Everyday Leadership

With the brilliance of a master story-teller, Drew Dudley (TEDx Toronto) shares a delightfully funny and poignant story representative of the moments in people's lives (that they perhaps don't even remember) that make profound impacts on others.

Watch it - a quick 6 minutes that will have you smile.

We have ALL played one of the roles in these "lolly-pop" moments of everyday leadership.  His argument is that;

 "... as long as we make leadership something bigger than us, as long as we keep leadership something beyond us, as long as it is about changing the world, we give ourselves the excuse not to expect it everyday from ourselves and each other.

...And yet, when we can value the impact we can have on each others lives, we can begin to re-define leadership in terms of lolly-pop moments: how many we create, how many we acknowledge, how many we pay forward, and how many of them we say thank you for."

Similarly, when we take away the glory and pedestal from "leadership" and welcome everyone to step up to the plate in their own way, the concept of shared leadership becomes concrete and attainable.  Whether actions impact the life of a child, a stranger (in his story), an organization or a whole community, the intentional valuing of everyday leadership will make it happen more.



In our book, we identify three actions that both foster shared leadership and celebrate the kind of everyday actions that stimulate profound and positive change;
1.  seeking out leadership in others
2.  balancing power
3.  learning along the way. 

Dudley touches on the biggest barriers to all three actions.  Fear.  He quotes a poem by Marianne Williamson which we have dug up for your to enjoy in full. Wow!

Our Greatest Fear —Marianne Williamson

it is our light not our darkness that most frightens us

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
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

[Often said to have been quoted in a speech by Nelson Mandela. The source is Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, Harper Collins, 1992. —Peter McLaughlin]


Village Raising Questions
What role can you play to encourage others to value everyday leadership?
How will you foster shared leadership?