Leading us into the
woods

We use the word
leadership easily, as if we really knew what we are talking about. But do we?
Certainly we know what we mean by leaders in political, military and corporate
terms, the guys who get paid to make sure it all comes off as it should, But
beyond that what models of leadership do we rely on? And what new ones might we
seed, develop, and grow? 

We all went to
the same school, and we all knew who the boss (leader) was. The teacher. And we
all learned to get ahead by telling the leader what she or he wanted to hear.
Usually it involved repeating back to him or her the very words they had spoken
to us minutes before. So we learned to please, to parrot, to behave in a
certain prescribed way to make the leader, the teacher, the boss happy. And if
we become “leaders” we expected the same from our “followers.”

But today great
leaders seem scarce as hen’s teeth. Is it time to look for new definitions of
what leadership is? Where is the leadership to fit our increasingly complex times? 

We often view
leaders as the ones who ride in on a white horse to save the day, to lead us
out of the woods. What if, in the search for a truly meaningful, healthy,
regenerative world, the best leaders were the ones who led us into the
woods? 

What is
leadership in a forest? Who are the leaders and how do they lead? What is their
leadership style? How does this type of leadership emerge? 

Many of the
mental models we live in and operate from come from a “machine view” of the
world - looking at our surroundings, our world as a great machine, as a linear
system. This is our inheritance from Newton
and Descartes, the world as an immense clockwork. 

The world is
cyclical, but it shows up to us as linear. It’s as if we looked at a 3 meter
line that follows exactly the curve of the earth. The line, because the curve
happens over such a great distance and we are looking at such a short portion
of it, appears straight. But if we recognize that it is just a small part of a
circle, then we know the line is curved even though it looks straight.

So it is with
cyclical systems. We look at the world and act in it as if it were linear, like
a great machine. But of course we know that the world and all natural systems
are cyclical, round, self reinforcing. It’s just that we are looking at such a
small piece of it in our business, communities, lives.

We engage in a linear “take
make, sell,” strategy, while generating waste at every step. The line is not
infinitely straight, but ultimately round, self reinforcing. So unlike nature,
which captures and regenerates value at every stage, we act linearly and let
value bleed away, again and again. A new paradigm, a new vision and new kind of
leadership is clearly called for. Where can we turn for new models? Who can
teach us?

Machine systems
are maintained through protection and restoration. Living Systems
are sustained though protection, renewal, and regeneration. 

A new paradigm,
a new vision and new kind of leadership is clearly called for. We need new
skins for the new wine we are making. Where can we turn for new models? Who can
teach us? 

Living systems
have 3.5 billion years of beta testing behind them; they must be doing
something right. What can we learn from them about leadership? If we consider a
natural system to learn from, say a forest, what can we learn about leadership?
How does leadership show up in a wood? 

Are lichens on
a rock, leaders? Certainly they are pioneers, and lead the way for other
species to take root by breaking down the rocks they cling to and laying down
their bodies and  providing the soil for the next generation of plants. A
lichen is an example of a shared collaborative relationship, a partnership
between an algae and a fungus, one providing structure, the other, food though
photosynthesis. Other potential leaders? What about the stately pines, broad
maples, or other large trees who come to dominate the forest? They surely set
the stage for much of what happens, determining who can grow and who cannot
grow in their shade or acid soils. Are they leaders? How about the bees and
other pollinating insects, the “networkers “of the woods carrying genetic and
other information back and forth? 

Ant
colonies show remarkably coordinated behavior, despite lacking any direction
from a well-informed central controller. Each worker instead applies simple
decision rules to limited knowledge, and exchanges information with her
neighbors using rudimentary cues and signals. From this process emerge the
construction of complex nests, collective decisions among food sources, the
adaptive allocation of labor across tasks, and many other group
accomplishments.

It seems that
many carry the functions of leadership, simultaneously or sequentially, so that
leadership becomes a “shared job” distributed among many players, and residing
permanently in none.  

We might say it
is the systemic structure that is the leader, the rich interplay between soil,
air, latitude, altitude, climate, water, weather, sunlight and so forth that
determine suitable habitat.

Or perhaps it
is the interrelated processes that lead, a strong, ancient collaboration, each
building on the work of the others, sometimes in conflict, usually in harmony,
dancing between competition, (literally striving together), and
cooperation, always growing, dying, and regenerating, from generation to
generation, world without end … amen .  

There are no
easy answers, not correct ones, anyway. But perhaps these are the kinds of
questions we need to ask and the models we need to learn from to create the
leaders and leadership we most need, to enable us to grow into who we can truly
become.

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