leader is one who claims his passion with responsibility. By doing so, he or she opens some space for something new to appear. There is no guarantee that the new will make an appearance, or that if it does, it will be useful, but the potential is there. When the space is open and the new (plan, action, program, idea) stikes a resonant chord with those who share the passion in a responsible way -- things begin to move. Or -- we might say, power begins to flow. Power, from where I sit, is quite simply the motive force which energizes life. I guess that is a tautology, but it is as good as I can do. Point is nobody owns it, and for sure nobody can really control it. Under the best of circumstances, we can only open some space in which power may flow. We might even channel it a bit, but that is about all. A major point is that the Leader certainly doesn't own it (power). For power is always the collective juices entering an an attractive open space to get some job done, thought thought, plan made. Looking at power and leadership in the terms I have suggested makes it crystal clear that Leadership is not (nor has it ever been) position, titual, a matter of confered status. Leadership is an action which all of us can, do, and must take. So to speak of The Leadership, or The Leader as a predetermined reality is idiocy. For sure, those designated (falsely I think) as Leaders can lead, and hopefully they do. But they have no corner on the market, and waiting for them to lead (or blaming them when they don't) is a simple abdication of our right and responsibility -- to lead. Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, Maryland 20845 Phone 301-365-2093 Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of john engle Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 11:59 AM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Leadership and Power hi friends. my colleagues and i are working on our next newsletter for beyond borders, an organization i'm affiliated with. the theme is going to be Leadership and Power and i've just posted on my blog a half a dozen great quotes that my haitian colleagues put on our OS list serve in haitian creole. if you want to take a look, go to http://johnengle.blogspot.com (same as below). if you want to receive Beyond Borders' ezines, sign up on home page at: http://beyondborders.net. what do you see as the relationship between Leadership and Power? peace, john http://JohnEngle.blogspot.com - Reflections about Haiti, life, and our work. http://JohnEngle.info http://TheExperiment.info _________________________________________________________________ MSN Search, le moteur de recherche qui pense comme vous ! http://search.msn.fr/worldwide.asp * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
