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?

RTV# 49: Sketch it Out!

A Year of Raising the Village. Week # 49: Sketch it Out!

What kinds of relationships do you have? What kind do you want to have?

We recently presented at a conference in Alberta that was entitled “It Takes A Village” (see ARCQUE http://www.arcqe.ca/ ). Not only was this a chance to engage and share our village raising information it was a chance to learn from a spectacular group of community builders. We were blown clear across the beautiful Prairie landscape by their top notch welcoming conference coordination, Canadian groundbreaking Accreditation standards and their Village raising expertise.

Part of our workshop offering was to have participants create relationship maps around WHO was in their village (or network of stakeholders). We continuously delight in the creative ways people respond to this exercise and are firm believers that there is not one way to do this. The maps have varied from purely pictorial, to basic bones, to extremely intricate ones. The key thing here is that participants put the amount of detail that helps them clearly identify and map out the resources, strengths, and collective possibilities within their community.


Alberta held up the creativity bar and provided many detailed maps. In the photo above you can see one example from these bright engaged village sketchers. Here this duo decided not only to list out the many relationships, they decided to map out the range (or kinds) of relationships (before we prompted them to)!They connected partners with strong highways, bumpy roads, train tracks etc.


Feel like trying this out? Your turn! Grab a piece of blank paper and draw out your own relationship map. Using the above map as inspiration, consider relationships that are...

• over the rails or on the other side of the railroad tracks






• built with bridges (already constructed or in various stages of construction)






• direct close links






• two way streets (and those that are one way)






• more of an indirect distant connection (maybe even a bit loopy with communication pathways)






• brand new






• established, but could use some strengthening or attention

Here is another way we take people through these maps. Draw relationships you consider:

• in cooperation (working side by side but not on a common vision together)






• in coordination (maybe you work on a project or event that you co-plan)






• in collaboration ( a longer term commitment such as an early years table)

How is this helpful?
You can look at the maps, reflect, set intents and base your plans around engagement. You can open up the dialogue with others and sketch it out together. Do this as part of your evaluation and revisit your map to see how relationships change over time.

Village Raising Questions:
What kinds of relationship are on your map?
What kinds of relationship do you want? How will you build these?
Where do the other people on you map want to be in this relationship (have you asked them)?




Watch for our upcoming Action Guide series for fuller community mapping exercise (and how to build on this).

RTV #28 The trust building tango.

A year of Raising the Village - week #28: The trust building tango!

In the late 1800's the tango was the dance craze of the working class. A combination of latin, european and african influences, it is a dance that is filled with dynamic balance, turning, moving at a variety of speeds and, of course, a little romance.  The colloquialism, "it takes two to tango" is as appropriate on the dance floor as it is in community.

Village raising is a dance of action, process, balance and, like tango partners, trust. The trust between two dancers has always been intriguing. When there is an obvious level of trust between partners, a feeling of ease exudes. In our context, the work of building community partnerships and collaboration happens with that same sense of ease only when trust is present among those involved. Whether you are the one taking the "lead" or "following"  (oh my, the fun of a metaphor), there are things you can do to support the trust building process.

In the lead?

• share what you know...be transparent
• deliver on your promises 
• empower others to make decisions and represent the group
• be open and listen to everyone's opinions
• ask for feedback
• assume that others will do what they commit to doing without checking up on them 
• provide appropriate credit and recognition
• admit your own mistakes, errors in judgement and inability to meet commitments, every dancer steps on toes sometimes!

In the role of following?

• accept action items and timelines only when you know you can deliver
• be a staunch supporter of professionalism and confidentiality 
• disagreements happen, always treat other's opinions with respect
• be honest (enough said)
• don't take all the credit in a collaborative group
• lead from wherever you are (reality is that we all have leadership roles - particularly in a collaborative process!)

To build trust - you have to trust and be trusted. Take these ideas for a spin around the dance floor.  The ideas have been inspired by Glenn Parker and Robert Hoffman's book Meeting Excellence as well as tips gleaned from recent dance partners.

RTV #21: Who gets the job– the good listener, the good worker, or the good talker?

How communication and listening “hire” all three!

A Year of Raising the Village -- Week #21. Communication and Listening!

In Michael P. Nichols book, The Lost Art of Listening, he says that people are often promoted in work because they are good workers, or maybe good talkers. Listeners often don‘t make the cut, as the importance of listening can be forgotten within our team communications. He goes on to discuss the role listening can play in changing relationships; You don’t change relationships by trying to control other people’s behaviour but by changing yourself in relation to them.

Hmmm...got us thinking about how we can bring listening in to the change and growth process in relationships. If you are engaged in a relationship at work or within a community group that is leaving you feeling in conflict or down-right confused. Ask yourself these three questions.

Three Village Raising Questions

1. Examine your expectations: What do expect from the other person? How reasonable is this? How does this expectation (or can this) actually fit in with the person’s strengths and the way they communicate? What do you want and how are you used to getting this? What can you learn about your habitual ways of communicating and listening? Feel like a stretch? Want to try something new? (Go for it! Try this - Over the course of one day take note of how often you are listening and how you are listening.)
2. Ask questions that show interest...and listen to the answers: What are you curious about? What are you seeking to understand? How and when will you ask? (Action, grab a piece of paper right now and brainstorm all the questions you have for this person.)
3. Check in with yourself: When engaged in conversation, what will you do to stay in tune to whether you are reacting or waiting for your turn to reply rather than truly listening? (Hint, have a piece of paper handy and jot down a few key words so that you can clear your mind of your own “stuff” and come back to the person across from you).

We are about to launch our updated Raising the Village website – watch for the colourful new changes and services! Included on our main page will be a fun and informative Quiz - find out your Group Leadership Style. See what you gravitate towards (the vision, the heart or the action of the group). The quiz is another step towards celebrating your own leadership style (and other’s). Yet, another tool and another way to “hire” (and acknowledge) ALL types of leadership within our community conversations.